Tag Archives: How to write a convocation speech

Class President’s Welcome by Maddy Stern ’14

Faculty, staff, guests, students, class of 2014 welcome to the 173rd Williston Northampton Convocation,

My name is Maddy Stern and I am the president of the senior class. I’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone here at Williston, to the teachers and staff who’ve spent the past weeks preparing for our arrival, to the guests who have traveled to join us, to the senior class for giving me the opportunity to stand up here before everyone. And also I probably won’t be getting a ride to school tomorrow or the necessary Dunkin coffee if I don’t thank my family for everything they’ve done for me. Since this is my only opportunity to get up and address the entire school I’d like to take a picture of you all real quick. Thanks. Please like that when I Instagram it.

But now to the real reason I’m up here. This speech is something I have been thinking about for a long time and I knew that I would be talking to the entire student body, therefore I should write a speech everyone could relate to. So last spring I began asking people what made a “good” convocation speech. The two pieces of advice I continually received were, “be funny” and “please keep it short.” If you know me, I really like to talk and I’m not that funny, so after ruling my only two pieces of advice inapplicable I did what any well-educated student would do, I went to Wikipedia.

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