speak out - september 2013

CHENNAI TOASTMASTERS CLUBCHENNAI TOASTMASTERS CLUBCHENNAI TOASTMASTERS CLUBCHENNAI TOASTMASTERS CLUB

SPEAK OUT SPEAK OUT SPEAK OUT SPEAK OUT


SPEAK OUT SPEAK OUT SPEAK OUT SPEAK OUT –––– SEPTEMBER 2013SEPTEMBER 2013SEPTEMBER 2013SEPTEMBER 2013


SEPTEMBER 2013SEPTEMBER 2013SEPTEMBER 2013SEPTEMBER 2013

Speak Out – September 2013 – “Contests”

From the Editors’ Desk

“Contests” are always there, everywhere. It

starts from within & is present at all levels and

places. It matters how we perceive and use it

for Self development. Only when there is a

competition we strive to become the best. It

starts with simple approach of ‘can we deliver

better than my previous speech?’ to ‘will I be a

winner to the public Contests?’ conducted by

our Toastmasters Club.

Friends, lets understand one simple fact that

we are not alone & all of us are striving to

become better than yesterday as only then

there would be growth. Any person if we see

him striving for betterment that it’s an

indication that he/she is growing. That’s what

we intend to clarify through this newsletter.

We had been fortunate to get articles from our

Seasoned Toastmasters. All the articles are

valuable as it proves that the rules are simple

to become a better speaker & a winner.

We are sure that, you as a reader would agree

after reading all the articles that all of us have

everything to become a winner, only that we

need to apply the fundamentals which would

enable us to become a winner and helping us

to understand who we are through ‘Contests’.

Newsletter team:

Editors:

TM Hari Ramachandran

TM Guruvayurappan

Advisor:

TM Lakshmi Lakshminarayanan

Features

� A note from the CTM President - 05

� Winners are Grinners! - 07

� Six ways to start your speech evaluation in Contests - 08

� Contests are a treasure trove of learning - 11

� My experience - Preparation for Humorous speech contest – 12

� Mentor about Mentee – An Insight of the remarkable turnaround - 15

� The steep growth curve - 17

� Into Unchartered Territory - 18

� It all started from a Contest - 19

� Contest season - 20

� Learning's from Contest - 22

� September 2013 – Memories – 27

� Crossword Contest – 31


A Note from the CTM President

Results of Area G1 contest were announced just a while before I started writing this article. TM

Nagendra Bharathi from Chennai Toastmasters Club won the first place in Humorous speech

contest and TM Deepa Bharatkumar won the third place in Evaluation speech contest. TM

Nagendra Bharathi will represent Chennai Toastmasters Club in the Humorous speech Contest

in the Division G conference on October 20th

.

TM Harini Srinivasan from Chennai Toastmasters Club won the first place in Evaluation speech

contest and third place in Humorous speech contest. She is a dual member and will represent

Amazon Toastmasters Club in the Evaluation speech contest in the upcoming Division G

conference.

The reason why I chose the topic of this article – TICK THE CHECK BOX OF 100% PREPARATION

has three reasons. The reasons can be best illustrated through the examples of what unfolded

in the month of September and first week of October in the club meetings of CTM and the Area

G1 contest. They are

1) TM Bhavani Shankar, new member of Chennai Toastmasters Club delivered a CC 2

speech in the club meeting. Halfway through the speech, he forgot his lines and though

the audience encouraged him to go on, he felt defeated and left the Ruby Hall without

any trace. But the very next week, he came roaring back. He PREPARED for his speech

very well this time and gave an excellent bouncing back speech that inspired the

audience. He won the best speaker award that day and stole many hearts. His speech

title was NEVER GIVE UP.

2) CTM organized a “Beacon” of a meeting in the last week of September where all the big

shots of Toastmasters fraternity in Chennai participated in the Advanced speech

marathon meeting as Speech Evaluators. The lineup of the Speech Evaluators goes like

this DTM Lalitha Giridhar, TM Sridhar Ranganathan, TM Saravanan Santhanam, TM


Rajesh Natrajan, TM Harini Srinivasan and DTM Saro Velrajan. They evaluated the

wonderful speeches given by TM Lakshmi Lakshminarayanan, TM Deepa Bharatkumar,

TM Bharath Raja, TM Harish Katariya, TM Guruprasad and TM Rammohan Reddy. The

performance of the wonderful lineup of champion evaluators and brilliant speakers was

a treat to watch for the members of CTM and offered a lot of learning. The meeting and

the extra ordinary performance of all the Toastmasters I mentioned above pointed

again to one thing – PREPARATION

3) Area G1 contest! This platform provided plenty of opportunities for the big and small,

old and new Toastmasters to showcase their talents in Evaluation and Humorous speech

contest. As a last minute change, the excomm of CTM had to suggest the name of TM

Nagendra Bharathi to participate in the Humorous speech contest at Area level as TM

Prasanna who came second in the Club contest could not participate due to his travel

commitments. TM Nagendra came third in the CTM club contest. Until two days before

the Area contest he was not aware that he is going to represent CTM at the Area level.

