THE voices of young people have been heard.

The first round of the annual Rotary Youth Speaks competition took place last week at Burton Bradstock's village hall.

Six teams of three from Beaminster School and the Sir John Colfox Academy participated. Competitors were aged between 11 and 13 for the intermediate competition and 14 and 17 for the senior competition. The adjudicators were Susan Moores, Keith Brown and David Powell who are all well-known locally and qualified to discern the elements required for this type of challenge. Topics included Equality in the Workplace, The Ordinary Hero, Great Expectations, The Power of Procrastination and How do You Take Your Tea.

Youth Speaks aims to give young people experience in speaking on a public platform as a member of a team and offer an incentive to formulate ideas on topical subjects. It teaches discipline in dealing with a topic in a limited time and offers the opportunity of learning and practising high standards of expression, presentation and appearance.

Those who take part are given impartial feedback and their performances are assessed by experienced adjudicators.

The winners of the intermediate competition were the Colfox team; Eddie Rose, Alfred Ross, and Lily Rayner spoke on The Ordinary Hero.

The Beaminster team won the senior class; Amy Satur, Alfie Webb and Ellen Ashley chose Great Expectations, which covered what they felt society expects of young people. Their speaker, Alfie Webb, was chosen as the best speaker of the evening.

The judges commented that this year's performances were the 'best ever' for both classes in the long history of the event. Scoring was too close to call, and so judges recommended that all three teams in the senior group should go forward to the second round. A spokesman for the Rotary said: "All the teams were well prepared and gave very polished and professional speeches."

Certificates and prizes were awarded by Hillary Cunningham, of Bridport Rotary Club, who organised the event.

The next round will take place at Beaminster School on Wednesday, January 31 at 6pm.