Speech Writing & Delivery
Our chair, Charlotte, ran a workshop lasting roughly half of the meeting. She talked about:
- Expectations for Youth Councillors – especially those in leadership roles, including being more active
- What to include in a speech for Youth Council, for example for leadership and representative roles. She says that an ideal speech should include the four components (in order):
- Why are you good for the role?
- How do your skills / qualities apply to this role? Relevant examples?
- Why you, and what sets you apart from other candidates?
- End with a bang, e.g. call to action or a strong statement
- Speech writing methods, including:
- Bullet points (summarise points in a few words)
- Point / sentence summary (bullet points but in depth)
- Full script and learn
- Or even a mixture of them
- Questions
- They are not set questions, so no need to prepare intensively
- The aim is to reinforce what you have said in your speech.
- Include skills and qualities, to enforce the idea!
Charlotte made Youth Councillors do the speech writing with a random topic she picked, in order to help develop Youth Councillor’s skills. Youth councillors had the option to present their speech, with Charlotte (Chair), Isaac (Vice Chair) and Chris giving feedback.
Later, Charlotte asked us questions and tried to see if we could reinforce our skills and qualities, and giving feedback on what we could do better.
THE BIG MYP DEBATE
Chris discussed, following on from a previous debate regarding the constitution change, whether we should stick to one year terms for MYPs and having DMYPs moving up, or two year terms for MYPs. This is because British Youth Council and Impact Youth, two organisations doing the MYP program, are likely to get less funding, leading to the UK Youth Parliament wanting MYPs to have two year terms, where there is only one House of Commons debate, one annual conference and one Make Your Mark will happen over the two years, instead of it happening every year.
Chris discussed that we could either:
- Elect 2 DMYPs, with DMYPs going onto MYP each year, like usual – issue may be that someone may not get as much opportunity.
- Having 2 MYPs and 2 DMYPs, with 2 year terms of office, elected alongside each other, with DMYPs not becoming MYPs.
- Having a 4 year term, where 2 DMYPs are elected and move up to 2 MYPs, however the issue with that is it is a long commitment, and people under the age of 15 can be elected without being taken out as MYP (as MYPs can not be 19 or over).
- Electing one DMYP / MYP who each have a 2 year term of office, making a stagger.
Youth councillors in the meeting decided that we should have 2 year terms from 1 year terms, due to the issues a 1 year term poses.
Youth councillors then decided that DMYPs should be in a shadow role, so DMYPs do not move up to MYPs, and they are elected separately.
Youth councillors then decided that only 1 MYP and 1 DMYP election will happen every year, meaning that it is staggered, meaning that there is an easier opportunity for people to become MYP / DMYP. These MYPs have a 2 year term.
This is however dependent on what BYC says and permits, which the staggering may be an issue.
EVENTS & TRIPS
- GMYCA, Thursday 12th January Night, one replacement required due to one GMYCA representative not being able to make it.
- Tue 17 & Thu 19 January (evening), to be part of an interview panel for casual youthwork posts – only one person required per panel.
- Other Youth Work panels – dates unknown, youth councillors to check emails if they are interested.
- YouthForia Residential, in the Lake District, 6 places available for Youth Councillors – end of April 2023.
AOB
Isaac: requesting people to stop using their phone in the meetings. If anyone needs to send something urgent, they are requested to step out.
Chris: A decision was made in the priorities meeting (04/01/2023). The vice chair elections will be on Wednesday the 25th of February, with the MYP/GMYCA representative being the next meeting and officer roles being in the same meeting or the meeting following that.
