Dubbo youths shared poetry, speeches and monologues at the weekend for the inaugural SPEAK UP.
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The speech and drama competition brought young people together to share their public speaking skills via online platform Zoom.
There were categories for nine to 19-year-olds, ranging from humorous monologues to original speeches.
Organiser Lucy Kirk said the event, which ran across Saturday and Sunday, went very well.
There were about 25 entries from across NSW. The most popular category was the nine to 12 years poetry which had 13 entries.
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While the younger age groups had a strong number of entries, Ms Kirk said it was disappointing to see only a couple of participants in the 13 to 15 years' categories and no one in the older age group.
But overall, she said she was happy with how SPEAK UP was received.
"It went better than I expected to be honest," Ms Kirk said.
"I thought we'd have a bit of trouble with people turning up and not being able to work Zoom but it went so well. We logged onto one Zoom meeting and once that was over we logged out and went on to the next one. Everyone seemed to know how to work it."
Ms Kirk said she decided to hold the event after local eisteddfods and the Country Women's Association's speaking competition were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a public speaker herself, Ms Kirk said she knew she would have been disappointed if she was still in school, so she decided to look at an online version of the competitions to ensure the young public speakers didn't miss out.
"I enjoyed that the kids could get real feedback from a real adjudicator without having to go outside their own home. You didn't have to out on a whole event for it, you could just log on and do it to the computer. I think the kids really benefited from the feedback," the event organiser said.
"And also they were less nervous being able to do it from home to the computer. Their performances were a really good standard, actually, which was really good to see."
Even though the speaking event has only just finished, Ms Kirk is already looking to next year.
"I wasn't sure if I was going to hold it again because I wasn't sure how it was going to go but it was so effective. I'll definitely hold it again next year and it would be great to see some more entries," she said.
Ms Kirk said she would like to sincerely thank the Rotary Club of West Dubbo and Dubbo Regional Council for their great support of SPEAK UP.