Archive for the ‘Public Speaking’ Category

In November, I travelled down to Colchester to compete in the District 71 humorous speaking contest finals. I lost in the semi-finals which was pretty disappointing. I was happy with the structure and quality of my speech, but I didn’t get the laughs the other contestants did, so more humour is probably needed. Our short stay at the conference was enjoyable though – unlike the Riviera Renaissance conference everything was in the same hotel which made it a lot nicer.

This is me receiving my certificate of participation.

The purpose of these is to fill time while the votes are being counted.

Having somehow won the area contest at the end of September, I headed over to Warrington for the Division E final of the 2013 humorous speech contest. It was held at a Masonic hall.

It was a flying visit as we were out at Wendy House the night before and had to be back in Leeds that evening to host Simon Singh. I had no idea of the result until 8pm when Chanaka texted me – to find out that somehow I had won this one too!

Most of the contest was a bit of a blur, to be honest. Part of my speech requires me to pick up a chair, and during this, I managed to hit myself on the head. I somehow finished my speech but the next thing I really remembered was being sat back down wondering when I joined the Freemasons.

On the last Sunday of September, we held the Area 15 contest for humorous speaking and table topics. The competition was tough and all competitors did a great job – congratulations to all that took part!

Despite having lost at the club contest, only to win through at White Rose, I somehow came out on top in humorous speaking. Two contestants go through to Division so Jamie will be joining me with a speech entitled “The TM 2 1 3 1” as well.

Chanaka once again stormed through the Table Topics and will be going to the division contest alongside Michael who also gave an excellent speech. I’m also pleased to say Michael took home the Toastmaster of the Year award for his ever-present hard work for the area.

Earlier this month we had our club speech contest. Our Immediate Past President Jude begun with a speech entitled “When The Going Gets Tough”.

I followed with my speech “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Evaluating”.

But our winner was Michael J. Clarke with a speech entitled “Never Say No”.

For the first speech in the Public Relations advanced Toastmaters manual, you have to speak about Toastmasters. The project is a “good will speech” in which you promote public speaking, and thereby Toastmasters by making a few references to it in your introduction and conclusion.

I felt this was a bit of a lazy speech as a lot of it I’m quoting other people. But it was good enough to win Best Speaker on the evening, so can’t have been too bad.

We’ve previously used Skype to allow Jane to attend White Rose Speakers meetings virtually while she is in Spain. This time, she connected in from the French Alps and hooked up to the projector, gave us a Giant Jane to provide a speech evaluation.

Last month, Leeds City Toastmasters teamed up with Leeds Speakers’ Corner to put on “Toastmasters in the Park”. That is basically what LSC do anyway, but with more Toastmasters there. Thanks to Chanaka for being Toastmaster and John for his excellent speech. Myself, John W and Andrew spoke as well, as did a few members of the public!

A video of the event is also available below.

This is my tenth speech from the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual, “Inspire Your Audience”. The speech doesn’t start until a minute in to the video.

Last month, a paid a visit to one of the other Area 15 Toastmasters clubs, Doncaster Speakers.

Some of the other clubs I have visited have not been able to match the standards of Leeds City, but Doncaster did an excellent job – it was well organised, professional and entertaining. I also came away with a few ideas I’m considering for Leeds.

I did feel a little guilty about cleaning out their awards though – I took home the best table topics ribbon while Anthony, our Division Govenor and Leeds City member took home the best evaluator ribbon.

After the meeting, we decided to get some dinner locally, so wandered down the street until we came across a restaurant named Cactus Jack. It was American themed and did some amazingly tasty ribs – fall off the bone TGI style, but with more flavour! I think next time I visit Doncaster Speakers, it will be more accurate to say I’m visiting Cactus Jack’s, and stopping by Toastmasters on the way…

For my 8th project at Toastmasters, I presented a talk on homeopathy.