As We Were Saying...Vol 1. Issue 4

A few days leading up to the YCA National Finals, I devel-oped a case of schizophre-nia: Voices in my head.

“Have all the learners and chaperones arrived? We

need to do a run through of

speeches with each learner

for last minute prep. Rest

before the big day. BIG DAY ARRIVES! Venue setup and signage. Is there enough signage? We need more signage up! Everything looks good. The stage is going

to capsize while a learner is

presenting their speech! Anele Mdoda our MC is going to go down with the stage. No she won’t. Relax. Guests arrive. Full house. Do we have enough space? We

don’t have enough space,

people are going to have

to stand outside the venue

in the parking lot! We have enough space, that has been taken care of, the venue is big enough. Relax.

It’s all going remarkably

well. Why is it going well? Something is going to go wrong! What still needs to be done? Relax, we’ve taken care of eve-rything, just enjoy the speeches. The trophies! Where are the trophies? And, the win-ner, they are announcing the winner and we have no tro-

Schizophrenia Blues: AWWS asked Bonolo Cebe from the YCA Event Management team to share her take on the organising side of things:

Tight ship, screws loose.phies - this is a disaster! The trophies are on the table. Relax. Pictures. Excitement. Congratulations. Another

successful The Collective

Genius Event. My feet are killing me. I smell fire - there is a fire in the venue! There’s no fire. Pack up time. Let’s meet in your head again next year.”

The stress that comes with running a tight ship, your screws need to be loose!

YOUNG COMMUNICATORS AWARDS JOURNAL 12/10/2011

What’s The Collective Genius talk about? pg. 2

Tweets of the day pg. 45fm DJ Anele

shares her take on Finals pg. 3

And so the big day arrived. Friday, Au-gust 19, the 18th Young Communicators Awards journey sadly came to an end, however it was a thriving end none the less!

There have been 80workshops all over South Africa, with an average at-tendance of 60 students and 20 teachers per work-shop. With such a vast outreach it could have been no easy task to reach the finals. Elimi-nation rounds were held in each district, as well as a provincial elimina-tion where 12 learn-ers talked it out for that exclusive spot in the finals.

The nine finalists, Stephen Buabeng-Baid-oo from Gauteng, Avuyile Gasela from KwaZulu-Na-tal, Ayanda Twani fromEastern Cape, Molebogeng Tsomole from Free State, Go-molemo Moloko from Mpumalanga, Omphile Khoele from North West, Christiaan Kruger from Northern Cape,

Thobeka Nkabinde from Western Cape and Josephine Peka from Limpopo took to the stage, once more blow-ing the audience away with their insight and wit.

Stephen Buabeng-Baidoo took the title in the end as Young Communicator of 2011, winning with that title a

study bursary of R60 000. Runners up Avuyile Gasela and Ayanda Twani each received a bursary of R40 000 and R30 000 respectively.

This year has been a great success, well done to everyone who was in-volved and a big thank you to all our sponsors!

YCA Phase Four: Grand Finale!

Avuyile Gasela, Stephen Buabeng-Baidoo & Ayanda Twani. The nine Young Communicators Awards Finalists of 2011.

INSIDE:

This marks the last issue of the first volume of As We Were Saying. How much fun has this experience not been?!

Whilst editing this issue it dawned on me just how quickly time flies by. It has been more than a month since the YCA Finals, and what has been one of the projects The Col-lective Genius have been working on vigorously for more than eight months, is now only a pleasant memory packed up in its box, already on the shelf.

Enjoy this last bit of YCA - for the next few months at least - and know that The Collective Genius will be back with a bang in 2012 with YCA!

Next year will be big-ger than ever, and if you would like to get involved with this great initiative, you are more than welcome! Keep a lookout on the Facebook page for a call of applications.

In the meanwhile, keep on communicating and remember that each new day is an opportunity to start over again and clari-fy your vision.

All is within your grasp – just keep on reaching!

Lots of loveMarine

Editorial

There have been whisperings of this new movement called :The Collective Genius.

People talked about it and there have even been Tweets and Fa-cebook statuses about this mysterious topic. Finally the time has come to unveil this initiate to you!

The Collective Genius

is the new corporate outfit of MUNSA. The same projects that MUNSA ran will still be done by The Collective Genius, with the addi-tion of new and excit-ing projects, more of which will be revealed in good time.

To be quite frank however, The Collec-tive Genius is a name that you would want to remember, as this

young and dynamic movement plans to dominate corporate South Africa in every possible way. Now it also just so happens that you know enough not to know what it is The Collective Genius will do, but definitely interested enough to keep a watch out for the formal launch of the The Collective Genius website and Facebook page…

What’s all this TCG please?

WinnerCHAT

We had a quick word with 2011’s three winners. Here’s what they had to say...

2011 Winner, Stephen Buabeng-Baidoo.

First runner up, Avuyile Gasela.

Second runner up Ayanda Twani.

Did you expect to place? Not a chance in the world, but I hoped would. Best part of the weekend? Watching TV and showering at the same time. Plans for 2012: Pass matric with at least 5 distinctions, win other competitions and become the president of my school (hope-fully haters don’t hate).

Last R20 spent on: Spathlo (bunny chow), God’s gift to Africans.

Intellect or Appearance: Intellect for sure, beauty without expression is boring. “Brilliant you’re a beautiful idiot, how does that help?”

Did you expect to place? In all honesty I didn’t expect to place.

