Sunday, September 26, 2010

Division G Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contest - 25 Sept 2010

All went to hash....
That's what I could say after finishing empty handed at yesterday's Division Evaluation Contest. I was targeting for my maiden Division title in 5 years of Toastmasters. After huge disappointment in last years contest, I told myself that I must do it this year. After finishing 2nd in the area contest which enabled me to contest n the Division, I was confident of my 3 years preparations for the contest.

As the contestants were briefed, there were only 7 of them as one of the contestant could not make it. And when the draw went on, I got numb 3. In actual fact I will be numb2 since 1 f the contestant pulled out.

The contestants were Hadzrin (hot favorite), Jason (the guy who beat me in area contest), Jack Lim (AFC), Anna Hue (MII), Hashim Adnan (Money Mastery), Paul Tan(KL Adv) and myself.

The test speaker was Daurcus Ang from IREKA. She wasn't a speaker that easily evaluatable. Good job to the OC. Then we were quarantined for the preparation. Maybe, I'm not use to be one of the early evaluator as I tend to take time to cool down myself and then rehearse my speech. But not, I had only approximately 7 minutes for the preparation and rehearsal.

When I walked to the stage, I was still feeling the discomfort. But I took 2 seconds breath and started. I started with the structure of the speech and the content. When I came to style, It was already red light, thus I had to sum up the evaluation. But I had the perception that I could at least make it to top 3.

When the results was announced:

First Place: Anna Hue - Gave recommendations that was not logic, and ask to lengthen the speech by putting in more story.

Second Place: Jack Lim - recommended to have vocal variety but said that " i don't know how you want to improve it"

Third Place: Jason Moi - dramatised the evaluation.

Wen I heard the results, immediately i walked out of the room and headed back home.

Then I got to know that Hadzrin was 2nd place in Humorous Speech and Siok Looi (Speecom) was the champ whom talked about middle age person without adequate vocal variety and body language.

I don't know what went wrong. BUT I will not back out. As saying goes " QUITTER never WINS, WINNER never QUITS"

Something I realise from the contest:

1. The mike system didn't go well. Luckily none of the contestants used mike.

2. The Division Governor was the Org Chair, damn, none of the area governors gave a damn. 2 of the area governors were just spectators and another area governor was not even there.

3. The Contest Chair didn't do a proper briefing as she lost touch with Contest Chairing. Then what the F*** you became contest chair for?

4. The contest started 20 minutes late and not enough chairs to sit.

5. There were no reminders sent to me as contestant on the contest. My Area Governor, is really a politician who is power crazy.

I'm still considering wheter I should join Division G contest again.

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