London ESU competition - May 2007
By Heidi Aho - Public Speaking Award runner-up and audience prize winner 2007
If I were to fathom up a recipe for 5 days of eye-opening fun (which were more educational than any average school week) it would look something like this: 60 young people from all corners of the world (including exotic herbs from Madagascar and the Philippines), and a highly packed agenda in a city stewing with culture. Unsurprisingly, this recipe looks a lot like the experience I had at the ESU public speaking awards in London this May. For during an ordinary school week when my friends were learning maths, I discovered how to survive in a "hot air balloon debate", found out that politicians can make jokes in the House of Commons, and realised the truth behind the age-old cliché: it's not about winning.
On the 14th of May the Dutch delegation flew to London, and we immediately started to explore the city by going to the British Museum, only a short walk away from the hotel. The next day I found myself in the air again, albeit only metaphorically, since I found myself participating in a "hot air balloon" debate. Ten people were chosen to represent famous people, and the point of the game was to speak for your life, since the hot air balloon was slowly sinking towards the ocean and only one person could survive and make it to the shore. Some memorable arguments came from Jerry the cartoon mouse ("Come on guys, I weigh almost nothing!") and Shakespeare ("I can make this hot air balloon episode into more than a debate; I'll make it into tragedy!"). This started off the bonding experience between the contestants that continued all week, and we're still in contact with each other even after exams and summer holidays have tried to dim our memory of the competition.
The competition itself was on Thursday, and it was strange to see the friends with whom you'd debated, and gone to the theatre and the HSBC headquarters with, suddenly transformed into highly professional public speakers. I should say the highlight of the day was the heart-rending speech by the delegate of Mongolia about the victims of globalisation in her country, or how the Australian runner-up of the competition succeeded in making the audience laugh hysterically and feel guilty about their treatment of the environment in a short 5 minutes, but really the moment that stands out in my memory is finding out that the amiable woman I talked to during the coffee break was actually Michael Jordan's mother.
I'm no Jamie Oliver, but I have a hunch that substituting one
ingredient in the recipe (namely the "2007" with a "2008")
won't make much of a difference to the end result: a fabulous experience
that helped to redefine my definition of "unforgettable".