But when he was informed that he will be one of the contestant at the Area level, he

took the opportunity with both hands. As the biggest surprise of the day, TM Nagendra

Bharathi won the first place in Area G1 contest in Humorous speech. TM Nagendra

Bharathi PREPARED well for the contest in the little time that he had and beat all the

odds to became a topper of the table

CTMers.. they say the more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle. In a contest

to act like Charlie Chaplin, the contestants were PREPARED so well that the original Charlie

Chaplin himself only came third in that contest. World Champion in Chess and considered to

be the best ever chess player in history Garry Gasprov was defeated by Vladimir Kramnik in

the world championships and became a new World Champion. Vladimir Kramnik was a

student in the Chess school started by Garry Kasprov in Russia.

It all boils down to one thing. If you want to become a champion in life..you need to break

buckets of sweat in preparation. We want to become a better communicator and a better

leader in our life and that is why we renew our membership everytime and continue the

membership at Chennai Toastmasters Club. CTMers, if you are serious about becoming a

better communicator and a better leader, tick the check box of 100% PREPARATION.

TM Sakthi Prasanna

President,

Chennai Toastmasters Club.


Winners are Grinners!

It was Sunday, 27th February 2011; the corridor outside Ruby Hall was steaming with activities.

There were Toastmasters talking in clusters; there were Toastmasters walking up and down the

corridor mumbling to them waving their hands in the air; there were Toastmasters shouting for

someone or the other! The otherwise generous Ruby Hall was packed to the hilt and didn’t

even have standing room and then, it began… ‘The International Speech Contest’ of Chennai

Toastmasters.

11 contestants – a good mix of some well-known veterans in this part of the Globe and some

newbie’s ‘first-timers’, every single one of them highly charged & waiting impatiently for their

turn in the Arena like the ancient Gladiators of Rome! When it all began, you could hear the

roar of the thundering Toastmasters near and far. If one contestant set the stage on fire,

another literally set fire to his own hand; if one was persuading with power, another inspired

with sincerity. It was one of the finest Contests I have ever had the pleasure to witness.

This brings me to two questions – What is a Contest, & why contest?

A Contest is described as a race, a conflict, a competition, a controversy and in several other

manners, but my favorite is ‘struggle for victory or superiority’; and this in itself answers the

question of ‘why contest?’ – establishing one’s victory or superiority! But hey, isn’t

Toastmasters supposed to be a mutually supportive forum? So, why contest?

We contest to face our greatest enemy and come out victorious over this enemy. Our greatest

enemy… “fear”; fear of failure, fear of being ridiculed and fear of public speaking! What I

observed that day on 27th February 2011 and in every contest that I have attended ever since is

that the contestants are NOT contesting against one another, but against their own greatest

enemy ‘fear’! That day those 11 contestants won the race; won the competition and came out

successful in their struggle for victory over their own fears. Each one of them today is not just a

great speaker invited by different organizations to speak, but each one of them has emerged a

Leader in his own right.

My friends, I urge you all to get out there and contest. You may not necessarily be the Trophy-

holder, but I assure you, every one of you will be a WINNER!

- By Srinivasan Kartikeyan.


Six ways to start your speech evaluation in Contests

“What a wonderful speech it was?” If this is how you start your speech evaluations, it is time for you to

learn some new techniques. Especially, when you are participating in Evaluation speech contests, where

there is going to be at least half a dozen other contestants who may also use the same phrase. It

becomes boring for audience to listen to the same introductory line repeatedly. In this article, I’ll share

with you some techniques that you can use to make the introduction of your speech evaluation,

memorable and attention grabbing.

1. Quote – Quotes are an interesting way to open your evaluation speech. It helps you to position

yourself as someone who is knowledgeable on the subject. Moreover, quotes are attention grabbing

too. For example, you can start your evaluation with the following introductory lines:

“It's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years” said Abraham Lincoln. Fellow

Toastmasters and guests, after listening to John’s speech about his social service activities, I truly felt

that he has lead a purposeful life and added “life to the years”… instead of just adding “years to the

life”.

2. Acronym – Starting your evaluation speeches with an acronym increases the curiosity in audience’s

mind and will help them to get glued to your speech. For example, a fellow toastmaster once gave a

speech about “diet” and organized my evaluation speech using the acronym “DIET”.

“John… You sold the idea of DIET to all of us … with your speech about DIET”


Then, I went ahead and structured my evaluation speech using D – Delivery, I – Information, E –

Entertainment, T – Transitions.

