LIME’s GM disappointed Public Speaking Competition scrapped

With the 2013 edition of the National Secondary Schools Public Speaking Competition scrapped, general manager of LIME Leslie Jack says his company would like to be on board with the event when it returns.{{more}}

Jack expressed his “total disappointment” that the event, which has long become a staple of the national independence celebrations, was not able to take place this year, and indicated that LIME was not involved in the conversation prior to its cancellation.

“I am really, really disappointed about it and I think that the students were robbed of an opportunity to display their talent, and they were robbed of a learning opportunity, and the schools themselves would have benefitted a whole lot from the general value of sponsorship that we were offering to the schools.

“We were excited about sponsoring a school for an entire year; it’s the first time we would have been doing it and… I think the school would have been able to take advantage of the opportunity. I am quite sure many schools have projects that they would like some level of sponsorship on.

“I guess one of my personal disappointments is the fact that when the decision was made, there wasn’t a direct discussion with us to ask ‘what is your opinion with the fact that we’re cancelling it all together….’

The decision not to hold the competition was reached when organizers of the event, the Lions Club South failed to come to an agreement with the Ministry of Education on the topics to be discussed by the students.

Meetings between the two entities failed to produce a compromise, and the event was cancelled.

Jack opined that the two parties should have had talks long before the competition was scheduled to commence, and though there may have been some disagreements, there would have been a greater chance that the matter would have been resolved and appeared seamless to the general public.

“My advice, although they didn’t ask for it, would have been to Lions in particular: the expertise lies within the Ministry of Education as far as topics are concerned. Perhaps it would be ideal to get them (the ministry) involved much earlier in the game, and get their buy in on the topics before they were even published. I think that is fairly simple and easy to do.

“I think that the Ministry of Education, being responsible for the curriculum and the development of the students, should have a better idea than us in terms of how they think that the analytical minds should be brought out through these topics, to help the students develop more personally and otherwise.”

The manager said that he thinks some momentum has been lost, because of the cancellation, but based on the positive feedback from last year’s event, the event can return to an even better quality if all obstacles are cleared.(JJ)