SpeakEasy returned to the Girls’ School this year with a full house and a clear brief: Share something meaningful to you. Finalists from the Girls’ School, Boys’ School and the College took the stage in the Middle and Senior sections, positing arguments on history, identity, technology and ethics. The atmosphere felt less like a competition, and closer to a Civics class come to life with students weighing evidence, drawing on lived experience and inviting the audience to travel with them to an alternate perspective.
The Senior School winner was Year 12 Lincoln Jones with The Lost Art of Being Present, a talk that landed with quiet force. “I chose to speak about the Lost Art of Being Present because I’ve realised how easy it is to move through life without actually living it, especially in school where everything feels like a countdown. I wanted to remind myself as well as everyone listening that the moments we rush through are the ones we’ll miss the most,” he said. Lincoln’s pacing and restraint intensified his offering, with intentional spacing between ideas that made listeners lean in.
In the Middle School, the College’s Coco Veber-Nichols (Year 9) won with Don’t Lose the News. Rather than media literacy alone, she argued that newsrooms are being unjustly vilified while funding is shrinking at the very moment we most need a robust fourth estate to keep the public sector accountable. A recent graduate of the Girls’ School, she looked utterly at home on the stage her former school hosted.
Among the youngest finalists, Year 7 Girls’ School student Irene Wendt-Latu’s Two Lands, One Me stood out. She described the distinctions she feels between Manurewa and the Shore Road campus, and how pride and gratitude for both can coexist rather than wrestle in the construction of her identity. It was generous, specific and, in the best tradition of SpeakEasy, honest enough to ring true beyond one person’s story.
Across the evening the range was wide: outer space and soil science, conscience and culture, but the craft was consistent. Students built clear structures, signposted turns, and kept a tight line to audience engagement. Some used humour to open the door, others a well-placed pause; either way, the speeches respected attention as something to be earned, not presumed.
Adjudication came from alumna Emily Young (2016), who completed a Bachelor of Music in Classical Performance (Voice) alongside Italian, and now splits her professional life between the fashion industry and the stage as a vocal coach, musical director and community theatre performer.
By evening’s end, one understanding was clear to all - this is a community that values young voices. Presence, public accountability and belonging emerged as universal themes expressed personally, leaving the audience with something to ponder.
