Jess and Anna represented the club in contests held at the Area Conference in Carlisle on Sunday 29th January; Jess competed in the speech contest and spoke on ‘A Day in The Life of an Ostrich’ which dealt with the way we treat ourselves and how we relate to animals; Anna entered both Evaluation and Topics contests, she had to evaluate a speech and then, at the lectern, was given the topic ‘fairtrade’ to speak on for three minutes. They were competing against speakers from Annan, Stranraer Carlisle and Cockermouth and were placed second by the judges. This was some achievement, they are the club’s youngest members and were competing against older and more experienced speakers. What was even more remarkable was that Jess, at 16 years of age, is the youngest person to appear in this competition.

The winners and runners up go forward to the next round at the District Conference in Motherwell on 4th March which means that Jess and Anna can progress further; the winners at Motherwell compete in the National Finals in Cardiff on 27/29th April.The success of our two youngest members is very encouraging for us; their success is further evidence that although we are a small club, we are big on quality. Frank Grace