International Speech and Table Topics Contest 2011

28th January 2011

This was the day that Sime Darby Healthcare Toastmasters Club held its Club level contest for the International Speech and Table Topics Contest. The contest was held at our usual meeting place, Conference Room 1 & 2 in Sime Darby Medical Centre Subang Jaya. Although this was an event that was organized every year, the fear and anxiety was always fresh. However, amidst the intense atmosphere, participants and guest were greeted with no less laughter than the usual.

It was a competition, but on friendly terms. Everyone had a good time and share the experience of the participants. Here we would like to acknowledge and congratulate our following members for participating and winning the respective contest.

The International Speech Contest

Our winner

Ms Choong Jay Vee

1st Runner Up

Ms Puva

Table Topics Contest

Our winner

Ms Bee Sie Wei

1st Runner Up

Ms Puva

Congratulations to all our winners, which will represent our club for the Area C3 International Speech and Table Topics Contest!!

We would also like to thank the judges and also the organizing committee for doing such a great job in the preparation and facilitation on that they. Indeed the success of this competition is the demonstrated result of team work among the the organizing committee. Well done!

January 8th, 2011

Taman Indrahana organised a workshop, 'Unlocking the keys to contests' at Sunway University. The speaker was DTM K Loghandran, a well-known toastmaster and 1st runner up at the Toastmasters' International Speech Competition, so Shirley and I figured attending the workshop would be really useful since speech contest season has just started.

The workshop touched on topics such as:

- How to have your friends evaluate your contest speech
- Points to consider when writing your speech (e.g. Is it fresh? Speech value? Likeability?)
- Common themes in stories (e.g. A journey to achieve a goal and discovering something)
- 'Beats', or the order of events in your story
- How to organize a table topics speech (Opening, Body, Conclusion, and its variants)
- How to apply things you know about into your table topics speech

DTM Loghan had the audience participate in a few activities, which made the workshop very entertaining as well as preventing the 100-odd people from dozing off. Overall, the 3.5-hour workshop was a good experience, totally worth sacrificing a Saturday afternoon for!