67th Annual Plunket Medal Oratory Contest — University Memorial Theatre at 8pm next Friday evening, July 6.

What is Oratory?

Oratory can be defined as a high form of public speaking. Public speaking (e.g. university lecturing) tends to be coldly intellectual, sometimes informative but most often boring. Oratory seeks a wider response through appealing not only to the reason but stirring the emotions.

Success in persuading and moving people is the test of whether a speech is an oration. Style is unimportant, effect is the crucial factor. Pomposity and elocution are sometimes associated with oratory. In fact they fail abysmally in oratory because they neither reach nor move anybody.

Few of the great orations of history have been made at oratory contests. Most have been made in response to real life situations. Although oratory contests are somewhat artificial, Plunket Medal frequently produces results that can properly be termed oratory.

Plunket Medal was established by the Debating Society in 1905 at the instigation of the Governor, Lord Plunket. Despite, or maybe because of, the incessant criticism it has attracted, Plunket Medal has become known as the top contest of its kind in New Zealand. It has attracted such diverse contestants as Guy Powles, Roy Jack, Conrad Bollinger, Owen Gager, John Wareham and David Shand.

Speakers will be John Laurenson: "The Late Great Human Race"; Veronica Mooney: "British Justice for the Irish"; Greg Everingham: "John F. Kennedy"; Phillip Green "A Product of Hate"; Tom Manning: "Commemorating"; Jeannie Scott: "Hemi"; Peter Coles: "But Absolutely the Last..."