Monday, September 6, 2010

It is that time of the year - contest season @ Toastmasters

4th September 2010 - Humorous and Evaluation contests at our club - Wordsmiths Toastmasters !

I have been attending Humorous contests for the last 2 seasons, and this year i participated in the humorous contest! My participation in an Humorous contest is an achievement by itself considering the fact that i have no funny bones :)

Contests in Toastmasters always remain the same - great camaraderie and healthy competitive spirit, this year was no exception. There were 7 contestants in Humorous speech contest and 8 contestants in Evaluation contest. Before the onset of the contest, the contestants were seen grouped together sharing light moments and motivating one another.

The standards of the humorous contest was mind blowing. All the contestants were at their hilarious best, the audience had a beautiful evening laughing out loud. My experience of being at the contests affirms the fact that - "Contest brings out the best in you". The contestants varied from having 2 months to 3-4 years of Toastmaster experience, competing on par with each other.

Participation in this contest was yet another lovely experience, being my first in a Humorous contest, i had taken this as an opportunity to better certain areas of my speaking skills. I concentrated on experimenting with my body language and voice variation as i focused on being a little dramatic shedding my own imprinted style of delivery. Voila! It worked. My biggest take away from the contest was the compliments and acknowledgments i received from fellow toastmasters who did see an improvement and a change of style. Of course i did get suggestions on how i can improve further. Compliments from a veteran Toastmaster who has seen me delivery speeches from very early on made my day :) Lot of finer details had been recognized!

One suggestion that i have been receiving for a long time now is about my voice - the softness :( With this delivery i was able to bring variations when i delivered dialogues but a Toastmaster who saw me speak for the first time told me, i was soft. **Still**

A good friend of mine did a remarkable job with his delivery in the Humorous contest he was rightly bestowed the second place. Now! you have got to better this buddy ;)

The contest ended with smiles, hand shakes and hugs! Kudos to everyone who made the contest a memorable event, The contest chair, contest Masters, Judges, Role players, contestants and the audience.

Winners from Wordsmith

Humorous contest
1. Rajeev Nambiar
2. Krishnan chidambaram
3. Divya Palaniappan

Evaluation contest
1. Divya Palaniappan
2. Rajeev Nambiar
3. Krishnan chidambaram

Congratulations !!

We missed our Toastmaster friends, who are away on official assignments abroad. You were definitely on our minds!

1 comment:

Nimme said...

Congrats Divya!
How come 1,2,3 places were got by same ppl in different order?
Fixing ha?

Jus kidding!!!
Post some video Divya, would like to see the variation i am sure Vishnu would have taken one!