“Dear friends and colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that the NPSC will be held as usual this year at the British Council, in Lisbon. Please note however that in response to the school calendar we have brought the date forward to Sunday 15th March. Please advise your colleagues from other schools.

Schools may enrol two competitors, who should be over 16 years of age at the time of the competition, and all competing schools must be members of the ESU Portugal for the current year. The membership fee is still 50 euros and is payable on the day of the competition. Receipts will be issued.

We will endeavour, as usual, to timetable competitors from further afield as conveniently as possible.

The names of competitors with the respective titles of speeches should reach me at this e mail address, by close of play on Friday February 20th. We cannot guarantee to accept late enrolments.

The winner, as in previous years, will represent Portugal at the ESU's International Public Speaking Competition in London in May 2015.

You can download the manual for the IPSC at:

http://www.esu.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/28840/ESU-IPSC-handbook-2015.pdf

The rules for the National Competition are very similar to those for the IPSC but the theme is:

‘’To be Ignorant of the Past is to Remain a Child’’ .

However, questions regarding the topic of their speeches will only be put by the panel to finalists should there be difficulties in selecting the winner.

Please read the manual carefully and if any questions still remain please direct them to me at this e-mail address.

With best wishes,

David Evans

Secretary

English-Speaking Union Portugal"