As well as performing herself since she was 10, her parents and children are also involved as volunteers, while Ms McLaren is the section chairman.

Her father is also particularly proud of a second place prize he won back in the 1940s after six years of competing.

With speech and drama’s four days of competition winding up today, Ms McLaren said there had been 450 entries in the 45 sections, which was up on last year.

“All have been very entertaining and funny, and some have been sad as well,” she said.

Children aged between six and 12 performed on the first two days, with under 16s yesterday and adults today.

Categories include improvisation, bible readings, acting out scenes, poetry, impromptu reading and character recital.

Ms McLaren said improvisation with an object often created some of the competition’s more memorable moments, with contestants given 30 seconds to choose from three objects on which they then had to speak for three minutes.

She said most of the entries had been from Ballarat, though a large group of Derrinallum students had also attended this year. There were also 96 volunteers involved.