Marnie Brosnahan, Yr 12 was second in the Dunedin Area Finals in April.

After winning the first round she then competed against all the other winners of Dunedin heats. Marnie spoke powerfully about some of the societal expectations and pressures on women and girls. 

Below:  Excerpt from earlier Rotary news bulletin. 

Our guest speaker, 3rd March was Marnie Brosnahan. Marnie is a multi-talented Year 12 student at Logan Park High School where she enjoys music, art, football, movies, murder mysteries and outdoor activities. Marnie has written and carefully edited her Rotary 4 Way Test speech for the District 9980 area speech competition. Marnie will be finalist in the competition on 12th April to be held at the Dunedin Club and via Zoom (contact Lynne Guy if you are interested in attending this event).

Marnie’s speech was a compelling and heart felt delivery addressing women’s affairs, particularly in regard to ageism and fertility related matters. Marnie quickly engaged the audience with an assertion that we are ‘past our shelf life’! She then coherently weaved together carefully researched facts and illustrative quotes in a way that challenged our assumptions and strengthened our empathy towards others. The Rotary 4 Way Test once again shows itself to be a powerful tool to use as lens from which to view the world. Marnie skilfully put it to use and she received positive feedback from our audience and ‘judging panel’ comprising Anna Thomas, Bruce Cowan, Paul Spain and Susan Schweigman.

We wish Marnie well for the competition as she is a great contender and hopefully may win one of the Rogers Wilkinson sponsored prizes of $1000, $500, $300 and $200! Thanks too to our awesome club member, Lynne Guy who organises the 4 Way Speech competition event.