Wed like to extend a massive thank you to our 2015 Socials Officer, Rhys Kasper, for organising what ended up being an awesome night that Im sure those of us sober enough to remember all the details will never forget! That being said, there were several announcements made last night that needed to be repeated so that several people had the recognition they deserved. And yes, this will probably be a very long post. At the beginning of this year, we introduced a new award to the society - the Joshua Taylor Award for Most Outstanding Novice, in honour of someone who had put his heart and soul into the society. The Award had two main criteria - talent and dedication. We didnt think that choosing the novice who received that award, however, would be as difficult as it was. This year, we had an influx of talented and dedicated individuals who made this year absolutely fantastic for everyone involved - it goes without saying that we hope to see everyone back in 2015. There were, however, several novices who stood out enough that we felt they should be mentioned. The first of those novices was Rhys Kasper, who was there every week, constantly taking notes during training, jumping in whenever Worlds Practices needed an extra person, and went out of his way to ensure everyone had a good time. When we had too many novices to pair everyone up with pros, Rhys was the first to put his hand up to work with novices, and even if they only spoke for thirty seconds, he made sure that they knew theyd done well. That sort of dedication to the society is something that deserves all the praise in the world. The next novice who stood out was an individual who could barely speak for a minute at the beginning of the year, but is now one of the strongest speakers in the society. Cori Fitzpatrick is another novice who attended almost every week, jumped into Worlds Practices, but above all else, improved more than any other novice this year due to her own dedication. Its easy sometimes to forget the work it takes to improve at debating, but to have adjudicators at tournaments approaching members of the society to praise Cori after theyd seen her speak really demonstrated that shed improved not only to a decent level, but far above that. Thats the sort of improvement that deserves recognition. Unfortunately, the Joshua Taylor Award can only go to one person, and this year, that novice was Patrick Cook. Not only did Patrick begin the year with impressive scores at Easters, where he sacrificed his weekends to do extra practices and matter prep sessions prior, but he also represented Griffith at Australs as one of our adjudicators, where he received excellent feedback. Patrick began this year as a good debater, and throughout the semesters, had evolved into an excellent one. After winning the Internals Final in Semester 1 and receiving Best Speaker, Patrick also deserves recognition for helping out at Market Day Stalls, debating on behalf of GODS at the demonstration debate against the Flying Club (where he literally jumped in to help not even five minutes before the debate began), and debating against academics at a Griffith demonstration debate in the lead up to the Student Leadership Conference. We have no doubt well see a lot from him next year. Thank you to everyone for an amazing year, and we hope to see everyone back in Semester 1, 2015!
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 06:05:01 +0000
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