Overall, the Bishop Lyons Shield Competition is a fantastic event that we encourage all students to get involved in.

Bishop Lyons’ Shield

Every year the students of Catholic secondary schools in the Canterbury Diocese compete in the Bishop Lyons Shield Competition. Established by Bishop Lyons in 1945, the Bishop of Christchurch at the time, the seven schools that participate often get quite competitive. The event involves Impromptu Speech, Debating, Junior Prepared Speech, Senior Prepared Speech, Scripture Reading and Religious Questions (and Non Competitive Drama). Overall, the three-day event is a fantastic display of public speaking as well as an opportunity for the seven schools to socialise.

We arrived in Timaru, after a two-hour van ride, eager to compete. After bouncing around on the Top Ten Holiday Park’s floating pillow, taking our picture in the penguin mural, (and pushing Paddy over a railing), we anticipated the afternoon’s events. After a warm welcome by this year’s hosts, Roncalli College, in the form of a powhiri, haka and enormous amounts of food, the competition officially began.

The first events were the Impromptu Speech and the Junior Prepared. Daniel Fogarty placed third after giving a rousing speech under the theme, ‘Sport is for losers’, with only a few moments before the speech to prepare. The impromptu round is a truly difficult task that Daniel made look very easy. From there, the witty Cormac Gallagher came fourth in the Junior Prepared Speech about the old and new, displaying his public speaking prowess, at which point it became clear that St Bedes was everyone’s toughest competition.

The next event was the Senior Prepared Speech. Patrick Hansen, having given his speech reflecting on the lives of some of his historical idols, was nervous to discover how he placed. In the end, he was awarded first place in the round, beating out six other excellent senior speakers. That night, an amazing dinner and hilarious theatre sports friendly was held, for which a dedicated George Gibbs came down, [alongside our Jesus for the evening].

The Scripture Reading was the first event of the last day and Pawel Gall was placed fourth. It was intense – as the event was held in the chapel there was no applause, and for the most part the room was eerily silent. Following this, the Religious Questions team, consisting of Jacob Chapman, Nuku Tau, and Victor Mthamo, participated in their event. Despite their amazing performance, the team did not place.

The Debating, which ran throughout the event, concluded with the team of Tim Marshall, Hamish Simpson, and myself finishing in third place. After beating Roncalli 2 in the first round, the team had a narrow defeat against St Bedes. If only you had listened. After his brilliant performance throughout the debates, Hamish Simpson was awarded the Overall Best Speaker Award. Now, in the words of Hamish, “Roses are red, violets are blue; I love Harambe, and so do you.”

Roncalli College were inviting and friendly hosts, who were as kind as they were hospitable. Alongside them worked countless dedicated staff and volunteers from the other six schools, which made the event run like clockwork. I would like to take opportunity to thank our coaches, Mrs Shields, Ms Guerin, Mrs and Mr Gaffaney, Mr Kennedy, and Mr Newton. The time and effort they selflessly put in is definitely not overlooked – simply seeing a familiar face at times was all we needed! Overall, the Bishop Lyons Shield Competition is a fantastic event that we encourage all students to get involved in.