🏆 Contest Results 📢

Twice a year, our club competes in the Toastmasters speech contests. This includes the Humourous Speech Contest, for which contestants have prepared a 5-7 min speech that is humourous in nature, and the Evaluation Contest, where contestants give a short speech with constructive feedback for another speaker. Here are our club’s winners:

Humourous Speech Contest:
🥇 Michael
🥈 Mekdim

Evaluation Contest:
🥇 Sam
🥈 Jack

Congratulations to our winners! All four of them stepped out of the comfort zone of our usual meeting routine and achieved another important milestone as public speakers. The area contests, which is where our winners will compete against those of neighbouring Toastmasters clubs, will be held on Saturday, 12 February 2022.

Our audience for the U-CAN-SPEAK speech contests tonight

A big thank you to everyone who also contributed to our contest night:
Ben Y as Contest Chair,
Rameshi as Chief Judge,
Preethi and Reuben as Tally Counters and Timers,
Dayle as Contest Sergeant at Arms,
and our 5 Judges!

Congratulations to Sam for completing his Level 1 award in the Dynamic Leadership path! VP Membership Kate presented the certificate.

Elise Placed 1st at both Area Contests!

Congratulations to U-CAN-SPEAK club member Elise! After having won the club’s speech competitions in evaluations (giving feedback) and Table Topics (impromptu speeches) last week, Elise competed again tonight at the area level. In both the evaluation contest and the Table Topics contest, the judges picked Elise as the winner!

In the evaluation contest, contestants had to evaluate the speech ‘Adventure Lust’ from Staci, who visited from Civic Toastmasters. During Table Topics, contestants had to give a 1-2 minute speech answering the question: ‘If you were the mayor of Christchurch, what would you change about the city?’

Tonight’s success means that Elise will be competing again at division level, together with tonight’s second placed winners from AirWaves Toastmasters and Christchurch Women’s Club as well as the winners of all other area contests in the upper half of the South Island. Elise has already done our club proud, and we keep our fingers crossed!

Join us for the Division G Conference!

This coming Saturday (16 April) you can lift your communication and leadership skills to an entirely new level. Participate in interactive workshops in the morning and listen to Division G’s best speakers in the afternoon.

Starting at 10 am:

• Keynote from District 72 Club Growth Director Sarah Bate
• Gillian Perano: Leadership Opportunities in Toastmasters
• Mark Baker: Giving Evaluations of Value
• Rob Woolley: The Mindset to Succeed

Starting at 1 pm:

• Division G Evaluation Contest (our club member Timm is competing)
• Division G International Speech Contest

The venue is 144 Sawyers Arms Rd (Papanui Baptist Church). See you there!

U-CAN-SPEAK winning big at the G6 Area Contest

Congratulations to Dwayne and Timm! At the Area Contest for G6, which includes us and five more Toastmasters clubs from around Christchurch, both of our club’s representatives convinced the judges with their outstanding performances. Here are the results!!!

From U-CAN-SPEAK: Daniel (3rd from left) as Contest Chair and Dwayne (right), the 2nd placed winner

From U-CAN-SPEAK: Timm (3rd from right)

Timm with his trophy

Contest Night

A great turnout for our contest night at U-CAN-SPEAK Toastmasters! The highlights in a nutshell: Dwayne has placed first in the International Speech Contest and Timm has won the Evaluation Contest. They will both be competing at Area level against the first placed winners of the other five Toastmasters clubs in Area G6.

Save the date:

Area G6 Contest
Monday, 4 April 2016
Starting at 7pm
Salvation Army Hall, Belfast (Cnr Main North Rd and Donegal St)

For successfully completing ten advanced speeches from the manuals on Storytelling and Special Occasion Speeches, Jono received his Advanced Communicator Bronze award.

And congratulations to Jono for achieving Advanced Communicator Bronze recognition!

Highlights from our Area Contests

Six speakers of very high calibre made our area contests a memorable event. Even though our club’s contestants eventually did not make it to Division level this time, we saw that they play in the same league as some of the most experienced Toastmasters we have in Christchurch!

Click through our photo gallery to find out more!

Looking smart and talking eloquently: Tian from U-CAN-SPEAK Toastmasters

The contestants are preparing, and Dianne from Christchurch Athenians Toastmasters volunteers to give an impromptu speech.

Our guest Rob participating as well. His topic: the story behind his hat!

The Evaluation Contestant nominated by Christchurch Athenians Toastmasters: Basil

Representing the Pegasus Toastmasters Club Christchurch in the evaluation contest: George

Competing for U-CAN-SPEAK Toastmasters: Joanna

The best evaluators in Area G6 with contest chair Tian

International Speech Contest Chair Julius with our contestant Ross. Before he entered the contest, Ross already had a busy day at work dealing with the intricate regulations of the KiwiSaver scheme.

Congratulations to Basil from Christchurch Athenians Toastmasters, who won the 1st place in the Evaluation Contest!

Well done George from Pegasus Toastmasters! Also, a huge thank you to our numerous helpers from Christchurch Athenians Toastmasters and U-CAN-SPEAK, our anonymous Judges, our test speaker Andrea from Hornby and Oaklands Toastmasters, Division Governor Marc with partner Kerry and our Area Governor Timm!

21 winners

Be it more speaking experience for the contestants, be it leadership skills for all organisers and functionaries, be it a learning opportunity by watching others or be it the 1st place in the contest: I have no doubt that all of our 21 attendees tonight went home having gained something new. Browse through our photo gallery to see our contestants and winners!

The subject of the International Speech Contest is to deliver an inspirational or motivational speech

Joanna’s persuasive speech “Become a volunteer today” was built on her personal experience as volunteer for the Cricket World Cup

A certificate and handshake from Contest Chair Daniel. With his speech, Ross entertained the audience and incorporated a powerful call to action.

Who can give the best oral feedback?

Congratulations to Vivek from Contest Chair Fahimeh

The Judges selected Daniel’s evaluation of Ross’ speech as the second best of the night.

A well deserved certificate and trophy from Contest Chair Fahimeh.

Our esteemed visitor, the Assistant Division Governor for Marketing, commends the evaluation contestants on their high level of analytical skills. His key message: Any speech should be like a gift to the audience. Make sure there is a definite message!

Advait (left) has completed his first 10 speeches. Congratulations on achieving Competent Communicator recognition!

It was wonderful having so many actively participating guests tonight. Well done! See you again at Clubs’ Day this coming Wednesday and Thursday, 11am-2pm!

How to win the Evaluation Contest

Action, adrenalin & fame on YouTube. The GoPro was recording, we were participating in Julius’ engaging educational. Let’s see how famous he will become! Julius unveiled the secrets of some of NZ’s best evaluators and most experienced Contest Judges so our contestants are now ideally prepared to win the area trophy.

Motivate.

That’s what turned out to be the inofficial theme of this Division G contest workshop, well attended by U-CAN-SPEAK members. Timm informed about the vast potential for growing one’s leadership and communication skills in the role of chair. His secret

Area G6 Contests

The winner of our club Evaluation & International contest was cruelly struck down by a bad cold, a few hours before the area contest began, Akshay (Evaluation) and Julius (international) stepped up to represent club at the area contest. Congratulations to Akshay for placing second at the Area contest. Both Akshay and Julius, based upon previous experience are aware that they may be tapped on the shoulder for the division contest if, for any reason the higher placed getters are unable to represent the area at the division contest!

A special thank you to Peter & Tania for volunteering for tea duty and George for being the Sergeant at Arms for the contest!