We practise evaluating each other's speeches

On Friday 9^th March Benjamin Toastmasters had its Evaluation Contest.

There were two contestants, both quite new members, so congratulations to them for entering. The quickest way to develop in Toastmasters is to enter into anything you can and do as many roles as you can fit in. Yuyu and Robyn are both active members and it shows. They are improving all the time.

For the contest we invite a target speaker for the contestants to evaluate, and this was Ken. He gave an amazing Icebreaker (his first speech with Toastmasters) about growing up, breaking free from his parents, and getting his first job. You would never know it was his first speech because he looked confident, had great eye contact, had amazing vocal variety, and engaged the audience for the whole 4-6 minutes. Well done Ken!

The first entrant in the contest to evaluate Ken was Yuyu who acknowledged some of Ken’s good points, made a recommendation, and summed up with more good points. I think she is a confident speaker and her evaluation showed that she listened closely to Ken’s speech and is gearing up to improve her skills across the board. Yuyu isn’t frightened to try things and she engages with the audience, which makes her a pleasure to listen to.

Robyn was the second and final contestant. Robyn amazed me with the structure of her evaluation. Like Yuyu she made commendations, a recommendation, and some more commendations. Her recommendation was about Ken’s pacing - that the effect of this is that it can tire the audience because of the amount of information they are taking in. Slowing the pace would help. Robyn did a fantastic job of bringing this to Ken’s attention in a positive way, which is what evaluating is all about. I think it was the structure and detail of Robyn’s evaluation that made her the winner of this contest. So congratulations to Robyn, who, to her surprise, will be representing Benjamin Toastmasters on Saturday 31 March in the Area 17 contest!

Well done Yuyu and Robyn, both entering their first Toastmaster contest.

Ianon was toastmaster on the day and she organised the whole meeting. Thanks Ianon. It was a tough role and she did a successful job making sure all tasks were filled by improvising on the spot - which is a Toastmaster thing: jump in and help out whenever necessary.

Claudia jumped in and took on the role of Table topics master at the last minute and selected some of us to do an impromptu speech for 1-2 minutes. It is entertaining and a challenge. I talked about ‘Cats or dogs: which is best?’, and I decided cats AND dogs are equal as I’m an animal lover but then summarised that I am a dog person after all.

We had two brand new guests, Dat and Neil, who seemed to enjoy the meeting, and our Area 17 Governor Jenny was also there. She told us she is almost a Distinguished Toastmaster - a wonderful achievement. Well done Jenny!

Thanks to the judges on the day (their identities are a secret!).

Good luck Robyn - I think you will find entering the Area 17 contest a wonderful experience.

(Thanks to Lee Dean for writing this post.)