If you are not a born orator who has a way with words then making a speech may be a cause of concern for you. It will therefore be important for you to learn how to write welcome speeches, if you have been given the responsibility of making the welcome speech at your graduation. In this article, we give you tips on how to write these speeches and give you a sample for the same. This could be a guide for you when you are writing a speech for your graduation ceremony. How to Write a Welcome Speech for Your Graduation Before writing a welcome speech for your graduation ceremony, it is important to know what the important things that need to be included in these welcome speeches are. Like introduction speeches, they need to serve the basic purpose of introducing a person and the event. Here are some tips that will help you in coming up with welcome speech ideas and also help you learn how to write them.

• Any welcome speech should start by thanking everyone attending the graduation ceremony. Welcome all the special guests who have been invited to the graduation ceremony.
• While writing these speeches for your graduation, you will need to thank all those people who have helped your batch in the smallest of manners. To make these speeches interesting, it is important to add anecdotes that are funny and nostalgic.
• Decide what you would want your speech to be like; would you want it to be humorous, entertaining, inspiring, or informative. While writing your welcome speech, this is something that you need to keep in mind.
• While deciding on the constituent elements that make up your welcome speech, try to figure out what is the special message that you want people to carry back home. This is an important inclusion in any welcome speech. You want at least something of what you say to be inspirational.
• Pay attention to your grammar and structure the speech well. This is very important. Do not use words or references that will leave your audience confounded in any manner.
• Since the audience is going to primarily comprise your classmates, you could add a few personal references but try and keep these to a minimum.
• While ending your welcome speech, ensure that you end with something that creates an impact. Do not have an ending that leaves your audience confused about whether or not there is something more to come.
• Before you give the welcome speech, it may be a good idea to check with a few people about whether the speech is appropriate so that you do not end up offending any member of the audience.
• If you are nervous, it may be a good idea to practice your welcome speech in front of a few people or in front of the mirror.
• End the speech by thanking all those people who have helped organize the event and then end by wishing all graduates good wishes for the future.

There are many websites out there which offer you templates to help draft these oratory pieces for your graduation. While these templates are tempting to use, a welcome speech should be drafted from a more personal space. Resist the use of templates to draft a speech for your high school graduation. Sample Welcome Speech Given below is a sample of a welcome speech that could work as inspiration for you if you are drafting welcome speeches. Probably the most popular and oft repeated rendition of a welcome speech or graduation speech and one of the most famous speeches of recent time is the column Wear Sunscreen written by columnist Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune on 1st June, 1997.

Sample of High School Graduation Welcome Speech

First of all on behalf of the entire batch of 2012, I would like to welcome you to the graduation ceremony of the class of 2012 of the JFK Prep School. I would like to thank (and I am sure my classmates join me in this), our parents, teacher, friends, and family for the guidance they have given us and the patience they have shown in teaching us things that we will take with us as we step into the big bad world (as all adults like to fondly call it). As I stand here, sure and unsure in equal measure, the one image that seems to constantly flash in front of my eyes, is my first day at JFK Prep. Having transferred to this school in the middle of the school year I had prepared myself to sit alone for all lunch hours in the future. After all we are all wary of the new kid in school! But little did I know that I couldn't have been further away from the truth. Sure, I spent the first few hours absolutely miserable but then I had that class where things changed. Thank you Mr. Vonnegut, for suspending us from class because that is the reason I made my first friends here. But jokes apart. I came here a shy, introverted person unsure of what I wanted from life and today as I leave, I have in my hand an admission letter to one of the most prestigious schools in the country, looking forward to a career in the arts. If I even for a second believed that I did this on my own I would be fooling myself. I think I speak for all of us when I say that without the support of the faculty at JFK Prep, many of us would have been floundering in self-doubt and meandering without reason. So thank you. Before I let my emotion sweep me away I would like to tell all my classmates who are sitting here with a square piece of cardboard on their head just one little thing. Thank you for all the memories. The fights, the team efforts, the assignments, the laughter, the tears, the prom, the photos; all of them. I don't think I would exchange it for anything else in the world. Oh and yeah! In the words of Mary Schmich whom we are all familiar with, thanks to Mr. Vonnegut once again, Wear sunscreen.

This is just a sample of a welcome speech that can be given on the occasion of your graduation. Welcome speeches need to be personal and should be drafted in a manner that helps the audience relate to you. This is a day that many of you will look back at with extreme fondness and therefore, make it as memorable as possible.