Debating and Public Speaking Season In Full Swing

Since the beginning of the year, over 100 Newington students have been competing in various Debating, Public Speaking and Mooting competitions. In light of the great number of events taking place as we transition from the Friday Evening Debating Competition to the GPS Competition, as well as reaching the final stages of many Public Speaking competitions such as the Legacy Public Speaking Awards, the Lawrence Campbell Oratory Competition, Plain Speaking, and the Rostrum Competition, I thought it might be appropriate to have an overview of the season thus far from some of our most prominent speakers.

Ms Kate Shepherd
Director of Debating 

An Overview of the Night of the FED Finals: from a Captain’s Perspective

Having been unceremoniously knocked out of the FED Semi Finals by a Knox team we had beaten in Round 2, my fellow Firsts teammates and I were forced to watch the FED Grand Finals from the sidelines. Out of the six finals held on the night, four of them were contested by Newington teams: the Year 7s, the Year 9s, the Year 10s and the successful Senior B team. Newington came away with three trophies: the Year 7s, the Year 10s and the Senior Bs. These results are a testament to Newington’s continued dominance in this prestigious competition.

After arriving at Knox in the Newington party bus, I settled in to a packed room to watch the mighty Year 7s take on Barker. The boys affirmed the topic ‘Australia places too much emphasis on sport’. The boys realised that this was undoubtedly an empirical debate and were able to point to much evidence about Australia’s obsession with sport. The debate became rather interesting however, when the Barker team misunderstood the requirements of the topic and based their entire case around the benefits of sport (the physical benefits and the “socialist” benefits). From my perspective, Newington had clearly won the debate and my feelings were confirmed when the adjudicator gave the news that the Newington Year 7 team were now FED Cup Champions.

I then had the privilege of watching my Year 12 brethren in the Senior Bs take on Trinity. Newington negated the topic ‘We should provide diplomatic immunity to dictators who voluntarily step down from power’. Coach Michael Rees was absolutely frothing before this debate as we had all prepped it many times and knew how to set up a good case for either side. Fourth speaker Zubin “Crossfit” Bilimoria (12/JN) greatly assisted Andrew “Bob” See (12/ME), Jack “Gilf” Gilfedder (12/MO) and Jonathan “Jonno” Ciofani (10/PR) to take down the Trinity team in what proved to be the highlight of the Senior Bs season so far. The boys received their trophy and prestigious FED Cup Champion Certificates to the rapturous applause of: their coaches, some other debaters from some other schools and myself.

Spyridon Augoustinos (12/FL)
Captain of Debating

Public Speaking Events

During Term 2, I had the opportunity to represent the school in a number of public speaking competitions: the Lawrence Campbell Oratory, Plain Speaking, and the Rostrum Competition. I had much success especially in the early rounds of the Rostrum Competition and came third in the overall standings. At every event, the competition was extremely tough, competing against some of the best public speakers from all around NSW.

It was a privilege to speak the Lawrence Campbell Oratory competition here at Newington. It was fantastic to speak in front of a strong Newington crowd. This year also saw the introduction of the Newington Public Speaking competition, which I’m sure, will become a regular event on the calendar. Newington has a strong history in Public Speaking, and I’m sure it can only grow.

Clyde Welsh (11/ME)

We would also like to congratulate Alex Goth (8/MA) and Saahil Parekh (9/MO) for their efforts at the Legacy Public Speaking event on Thursday 2 August. Both spoke very well to a modest crowd from the greater Sydney region at Kirrawee High School. Saahil will be moving on to the next round of the competition and we wish him all the best for his next presentation.

If you are interested in attending any Public Speaking or Debating events, please contact Ms Shepherd or Mr Del Villar. Details for the remainder of the GPS Debating rounds are available here.