A speech challenging the United Nations and another on not wrapping kids in cotton wool won a Waikato student third place in a national competition.
St Paul’s Collegiate student Josie Butcher, 16, was one of a dozen finalists in the NZ Lions Clubs Young Speechmaker Contest.
The Hamilton went through two preliminary rounds before getting to the nationals, held in Tauranga on Saturday.
First place went to Dunedin student Jacobi Kohu-Morris, 18, of Logan Park High School.
Josie’s prepared speech drew on her passion for politics and required plenty of preparation.
"Mine was about how we need to call the United Nations to action... preventing genocide," she said.
It was important to "get your facts right" before criticising the United Nations, she said.
And there was not a cue card in sight during the six-minute speech, as she'd committed the lot to memory.
Finalists also had to give a two-minute speech on a topic they were given just 60 seconds before they began.
Keeping safe was the topic and many competitors talked about topics such as rape, Butcher said.
I kind of took the angle about how we're real PC and there’s a difference between keeping your kids safe in the general scheme of things and then just wrapping them in cotton wool... We can't wrap our kids in cotton wool but you still can keep them safe."
Butcher has taken speech and drama exams and is a regular at competitions, so she had some advice for other students when speech time rolls around.
"It’s all in how you present it... It’s all about putting emphasis and the biggest thing is being passionate about what you're speaking about. If you believe what you're saying then it’s going to seem way more genuine to the audience and they're going to listen to you."
Butcher’s third placing won her a spot on a 10-day international youth camp at Lake Okataina near Rotorua, which will happen in January.
