President Elect Malcolm Pascoe with winner Stella Donaldson holding the Brian Hanlon Memorial trophy along with Michele Innes, Brian's daughter who presented the awards.
Howick Rotary held its annual Brian Hanlon Howick College 4 – Way Test Speech Contest for Howick College year 9 and 10 students last Tuesday evening. This followed on from the previous judging at the College to select the finalists. The winner of the Brian Hanlon Speech Contest Award for this year was Stella Donaldson who spoke on the subject of “the problems and acceptance of people with disabilities”.
Stella and fellow year 10 finalists Ella Worthington, Nathan Cox and Caleb Carr presented some thought-provoking speeches to an audience of their families, College staff and Rotary club guests and members. Among the club’s guests were Michelle and Robbie Inness, Brian and Hazel Halon’s daughter and son in law with Michelle assisting in the awarding of the prizes and the presentation of her late father’s Memorial Trophy. Rotarians Barry Nicholls, Malcolm Pascoe and David Owen completed the judging with Colin Monk acting as timekeeper.
The speeches were judged on the basis of points awarded for Content, Organization and Delivery with the overall winner being the person with the best cumulative ranking. Stella’s winning presentation was followed by Ella as runner up with Nathan and Caleb coming equal third.
The Contest is held annually and this year was organized by college teachers Craig Jack and Ann Botha in conjunction with Rotary’s Youth Committee member Barry Nicholls. It commemorates former long serving Rotarian and past President Brian Hanlon’s contribution to the Community and to Education.
Rotary President Elect Malcolm Pascoe said that “the Contest is one of the highlights of the Rotary year particularly in relation to the many Youth support projects that the club undertakes and it is really pleasing to see the confidence that these young people demonstrated in presenting their speeches”.
The awards for the night included gift vouchers from Paper Plus in Howick with the winner also receiving the Brian Hanlon Trophy. Katie Treneman owner of Paper Plus said “she was really happy to support Rotary in their efforts to encourage the development of young people in the community”.