Back to the roots...
This year we would like to make an extra effort to grow the speech arts portion of our festival. In past years, competitions have lasted over multiple days featuring young performers from many schools and all age categories. In 2024 we had a total of 3 competitors from our schools.
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The first action we have taken is to make the local school divisions and 4H clubs aware of the competition, and to ask for information to be included in the monthly school newsletters. We will also have posters for display in the schools.
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Secondly, we are looking for specific sponsors for speech arts entrants. This means that there would be funds available to pay for the entry fees for a number of students, which might be a limiting factor for some families.Until we have an exact number of sponsored entries, please reach out to us if you would like to take advantage of this.
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We also offer mentoring services to students and teachers - our Vice President is available to give advice on selection of pieces, ideas on interpretation, or just a person to practice with. We are also ready to assist with registration on the Music Festival Suite system. Just email us for help.
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Lastly, in order to make things as simple as possible for teachers and students alike, we have gathered selections of age-appropriate poetry. Below are buttons to download the packages, sorted by grade level, and each poem also names the relevant music festival class group that it should be entered into. There is no rule about using a different grade level for a student than the one they are in, these are simply suggestions to help with the selection process. There are also categories for speeches, excerpts from plays, and other types of performances that can be chosen. There is also a link to the AMFA website where there are a listing of suggestions per poetry type and age.