Speech contests are a Toastmasters tradition. Each year, thousands of Toastmasters around the world compete in speech contests. Bridge Builders members Euridice Oware, DTM, and Christy Lister joined their ranks in February by participating in the club’s Evaluation Contest.
For the Evaluation Contest, one member serves as a “pattern speaker,” delivering a speech that all of the Evaluation Contest participants critique. Maureen Lacey served as pattern speaker, sharing an entertaining tale of her kitten’s perspective on life as he bosses around his humans.
Congratulations go to both Euridice and Christy on their performances—and for seizing this special opportunity to develop new skills and step outside their comfort zones.
Euridice advanced to the Area 62 contest, which was held in Oswego on Saturday, March 7. As the winner of the area contest, she moves on to the Division F contest.
Euridice was the only Bridge Builders member who opted to participate in the International Speech Contest. Rather than run an official contest, the club decided to elect Euridice as its representative for the area contest. This allowed club members to perform a group evaluation of Euridice’s speech, offering her observations and recommendations to make her speech even stronger. (During a contest, speeches are not evaluated formally.)
Euridice delivered a wonderful speech at the Area 62 International Speech Contest. It was fun to see how she adapted and improved her speech based on the feedback we offered. Placing second, she is now eligible to compete in the Division F contest on March 21.
A special thank you goes out to Dick Poirier, Jenny Hamby and Maureen Lacey for volunteering at the area contest. Dick served as the Contest Master, and Jenny got to practice her timekeeping skills. Maureen again served as the pattern speaker for the Evaluation Contest. Like Euridice, she took the feedback offered during the club contest to deliver an even better performance. As Euridice noted during her evaluation, it was Maureen’s best speech yet! (Better yet, she’s been encouraged to keep refining her speech for our next Humorous Speech Contest!)
The Division F Evaluation and International Speech Contests will be held Saturday, March 21, 2015, beginning at 10 a.m., at Governors State University, 1 University Parkway, University Park, IL. Volunteers are needed. Contact Division F Governor Chris Boyk at (815) 574-4124 for more details.