Best part of the week-end? Spending time with all the other provincial champs and chilling in my awesome room.

Plans for 2012: My plan for 2012 is to get accepted into the University of Pretoria and pass my matric year with a “good number of distinctions”.

Last R20 spent on: My last R20 was spent on typing out my life orientation project.

Intellect or Appearance: I prefer a mixture of the two but overall intellect is tops for me.

Did you expect to place? No. There was a lot of doubt especially 3 seconds before the names were called.

Best part of the weekend? The night of the competition. I got to share laughs with the others.

Plans for 2012: I’m expected to study. But I hope to go on a spiritual growth path. Last R20 spent on: Wow! When last did I touch a twenty rand note - that’s like a luxury for me - I spent it on monster sprays I got a strawberry and a raspberry flavoured delight-sour sprays.

Intellect or appearance: I appreciate someone who can think, it intensifies a conversation.

ken kids?

Anele: I was more thrilled about it than nervous and also happy that I clicked with all of them from the start so we established a calming re-lationship where it was any-thing goes really.

AWWS:One thing every communicator should know?

Anele: The point of speak-ing is to communicate a mes-sage, if you are not getting the message across you are not doing what you are meant

questions on her first Young Communicators Awards experience:

AWWS: You have MC’d a lot of events, how was the YCA Finals in comparison to other events?

Anele: I MC events all the time, sometimes three times a week especially during the silly season at end of year functions. YCA was a) very well run and b) nice to be on a platform where the product is speaking and not the launch of say a car. AWWS: Were you nervous or a bit intimidated at some point by those very outspo-

How excited were we when we announced that a very well known communicator - Anele Mdoda, 5fm DJ - would MC the YCA Finals this year?

As expected, she rocked as MC. Not only did she have a calming effect on the finalists, she had the crowd in stitches from beginning to end! We asked this legend a few

to do. Small words = Big impact.

AWWS: Something you took home with you after the Finals?

Anele: The youth are not as lazy and ambitionless as we believe, there are kids out there reading it all: newspa-pers, Justice Judgments and books just so they stay in the know. AWWS: General take on the day?

Anele:That the only thing that made me happier than the day was the comforting fact that there will be one next year!

Anele’s take on YCA

Small words = Big impact

After counting almost three months’ worth of seconds, I finally ar-rived at the swanky Fire and Ice Hotel in Melrose Arch, ready for a weekend that would blow my mind. Throughout the day (and the next and the next) we were treated like royalty and the months of preparation were finally worth it.

The event itself was any speaker’s dream. We were mic’ed up, cameras were sta-tioned and lights shone bright. I had the five minutes of my life con-vincing the audience of a hundred odd people what a fish and a tree had in common.

I’ve been doing public speaking for ten years

and as a speaker I had reached my pinnacle. And that was what it was all about.

The elegance of the entire trip is what I’ll re-member forever. From a glass podium to my own room in a grand hotel to food I’ll never forget; it was incred-ible. The people were much more than friendly and also very insightful. I made a lot of new friends and still talk to

The elegance of the entire

trip is what I’ll remember forever.

CHRISTIAAN KRUGERNorthern Cape National Finalist

YCA: The experience of a lifetime!them frequently. I realised what it meant to be better than what most people believe your limit is. A sincere thank you to everyone who was involved – sponsors (Anglo American and Sowetan), organisers and my teacher.

Without any of you, nothing like this would ever be possible. This truly is an amazinginitiative!

A very special thank you to the Protea Hotel group for supplying accomodation for all the Provnicial contests, as well as the Nationals. The comfortable and stylish accomodation ensured that YCA 2011 was an unforgettable experience for everyone involved.

Thank You

tweets of

the day.

nabzyk - Nabeela Kazee Watching the YCA journey @YCAVoice @SowetanLIVE - tribute to Aggrey Klaaste whose dream we realize today.

SiabeshoT - Siyabesho My spirit lives there right now. RT @YCAVoice: Right we have lift off! #YCANationalFinal

samcholes - Samantha Choles In all my years of YCA, @Anele is quite possibly the best MC the competition has had.

nabzyk - Nabeela Kazee “Promises are like babies, easy to make but very difficult to deliver” Gomolemo Moleko @YCAVoice

Anele - Anele Mdoda @YCAVoice these kids are such awesome speakers but what stands out for me the most is the fact that they listen to each other.laurelThandi - Thandi Ndlovu

Let’s get @YCAVoice trending its the biggest thing happening to South African youth today.

samcholes - Samantha Choles I’d tweet some gems from the amazing speeches of our 9 young leaders but I’m too riveted @YCAVoice

NwabisaMayema - Nwabisa Mayema @YCAVoice, am I growing old or is it the awesome-ness of today that keeps bringing tears to my eyes?

Anele - Anele Mdoda Love these kids man. In grade 11 who knew what socio economic challenges were ? They do.

tumelojames - Tumelo Sibanda Please add Ntate Victor Mecoamere, he’s on Facebook (lol) @YCAVoice samcholes - Samantha Choles

So wonderful to see so many of the past winners as the organisers of the #YCANationalFinals. Proud ‘aunty of YCA’ moment. @YCAVoice

NwabisaMayema - Nwabisa Mayema Tough times for adjudicators at @YCAVoice Nation-al Finals..So glad I’m an ordinary audience member.

LondaMavundla - Londa Mavundla @YCAVoice, listening to these bright young stars. One can rest assured that the future of #RSA is safe. Am inspired.

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Photos

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