West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Lions Club have run their prestigious youth project in the Hills, the National annual LIONS YOUTH OF THE YEAR. Six students participated in an outstanding skills development event that was held over two days in two phases.
The first phase involved an extensive interview by a panel of five local community identities who explored each student’s academic progress, special attainments, school and community service, general knowledge as well as their career expectations and future goals.
A dinner phase involved refining communication skills by delivering immediate response to two impromptu questions taken from current affairs, local, state, national or youth issues.
The fifty strong audience of parents, family, teachers, friends and Lions were entertained by six superbly prepared and presented dissertation on a diverse range of topics covering Music and Disadvantage, Courage To Be Uncomfortable, Fading Teenage Dreams, Stranger Than Strange, Why Humans Like Stories and Hedonism.
The high standard throughout the whole project posed great problems for the judging panel. All six local contestants, three from Pennant Hills High, two from Normanhurst Boys and one from William Clarke, exhibited excellence in every aspect.
Local lass Charlotte Wiggins of Galston tipped the scales in being the Public Speaking awardee and that was enough for her to be deemed the outright overall winner for 2025. She will represent West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Lions in the Lions International YOTY Area D final.
All were brilliant ambassadors for their family and school and really anyone of the six could have fitted the objective of the project: To identify the best candidate to represent the youth of Australia at an International Youth Convention in New Zealand.
Yash Ghule, Hayden Mercier, Cash Daly, Abigail Chapman, Hayley Marriott and Charlotte Wiggins should be so proud of their efforts and will make exceptional community leaders in the future. We thank Savio Pereira and the Galston Community Branch of the Bendigo Bank for their continued support of youth development in this project and with our Lions Junior Public Speaking activities.
