Today I competed at the Area 4, District 33 Toastmaster's Humor and Evaluation Speech Contest. I competed in the Evaluation portion of today's event against another Toastmaster. The speech that the other contestant and I evaluated was that of Dana LaMon who is a World Class Speaker and has all the various letters after his name to prove it. I hadn't expected to evaluate such a renowned speaker! He gave a wonderful presentation that I really enjoyed. After his speech the other contestant and I had 5 minutes to prepare our evaluations and then present them to the whole room. There were about 20 people total at the contest. The 5 minutes to prepare were very helpful to me and I was thankful for the opportunity to organize my thoughts before speaking. When I was finally up to speak I was very nervous but somehow managed to not show it and instead just focused on doing the best I could. I managed to share what I wanted and hit most of my points from my written notes. I had the option of using notes but did not because points are deducted for use of notes. I found it easier to speak without the notes as my scribbles tend to be distracting. I felt really good about my performance. In fact when I had finished and was sitting down again I had more nervous energy than before I spoke! It was a really wonderful experience and at that point I didn't care how I placed I was just pleased I did well. I was very surprised and elated to discover I won first place. I've only been in Toastmasters since July of this year and the person I competed against has been in Toastmasters for 4 years. I had the occasion to hear her give an evaluation once before and I thought she did a great job. Her evaluation was organized and accomplished the "sandwich" concept: 1) positive comments, 2) area of improvement, 3) positive comments. At the contest today I was not allowed to listen to her evaluation and she went first. I had no idea if she covered the same topics as me or not, but I didn't have time to worry about it. I'm just happy that I did well and had the opportunity to compete.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
First Place
Today I competed at the Area 4, District 33 Toastmaster's Humor and Evaluation Speech Contest. I competed in the Evaluation portion of today's event against another Toastmaster. The speech that the other contestant and I evaluated was that of Dana LaMon who is a World Class Speaker and has all the various letters after his name to prove it. I hadn't expected to evaluate such a renowned speaker! He gave a wonderful presentation that I really enjoyed. After his speech the other contestant and I had 5 minutes to prepare our evaluations and then present them to the whole room. There were about 20 people total at the contest. The 5 minutes to prepare were very helpful to me and I was thankful for the opportunity to organize my thoughts before speaking. When I was finally up to speak I was very nervous but somehow managed to not show it and instead just focused on doing the best I could. I managed to share what I wanted and hit most of my points from my written notes. I had the option of using notes but did not because points are deducted for use of notes. I found it easier to speak without the notes as my scribbles tend to be distracting. I felt really good about my performance. In fact when I had finished and was sitting down again I had more nervous energy than before I spoke! It was a really wonderful experience and at that point I didn't care how I placed I was just pleased I did well. I was very surprised and elated to discover I won first place. I've only been in Toastmasters since July of this year and the person I competed against has been in Toastmasters for 4 years. I had the occasion to hear her give an evaluation once before and I thought she did a great job. Her evaluation was organized and accomplished the "sandwich" concept: 1) positive comments, 2) area of improvement, 3) positive comments. At the contest today I was not allowed to listen to her evaluation and she went first. I had no idea if she covered the same topics as me or not, but I didn't have time to worry about it. I'm just happy that I did well and had the opportunity to compete.
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2 comments:
Congratulations! I wish that I could have been there to see you!
Thank you! I wish you could have been there too. I miss you so much, it would have been fun to hear your feedback. I love how honest and open minded you are. The way you can take a common idea/thought and transform it into something truly special... just like you!
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