The Lion’s Club is offering spots in a new statewide competition in the upcoming months. The competition, hosted and sponsored by the Lion’s Clubs of California, is set to take place on February 23 and consists of creating a speech and delivering it to a panel of 2-3 judges.
The topic of the speech will be “Community Service: What Does It Mean and Why Does It Matter?” The maximum time limit of the speech is 10 minutes and the minimum is 5 minutes. No students are limited from making a speech and presenting it in the competition.
Fred George, the Lion’s Club Student Speakers’ Contest Chairman, encourages students to participate in the contest. “It teaches you to get in front of a large number of people and give a talk. It can give you confidence to speak in front of an audience and it is a very healthy activity to increase public speaking skills,” he said.
Vice Principal Sharon Bartlett is eager to work with and coach students who want to participate in the competition. “We have a lot of students who are great public speakers and are involved in community service. I can work with them and help them figure out what to do,” said Bartlett.
The competition will take place across California and Nevada. There are six rounds of the competition, with eliminations each round. The levels are the Club Level on February 23rd, the Zone Level on March 16th, the Region Level on April 6th, the District Level on May 4th, the Area Level on June 1st, and the Finals on June 7th.
Cash rewards will be given to the champions of the first three rounds. The Club winner will receive $75, $100 will be given to the Zone champion, and the winner of the Region Level will receive $150. Additional prizes will be given to the participants of each round. Over $103,500 will be distributed through scholarships to the winners of the contest. A $4,500 scholarship will be rewarded to each of the 15 District winners and 4 Area winners will be given a scholarship of $11,000 each. A scholarship of $21,000 will be rewarded to 1 Final winner.
According to Bartlett, it is a productive and unique way for students to express their public speaking talents. “We want to give the opportunity for students to participate because we have wonderful speakers, and they should have the opportunity to speak even if they don’t take a speech class in school,” said Bartlett.
