Yesterday afternoon I participated as Patron in the 2011 BBC Entertainment and English Speaking Union (ESU) Public Speaking Awards in Hungary. Along with the Ministry of National Resources and Magyar Telekom, the event was also supported by the British Council, Oxford University Press and the Robert Burns International Foundation. It’s the first time the BBC have organised this event here, but it was such a success that they plan to repeat it in the future. The standard of English spoken by the young Hungarian participants was tremendous and the winner and runner up who go on to the ESU International Public Speaking Awards in London in May will be excellent representatives of their country.
And then it was off to the British Chamber of Commerce in Hungary’s (BCCH) third annual commemoration of St George’s Day – a week early because otherwise the concurrence with Easter would mean no one came! Having spoken about St George for the past two years I had exhausted my knowledge of him – so spoke instead of some of the famous Englishmen and Englishwomen with connections with Hungary (Edward the Exile, Sir Philip Sidney, Julia Pardoe, Patrick Leigh Fermor etc). For anyone interested, an edited version of my presentation is available on the Embassy website. The event was used to advance the cause of Corporate Social Responsibility. The BCCH Chairman Gergely Mikola has instituted a new annual St George’s Award to recognise examples of ethical business and together we presented the first such prize to Tibor Hejj of Proactive Management Consulting, whose firm helps prepare disabled people for the workplace.