I've been very quiet on the blog front lately, due in part to marathon training taking up most of my free time, so this is a retrospective entry, which is actually written on the 29th September 2007.
Anyways, getting back on topic. One of the things I decided to do was to enter a speech competition through my Toastmasters club. I was nominated to represent my club in the Area competitions, which were held on Saturday 15th September 2007. The category I entered was the humorous speech category. Chris, another toastmaster from my club, also entered; he entered the table topics category, where contestants speak for 1-2 minutes on a topic they have not heard beforehand.
The table topics competition was the first category to kick off the Area competition. The question was With all the professionalism in sport these days, is sponsorship killing sportsmanship? Chris was the first speaker out of five speakers, and he actually answered the question, while the others did not; they twisted their answers to say that sponsorship is/is not killing sport. Unfortunately Chris did not win that category, nor did he place in the top three, which I thought wasn't fair on him as he did really well considering the question. The winner of the table topics category, Peter, has been a toastmaster for nearly 30 years, so he had a wealth of experience behind him. I hope to learn a lot from him on how to answer a table topics question.
Next it was my turn with the humorous speech category. This time there were only three speakers, and I was the first. I was all psyched up, and in the end I approached the stage without my notes, so I was relying on a good/quick memory to help me through my speech, titled Holidaying on the wrong boat. It was about my experience on a cruise ship, and for humorous effect I greatly exaggerated certain events that took place. The events did actually take place though, but obviously I had to exaggerate to get the audience laughing.
And laugh they did. It was a great feeling to entertain a room of strangers, getting them to laugh. And as soon as I sat down, I felt pretty good. The other two speakers were good speakers, so I had some competition on my hands.
After much waiting, I was declared the winner of the Area competition in the humorous speech category. All the judges unanimously declared me the first speaker, while the other speakers were mixed in second or third. I also learned that I was one second away from disqualification; if your speech exceeds 7 and a half minutes, you are automatically disqualified. Imagine how bad that would be to give a good speech, to thoroughly entertain the audience, and then get disqualified for overstepping ever-so-slightly!
So, myself and Peter, the winners of the Area competition in the humorous speech and table topics categories move on to the Division competition, where the winners of each Area competition face each other to decide who is the best speaker in the Division. A Division (in this case, Auckland) is composed of different areas. And having seen the quality of other speakers in the Area competitions, I have a very big hill to climb if I am to win at Division level. I will use the same speech, but obviously I will have to improve on certain areas, polish it up, and hopefully address my timing issues.
Here's hoping I can pull off another victory for my club, and win the Division competition next week.
Anyways, getting back on topic. One of the things I decided to do was to enter a speech competition through my Toastmasters club. I was nominated to represent my club in the Area competitions, which were held on Saturday 15th September 2007. The category I entered was the humorous speech category. Chris, another toastmaster from my club, also entered; he entered the table topics category, where contestants speak for 1-2 minutes on a topic they have not heard beforehand.
The table topics competition was the first category to kick off the Area competition. The question was With all the professionalism in sport these days, is sponsorship killing sportsmanship? Chris was the first speaker out of five speakers, and he actually answered the question, while the others did not; they twisted their answers to say that sponsorship is/is not killing sport. Unfortunately Chris did not win that category, nor did he place in the top three, which I thought wasn't fair on him as he did really well considering the question. The winner of the table topics category, Peter, has been a toastmaster for nearly 30 years, so he had a wealth of experience behind him. I hope to learn a lot from him on how to answer a table topics question.
Next it was my turn with the humorous speech category. This time there were only three speakers, and I was the first. I was all psyched up, and in the end I approached the stage without my notes, so I was relying on a good/quick memory to help me through my speech, titled Holidaying on the wrong boat. It was about my experience on a cruise ship, and for humorous effect I greatly exaggerated certain events that took place. The events did actually take place though, but obviously I had to exaggerate to get the audience laughing.
And laugh they did. It was a great feeling to entertain a room of strangers, getting them to laugh. And as soon as I sat down, I felt pretty good. The other two speakers were good speakers, so I had some competition on my hands.
After much waiting, I was declared the winner of the Area competition in the humorous speech category. All the judges unanimously declared me the first speaker, while the other speakers were mixed in second or third. I also learned that I was one second away from disqualification; if your speech exceeds 7 and a half minutes, you are automatically disqualified. Imagine how bad that would be to give a good speech, to thoroughly entertain the audience, and then get disqualified for overstepping ever-so-slightly!
So, myself and Peter, the winners of the Area competition in the humorous speech and table topics categories move on to the Division competition, where the winners of each Area competition face each other to decide who is the best speaker in the Division. A Division (in this case, Auckland) is composed of different areas. And having seen the quality of other speakers in the Area competitions, I have a very big hill to climb if I am to win at Division level. I will use the same speech, but obviously I will have to improve on certain areas, polish it up, and hopefully address my timing issues.
Here's hoping I can pull off another victory for my club, and win the Division competition next week.
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