The Alpine School and Saint Patrick's School debating teams have enjoyed success in the Rotary Club of Cooma's debating competition for 2025.

The grand final was held on Wednesday evening at the Snowy Mountains Christian School, with both debates being adjudicated by Han Worsley, Imogen McGrath, Cooma Rotary Club president, Joelle Azzopardi, with committee member, Bryan Bartlett, keeping time.

Debating teams were competing for the Margaret Hassall Memorial (Years 7 and 8) and John Clarke Memorial (Years 9 and 10) trophies.

The Years 7 and 8 team of Akyra, Ash, Max and Adele from The Alpine School and Senuki Wanshanatha, Isabella Irvine, Lila Cahill and Lachlyn Robinson from Saint Patrick's School debated on the topic 'all students should learn self defence at school'.

The affirmative team from The Alpine School were the winners of this debate.

In the senior debate Saint Patrick's School team of Pahanma Perea, Natalia Zieja and Stephanie Warner were victorious arguing in the affirmative for "We should stop selling bottled water" against The Alpine School team consisting of Tayla, Claire, Teah and Thalia.

Speakers showed varying levels of nerves, but were overall genuinely engaging and persuasive.

The audience made up of teachers, family, Rotary Club of Cooma members and the wider community appreciated the opportunity to share in the achievements of these enthusiastic and talented young debaters.

Adjudicators in announcing the winners and reasons why they were chosen, spoke initially about how the students had noticeably progressed and developed over the last 12 to 24 months.

"We are starting to see some really impressive improvement across the teams," Han said.

Han presented the Margaret Hassall trophy to the winning Years 7 and 8 team.

"Overall across this debate we did really enjoy some of the arguments that came out and it was great to see some team members really rely on sensible logic.

"Ultimately what it came down to was an ability for students to focus on things that were relevant and logical. On that basis we found there was a much more logical discussion that came from the team who spoke about the fact we need to provide opportunity and to give our students protection and so we awarded the debate to The Alpine School."

Imogen McGrath then handed out the John Clarke Memorial trophy for the Years 9 and 10 winning team from St Patrick's School.

"These students in the Years 9 and 10 age group have now been public speaking, debating and performing at school for many years. There are three categories we mark the students on, and I am really thrilled to observe that with things like method, most of our students today nailed it.

"The second criteria is the manner, how the students present - are they using their hands, do they have notes, a bit about vocal nuance, pace, whether they are distracted, have some nerves creeping in, and other things.

"Congratulations to our 9 and 10 students for how they actually spoke to us.

"However, it was all about the matter for us tonight when it came to adjudicating and determining the debate winner," Imogen said.

"We found one team had a really concise model that they re-visited, all three speakers of this team presented a really cohesive case. We also found one team in particular brought in the aspect of empathy and tried to engage with the audience in a way that the other team perhaps didn't use to their advantage when they could have in this debate."

The speaker of the series was also awarded for both age levels and was won by Max (Years 7 and 8) of The Alpine School and Clementine Battye (Years 9 and 10) of Monaro High School.

Margaret Hassall was a former member of the Rotary Club of Cooma. She was a past president of the Cooma club and also served as district governor of Rotary District 9710.

She was passionate about education and service to the Monaro and wider community.

She was a teacher, having taught a variety of subjects at a few local schools and was in various executive roles for more than 40 years.

Margaret had a great love of learning and public speaking and debating.

John Clarke was born in Cooma and lived on a property between Cooma and Nimmitabel. He attended school in Cooma and completed his education at Monaro High School.

John studied law at university and practised law in various places including Cooma and Canberra.

He loved his time as a member of the Rotary Club of Cooma and was a very active member for many years.

He was very supportive of the various youth programs of the club and knew how important public speaking and debating are for students.