The Toastmasters 2014 Spring Contest Season is open now and running nearly at full speed. Most clubs and areas have had the contests and now the divisions are determining who they’ll send to the District competitions. April 5th was the District 59 Division F Contest and it was incredible.
Division F (Southeast Germany) is made up of five areas and
they were all represented at the contest. There were people from Frankfurt,
Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, all assembled in Mannheim for the
contest. I mentioned in my article about
the F3/F4 Area Spring Contest, that I really like the cultural diversity of
living in Europe. We had contests in French, German, and English yesterday.
Division F Governor- Regina Kroemer kicked off the contest by
mentioning that winners of the contest would be eligible to compete in the
District 59 Spring Conference in Krakow (May 16-18, 2014) and the winners from
the district would be eligible to compete at the Toastmasters International
Convention being held in August in Kuala Lumpar. She also mentioned that Division
F would become part of the new District 95 but that we’d still be Division F,
where we “Focus and have Fun”. District
59 Public Relations Officer- Ruxandra Balboa-Pöysti delivered and opening
greeting via video. While there is nothing like being there in person, it was
nice that we were still able to have a district office be part of our contest. Ruxandra
was also the French Target Speaker.
While there is always wonderful things going on at
Toastmasters and the different clubs, the two contest seasons really give Toastmasters
a chance to shine and to show all the skills that they’ve developed. It is also an opportunity to learn a lot from
some great speakers. In addition to the
messaged that mentioned in the F3/F4 Area Contest (since some the winners there
advanced to the Division F Contest) here are 3 new messages that I picked up:
·
You need to have special talents or tools to
help others and save lives
·
What if we could turn our weaknesses into our strengths
·
Teachers are all around us (often in unusual
people), are you learning the lessons their offering
I was really excited to see Rudy Morales put all his
Toastmasters years to work in his speech. In fact I first met Rudy at the
Division F Spring Contest in 2012, when he evaluated the target speech that I
gave that day. Another aspect of Toastmasters that I really love is watching
people grow and develop. You see time
and again that people will start out wanting to improve their public speaking
and not only do they become better speakers but they also become leaders and
better people.
Until you’ve taken part in a contest or watched one, you don’t
know all the work that goes into running a contest. There needs to be the contest chair for all
the contests, which can be challenging with contests being held in three
different languages. There is also a
large number of judges needed (including tie breakers) and this can be
challenging due to all the languages represented in the contests being
held. The timers play a very important
role, watching the time of each speech and evaluation and recording the final
time. A lot of contestants are
disqualified because they go over the time limits. There are various other
roles as well, but at whatever contest, people are needed in order that a
contest can be held. Even if you don’t participate as a contestant, you’re help
would be welcome at most any contest and the contests are usually a lot of fun,
so it is time well spent.
After two contest weekends, I’m getting excited about the
District 59 Spring Conference in Krakow.
If you can find the time to attend, I’m sure that you’ll have a
blast. Since District 95 will be
starting after the conference, this will be the last chance to meet so many
Toastmasters from all over Continental Europe. I hope to see you there.
Note: The picture above was taken at the contest before it officially opened and gives you an idea of all the hustle and bustle it is in my club's Flickr group. You can see more pictures from the contest there if you're interested.
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