🏆 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.

Talking on the phone and laughing out loud!

How to communicate effectively over the phone? In a virtual educational, British public speaking coach Caroline Goyder pointed out four strategies inspired from radio presenters, that help you sound clear, concise and energised.

U-CAN-SPEAK Highly Commended for Hosting the Area Conference

Challenges are there to be overcome. What began with a room booking clash, a sick contestant and a few no shows of contest functionaries turned out to become an outstanding area conference! It was exceptional teamwork among U-CAN-SPEAK members that impressed guests from the five other clubs in Area G6 and from the Division.

Yes, we had fun, indeed!

Five participants in the Table Topics Competition with Daniel from U-CAN-SPEAK Toastmasters right in the centre.

Our humourous contestant Joanna: no doubt she is the first person to compete in an area contest five weeks (!!!) after joining Toastmasters.

Congratulations to Sam for completing the first five speeches in the CC manual and thus earning a Spirit of Success Award. Our camera, however, seems to prioritise the back of a head in the audience.

The U-CAN-SPEAK Table Topics and Humourous Speech Contests

What a diverse contest night we had at the U-CAN-SPEAK Club today! Outstanding participation: six impromptu contestants and four humourous contestants – including some of our newest members! Well done everyone, this is what makes our club so special.

Our congratulations go to…

U-CAN-SPEAK Wins Area Contest in Table Topics

At tonight’s Area G6 Contest Rory was pulling triple duty! He drove us to the Belfast Club in a University of Canterbury van. He looked the part, a waistcoat, striped shirt with dress pants and shoes. The only things missing were a top hat, cane and white gloves.

Rory did the club proud in the Humorous speech contest. The third place getter was Tom Scott, the second place getter was Stephen Wood, and the winner was Rex Robinson.

Tom Scott also won the Toastmaster of the Year for Area G6. Keep your eye on future announcements of who our club winner is!

Finally, the impromptu speech contest, the second place getter was David Kolien and the champion for 2013 was a very own Rory Horne.

Rory will go on to represent our club and Area G6 at the Division G Contest to be held on Saturday October 19th.

Give Rory your congratulations when you see him next!

Say it with Gestures!

Tonight, Timm filled the role of Toastmaster. He challenged everyone who would get up to speak to have a particular look at hand gestures – which is one of the objectives of CC project 5: “To be most effective, gestures should be made above your elbow and away from your body, and they should be vigorous and definite to show conviction and enthusiasm.” In fact, tonight’s speakers generally demonstrated excellent use of body language.

U-CAN-SPEAK Toastmaster of the Year & Other Bits

Is there a Toastmaster in our club that you think has made a great contribution over the preceding year? Nominate them for our Toastmaster of the Year! Please email your nomination to Dwayne, no later than August 29th or anonymously vote for them at next week’s meeting. A sentence or two as to why you believe they should be nominated as the Toastmaster of the Year would also be appreciated.

U-CAN-SPEAK Table Topics and Humourous Speech Contests

We had a fantastic contest night with awesome Table Topics and a truly humourous humourous speech by Rory! These are the contest winners:

Table Topics Contest

1. Rory
2. Greg
3. Advait

Humourous Speech Contest:

1. Rory

Congratulations! Both first place winners, i.e. Rory, will represent our club in the area contest to be held in late September.

Another great thank you to the committee behind the scenes: Jono, who guided us through the evening in his role of Contest Chair, Chief Judge Fran, who briefed the Judges, organised a Tie Braking Judge and made sure all of them were doing their job well, and last but not least our Timers/Counters Stacey and Dwayne. The identity of
the Tie Braking Judge is top secret, but we highly appreciate the contribution of this anonymous club member as well.

Timm