Area 24 Evaluation and International Speech Competition
Toastmasters is an international organization dedicated to improving public speaking and leadership skills in chapters around the world. There are over 300,000 Toastmasters members worldwide! Local to Morgantown are two clubs, Country Roads and Laurel Highlands. Country Roads currently meets 100% online on the first and third Thursday of each month at 7:00pm Eastern and welcomes members from throughout West Virginia and the region to attend virtually. Laurel Highlands currently meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 6:00pm with a hybrid model: meetings are at the Carnegie Free Library in Connellsville, PA as well as simultaneously on Zoom.
Twice a year, speaking contests start at the club level and then move up to area, division, region, and all the way to the top of this enormous global organization. On February 19, the District 13, Division C, Area 24 contest was held at the Carnegie Free Library in Connellsville, PA. This cycle, participants aspired to win the Evaluation and International Speech Competition contests at this Area-level to move on to the Division C contest in Punxsutawney, PA on March 26, 2022. Though it takes a lot more than just contestants to make a contest a success. Today, I served as a judge for both of the speaking contests. In addition, several others served as judges, timers, and ballot counters under the leadership of the Contest Chair and Chief Judge.
The first contest was the Evaluation contest. In an Evaluation contest, contestants observe a five-to-seven-minute test speech and then present a two-to-three-minute evaluation of that test speech. At today’s contest, two competitors evaluated Joe Arnold’s (Division C Director) animated story about how his wife bit off his lip over some Dairy Queen. The talk had the room in stitches and the delivery was without flaw. I really wondered what the evaluation contestants could really even productively suggest! Either way, I sat ready to perform my own evaluation as judge.
The better the speaker, the more difficult the evaluation. Excellent speakers leave the audience spellbound and it is easy to complement performance. On the other hand, it is so difficult to figure out where there may be room for improvement. Only the best evaluators can effectively nitpick a seemingly flawless talk for one or two things to improve upon. The first contestant seemed to feel the pressure. She started strong but hesitated to make any clear critiques. She knew what we all know: this talk was good. The second contestant approached the podium on the stage with confidence. I felt like he must have noticed something the other contestant did not. Indeed, he delivered high praise for Arnold’s hilarious talk, but did manage to find two ways in which he could improve: checking in with his notes less often (or doing something to distract the audience while checking the notes) and using more varied hand-gestures. With these observations and suggestions, Evaluator #2, Jim Teague, won the Area 24 Evaluation Speech Contest.
Next, after a short intermission, the competition switched gears for International Speech Contest prepared speeches. For this part of the competition, three contestants spoke on the topic of their choice for five-to-seven minutes. The array of topics made comparison between the speakers difficult, but it was evident that each speaker was passionate about their topic. However, judges have ballots with a recommended scoring rubric that makes it a bit easier to ensure evaluations are holistic and comparable, even when it seems like there is no common ground between speeches. Topics of the talks were:
A call to action for all Pennsylvanians to support and improve their local school districts. The speaker listed very tangible actions that people can take to show educators and school systems that they matter, such as running for school board, registering as a substitute teacher, and simply showing gratitude to educators when you meet them.
The failure to connect the brain to the mouth at a prior speech contest left this contestant feeling defeated, but he did not realize how many people could relate to his moment of public embarrassment and, while it felt like a loss in the moment, he turned it into a winning speech that brought him to this contest.
Overcoming a heartbreaking speech impediment as a child and developing self-confidence by reading the syllable-by-syllable in the Bible and dictionary.
To compete at the Area-level, all contestants already won speech contests at the club level, so everyone is already a winner. This means that, even at this relatively low level, the talks are very refined and practiced to the point of pure memorization. This presents a challenge for judges, but it is a challenge all judges love! Ultimately, once all of the ballots were in (there were five judges in total), Sharon Joseph, the President of Laurel Highlands Toastmasters, won the Area 24 International Speech Competition with her touching story of overcoming her childhood speech impediment.
On March 26, 2022, Jim Teague (Evaluation) and Sharon Joseph (International Speech) will be carrying the flag for Area 24 at the Division C competition in Punxsutawney, PA. In addition, they each get a little trophy so, no matter how things go in March, they have something they can look at that reminds them of their success here, in Connellsville.
Trophies for the winners of the Area 24 Evaluation and International speech competitions.