Your gift of the gab could WIN you $1,000
To see photos of the event click here!
Think you’ve got the public speaking skills worth of Justice Michael Kirby? Well, you need to enter the Justice Michael Kirby Plain Speaking Competition.
Now in its fifth year, this competition offers students of all experience levels a chance to test and practice their public speaking skills in an environment that is both constructive and competitive.
If that’s not enough of a reason to compete, here’s another sweetener: big prizes for the winner and finalists. In 2011 the USU will again be holding a separate International Students’ Division. It’s open only and caters specially to international students from non-English speaking countries. Such students may enter either division of competition, but not both.
Registrations open 1 March and close 8 April. Heats will be held during April and may, with the Grand Final scheduled for Thursday 12 May.
At each round, students will be judged on your delivery of two speeches: a prepared speech and an impromptu speech. Prepared speeches will be 4 – 5 minutes and are chosen by you from one of four topics:
1. Look before you leap
2. Fortune is blind, but not invisible
3. Every cloud has a silver lining
4. To define is to limit
For the impromptu speeches, students will be given 5 minutes preparation time to deliver a 3 minute speech. Each heat has a different impromptu topic which will be announced on the day. International Students will only be asked to perform a Prepared Speech.
To register download the Registration Form and email it to 
or return it to the ACCESS Desk.
Download:
- Registration Form
- Judging Criteria
- English as a Second Language Information
Forms are also available from the ACCESS Desk (Level 1, Manning).
Judging criteria will also be available both online and at the ACCESS Desk.
Registrations close Friday 08 April.
"The Secret River by Kate Grenville-
The Secret River is part of a trilogy about early Australia (along with The Lieutenant, published in 2008, and a third novel in progress).
It's set in the early nineteenth century, on what was then the frontier: the Hawkesbury River, fifty miles beyond Sydney. William Thornhill, an illiterate Thames bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep feelings, steals a load of timber and is transported to New South Wales in 1806. Like many of the convicts, he's pardoned within a few years and settles on the banks of the Hawkesbury River. Perhaps the Governor grants him the land or perhaps he just takes it - the Hawkesbury is at the extreme edge of settlement at that time and normal rules don't apply."