Area 83 Contest

Last night I attended the Area 83 contest.  If anything, it was even less well attended than Area 81.  Only 3 humorous speakers and one evaluator.  I do have to admit that the facilities were first rate (NetApp's cafeteria).

I'm hoping that the Area 84 contest next week is well attended.

Moderately Disappointing

This evening, I attended the Area 81 fall contest.  This area is one of the struggling areas in the area.  Although attendance was normal for an Area contest, there was no Humorous Speech contest, and only two Evaluators for the Evaluation contest.  I know that my wife's old club, PPD is one of the clubs belonging to this Area, and hasn't been meeting for the last year.  Not sure of the other Area 81 clubs.

Practice Makes Perfect

Tonight, I attended the Techtalk Toastmasters Evaluation Contest, where I was the target speaker for the second time this week.  Same speech (Paint the Wall) as before... fine tuned based on the comments I received at Power NAAAPsters.  Tonight, I learned more.  I begin to realize why professional speakers are so smooth.

Am I Getting The Hang Of This?

Tuesday, I presented not one, but two speeches.  What's more, they were two different speeches.  Best of all, I performed both speeches without notes.

OK, I did have notes for the first speech.  This speech, titled "Me, Myself, and I" was performed during lunch at Schnieder Electric Toastmasters for my Ice Breaker speech (2nd CC).  The outline notes were printed on the back of three sheets of paper with the words "Me", "Myself", and "I" in 144 point text (differing fonts).  I didn't have the entire text written out, and didn't really refer to the outline.

The second speech was this evening as the Target speaker at the Power NAAAPsters club Evaluation Contest.  This speech, titled "Paint the Wall" was performed without any notes (the printed sheet was sitting on the seat of my truck).  It went pretty well, and I will present the same speech on Thursday at TechTalk Toastmasters club Evaluation Contest.  I will also be having the speech evaluated then for speech # in the CC manual.

Fall DEC

Yesterday, I attended the District 37 2011 Fall DEC (District Executive Committee).  First time that I've gotten to one.  Interesting, and I got to meet a lot of my fellow Toastmasters.  A lot of District business was conducted, much having to do with the new procedures related to the Toastmaster re-branding.

I also spoke with Naomi Takeuchi, who is no only the District Lt. Gov of Education and Training, but is also a member of one of my clubs, Power NAAAPsters.  She is also the club Contest Master, and she asked if I could step up as the speaker for their Evaluation contest.  Of course I agreed, since I am already scheduled to do the same thing on Thursday for TechTalk.  I'll use the same speech, titled "Paint the Wall".

First Fall Contest

Yesterday afternoon, I attended B.C.P. Toastmasters fall Humorous Speech and Evaluation contest.  I sat as the chief judge, a role I haven't had before.  Our contest was very well represented, with five speaker and three evaluator contestants.  This is a far cry from the same contest three years ago where B.C.P. had one contestant... me... for both contests.  Kudos to all the contestants, and its great to see such enthusiasm of our members.  The speeches and evaluations were great!

Looking forward to the next contests!

Area Council and Gossip

Wednesday night, I met with some of the club officers from several of my Area clubs.  It was great to sit down with representatives from several clubs to trade ideas and begin to coordinate activities.

Thursday afternoon, I presented the final manual speech needed for my AC Gold.  The speech, titled GOSSIP, was Speech #4 out of the Interpretive Reading advanced manual.  Gossip was an adaptation of a play I found on the Internet, portraying the operations of a small town newspaper.  I thought it went pretty well, although I could always wish I had practiced (more).