Effective Speaking Program
Effective Speaking Committee Chair, Lion Nancy Woodley -> mailto:effspeak.obfuscated.a15lions@org, Belwood Lions Club
September 2025
To: All clubs within District A-15
Re: Support of Effective Speaking
Dear Lions,
My name is Lion Nancy Woodley, and I am the newly appointed District Chair for Effective Speaking. I am very passionate about education and the promotion of communication skills among our youth. I have co-chaired or chaired the Belwood Lions Effective Speaking Competition for the last three years. During that time, we have not had a District Effective Speaking Competition and our new District Governor Linda Vinette, and I would like to remedy that situation. To that end, I am petitioning your help! Please consider hosting your own local competition and contributing financially to support the ability of winning competitors to compete both at the District Competition, and potentially the Multi-District Competition.
The Effective Speaking Competition is open to students from schools within your club's area. The schools would hopefully have public speaking as part of the curriculum, and the teachers could help students with their speech preparations. Then each school would provide the names and information for two students, and one alternate for each of the following categories:
- Junior English – grades 4-6: 3-5 minute English speech
- Junior French – grades 4-6: 3-5 minute French speech
- Intermediate English – grades 7-9: 5-7 minute English speech
- Intermediate French – grades 7-9: 5-7 minute French speech
- Senior English – grades 10-12: 5-7 minute English speech
- Senior French – grades 10-12: 5-7 minute French speech
I am including some attachments that provide you with further information.
- The Multi-District Association Effective Speaking manual with the rules and regulations for the Multiple District's Competition. This booklet provides you with a comprehensive guideline to apply for, host, and run one of these competitions.
- Abbreviated notes for required personnel and their roles. Since the MDA booklet can be a little daunting, I created a shortened outline for the personnel and the roles needed to run a local competition.
- Budget - items that we included in our budget that you may want to consider for your club. Last year we hosted twenty-two students from 8 different schools. Note: we did not have any participation from high school students.
- Solicitation letters for schools and parents. I try to send these letters out by the end of September to give the schools plenty of time to recruit students and help them prepare. I then follow-up with the schools (email, telephone) to determine whether they plan to attend.
Our club (Belwood) has hosted our local competition from the end of February up to and including the last week in March. Since we hope to set the District Competition near the end of March (permit pending: Saturday, March 28, 2026 Centre Wellington District High School, registration starting at 8:00 AM). I encourage you to have your club competitions somewhere in the timeframe between mid-February to mid-March (prior to March break, March 16 - March 20).
Finally, we ask that each club contribute $150 to be sent to the treasurer for District A-15 that will help fund students at the District and Multiple District Competitions.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, or concerns.
Sincerely,
Lion Nancy
Effective Speaking Manual(PDF) | Role Description Template(DOCX) | Budget Template(DOCX) | Initial Letter to the School(DOCX) | Initial Letter to Parents(DOCX)