On October 4th, Alan Devine came into our school to talk to us about public speaking. He taught us the different techniques to public speaking but the one that I will always remember will be ‘Granny Devine's smile’.
During the day, we played some very random games such as acting out moves to ‘Old King Cole’ and following the ‘gesture Machine’. BY doing all of these different activities, people began to loosen up and became more confident speaking in front of others.
On October 13th, Alan came back into the school because he had asked us to prepare a speech. My speech was based on farming because I was passionate about it and was something that I love.
Reflection:
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the public speaking. To be honest, I wouldn’t be afraid of talking in front of people but I still feel like I learned something from Alan and that is………Granny Devine’s Smile!! I still believe that I have become to believe in myself and become even more confident. I feel like I am a very laid-back person and things like speaking in public doesn’t bother me. I would love to see Alan come back into our school at the end of the year so that he could see how much we have progressed throughout the course of TY. Below, I have included my speech.
Farming speech
Hello everyone. My name is Rose and I’m going to talk to you about my hobby, farming. I was born and reared on a dairy farm. Today, I’m going to talk to you about three topics: The dairy side of the farm, the beef side of the farm and a little story at the end.
So, the first thing is the dairy side of the farm. We milk 58 cows twice a day in a 5-unit parlour. Every 3 days, the milkman would come to collect our milk. We send our milk to Arrabawn in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. In the summer months, our cows would produce approximately 3500 litres of milk. But in the winter months, they would produce only 2000 litres of milk. They are given a fresh pasture of grass every second day. When the come into the parlour, they are given a bucket of Masture Pasture nuts which is divided between five of them. They are milked at 6 in the morning and 6 in the evening. At the beginning of November, the cows will only be milked once a day. Then, around the 20th of December, the cows will be dried of completely. Then, the calving season starts in February. There does be a few all-nighters but it must be done!
The next thing is the beef side of the farm. Every spring, our Friesian cows have calves. We rear these calves until they are 2 and a half years and then send them to the factory in March and April. On average, they would weight approximately 650 kg. Every September, October, November and December, Dad would buy approximately 100 weanlings which are aged 6 months. They, too, would be sent to the factory when they are 2 and a half years. Last winter, we had 400 cattle and cows in the sheds. Every single animal was fed silage twice a day and given meal.
Now I’m going to tell ye a short, little story. So, I came home from school one day and Dad wasn’t home. I thought to myself ‘Is there a mart on today’ but then I realised that it was a Friday and there was no mart on. 5 minutes later, I heard Dad’s jeep. He stormed in the door. I asked him where he was. He just replied with ‘hmm’. I asked him again and he said ‘Ya know those weanlings that I bought in Portumna mart o Wednesday, well one of them is one missing’. He told me that he was looking for her for the past 2 hours and there was no sign. So, I told him to ring a few of our neighbours. One of them told us that they saw a weanling running down into the calla. Down we went to the calla, no sign. Then he rang another neighbour to see if she would have mixed in with his cows. Thankfully she was. The next thing was, how are we going to sort her from the cows? But he said that he would milk his cows and leave her in the pin on her own. So that evening I milked the cows and Dad went up to collect her.
During the day, we played some very random games such as acting out moves to ‘Old King Cole’ and following the ‘gesture Machine’. BY doing all of these different activities, people began to loosen up and became more confident speaking in front of others.
On October 13th, Alan came back into the school because he had asked us to prepare a speech. My speech was based on farming because I was passionate about it and was something that I love.
Reflection:
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the public speaking. To be honest, I wouldn’t be afraid of talking in front of people but I still feel like I learned something from Alan and that is………Granny Devine’s Smile!! I still believe that I have become to believe in myself and become even more confident. I feel like I am a very laid-back person and things like speaking in public doesn’t bother me. I would love to see Alan come back into our school at the end of the year so that he could see how much we have progressed throughout the course of TY. Below, I have included my speech.
Farming speech
Hello everyone. My name is Rose and I’m going to talk to you about my hobby, farming. I was born and reared on a dairy farm. Today, I’m going to talk to you about three topics: The dairy side of the farm, the beef side of the farm and a little story at the end.
So, the first thing is the dairy side of the farm. We milk 58 cows twice a day in a 5-unit parlour. Every 3 days, the milkman would come to collect our milk. We send our milk to Arrabawn in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. In the summer months, our cows would produce approximately 3500 litres of milk. But in the winter months, they would produce only 2000 litres of milk. They are given a fresh pasture of grass every second day. When the come into the parlour, they are given a bucket of Masture Pasture nuts which is divided between five of them. They are milked at 6 in the morning and 6 in the evening. At the beginning of November, the cows will only be milked once a day. Then, around the 20th of December, the cows will be dried of completely. Then, the calving season starts in February. There does be a few all-nighters but it must be done!
The next thing is the beef side of the farm. Every spring, our Friesian cows have calves. We rear these calves until they are 2 and a half years and then send them to the factory in March and April. On average, they would weight approximately 650 kg. Every September, October, November and December, Dad would buy approximately 100 weanlings which are aged 6 months. They, too, would be sent to the factory when they are 2 and a half years. Last winter, we had 400 cattle and cows in the sheds. Every single animal was fed silage twice a day and given meal.
Now I’m going to tell ye a short, little story. So, I came home from school one day and Dad wasn’t home. I thought to myself ‘Is there a mart on today’ but then I realised that it was a Friday and there was no mart on. 5 minutes later, I heard Dad’s jeep. He stormed in the door. I asked him where he was. He just replied with ‘hmm’. I asked him again and he said ‘Ya know those weanlings that I bought in Portumna mart o Wednesday, well one of them is one missing’. He told me that he was looking for her for the past 2 hours and there was no sign. So, I told him to ring a few of our neighbours. One of them told us that they saw a weanling running down into the calla. Down we went to the calla, no sign. Then he rang another neighbour to see if she would have mixed in with his cows. Thankfully she was. The next thing was, how are we going to sort her from the cows? But he said that he would milk his cows and leave her in the pin on her own. So that evening I milked the cows and Dad went up to collect her.