3. Theme / Analogy – You can make your evaluation speech memorable, if you use a theme to

structure the evaluation. For example, you can compare the speech against something or someone and

try to highlight the similarities during your evaluation. For example, a toastmaster once did a speech

about the tour that he did in Australia. I started my evaluation with the following introductory line

“Dear Jack… Your speech was like watching a Mani ratnam movie”… then I went ahead and said “You

were able to vividly describe the places that you visited in Australia. Normally director Mani ratnam

takes us to scenic locations like that in his movies. You were able to create a similar effect in front of our

eyes with your outstanding narration. For example, when you were describing your visit to the

waterfalls… I was able to visualize water pouring in front of my eyes… I was able to hear the birds

chirping, I was able to see those colorful butterflies flying all over …”

4. Humor – Using Humor is a powerful technique to start any speech – not just the evaluations

speech. For example, if a toastmaster delivers a speech about his wife’s spending habits, you can start

your evaluation with the following introductory line

“I’ve read somewhere… If you want to be a millionaire… start with a billion, and take your wife out for

shopping. Toastmaster Jack… this statement is very apt for you”

5. Reference to the speech – Creating the introductory lines of an evaluation by referring back to the

speech is an art. It helps you to position yourself as an expert and an out of the box thinker. For

example, if a toastmaster delivers a speech about “Going Green”, you can start your evaluation with the

following lines:

“Toastmaster Jim… Your speech not only taught us how to Reduce … Reuse… & Recycle… to go green…

but also to Reduce … Reuse… & Recycle… in delivering effective speeches.” and then you can go ahead

and say “Jim… You have reduced unwanted stage movement… which helped you in having an effective

eye contact with the audience. You had reused vocal variety several times in the speech to deliver your

statements with an impact… you have recycled our enthusiasm, by sprinkling humor throughout the

speech”


6. Asking Questions – Starting your evaluation speech with a question is an easy way of connecting

with your audience. For example, if a toastmaster delivers an inspiring speech about “Chasing your

dream”, you can start your evaluation with the following lines:

“Fellow Toastmasters & Guests… Raise your hand if you felt that TM Jerry’s speech inspired you to chase

your dreams. I don’t know about you, but I was completely inspired by his speech”.

In speech contests, I have seen contestants coming up with innovative methods to stand out in the

crowd when delivering speech evaluations. Some of the techniques that I've seen people using for their

introductory lines are:

• “Let us all give a standing ovation to TM Jacob for his inspiring speech”

• “TM Jacob … I used a speech judging ballot to score your speech. You know what … you got

90/100 on my score card. I see a World Champion of Public Speaking in you”

• “I fell flat like this… , when I listened to TM Jacob’s speech about bouncing ball”

• “… “I don’t think I would need any notes to evaluate TM Jacob’s speech… because, every word

of his speech is memorable to me. That was the power of Jacob’s speech.”

If you master the above techniques, you don’t have to start your evaluation with “It was a pleasure

listening to your speech today” or "What a wonderful speech it was". Like a soup that tastes better with

salt and spice, add some spice to your speech evaluation introductions.

- By Saro Velrajan.


Contests are a treasure trove of learning

From a contestants perspective –

Even though we say to others or to ourselves that winning or losing is not important but

participating is, a contestant always is anxious, tensed and stressed. When a contestant knows

one’s fellow contestants, the anxiety increases all the more or one tends to take the fellow

contestants for granted. From my experience of being a contestant, I always try to give a

speech that is better than my last one was. I put in my best effort and practice sincerely and try

not to get intimidated by other contestants. Before the contest, only when I feel that I am

completely prepared, I feel confident. Otherwise, I practice more.

After the contests were over, yes, I have been dejected when I couldn’t win a prize; but believe

me, long after the contest is over, I have introspected and have learnt a lot of lessons and they

are –

1. To ask the opinion of few people in whom you believe in. Those opinions and

suggestions make you a better speaker.

2. To analyze your own speech in an objective manner – I have felt that my speech in club

level was better than area level and vice-versa. Repeating the same speech can be

completely different at different occasions.

3. To wait for the next season – yes, hope is very important. One should not give up

immediately after losing a contest. I have seen many people quit TM after losing a

contest. One should always be hopeful.

4. Every contest is different. Every time there is a lesson in waiting.

Contest more, learn more.

- Sudha Rajesh.


My experience - Preparation for Humorous speech contest

Introduction:

I am a retired Banking / IT professional with the goal of becoming a professional speaker on

banking themes with humorous touch. As there is no retirement age for this profession, I

planned to take this as an opportunity to learn and earn. I attend CTM club meetings to

improve my speaking skills, read ‘Business line’ news paper and banking reference books to

update my banking knowledge and read P.G. Wodehouse novels to improve my humor skills

covering all these three areas of my objective.

Background:

Though I joined CTM club in the year 2007, I could not attend the meetings regularly due to my

official and personal commitments but renewed my membership without fail. I could do only

one project per year and I have completed up to project 5 till 2012. With the voluntary

retirement taken by me to pursue my passion, I started attending the CTM club meetings

regularly. I have taken the Speech craft course. It was a refresher course for me. Thanks to all

the speakers and TM Priyan in particular. I have attended the Humor training course. It showed

me varieties of humor. Thanks to the speakers and TM Shankar in particular. I would also like to

thank my Mentor Ramesh Daswani, my evaluators and DTM Karthik for their support and

suggestions.

Preparation for Contest:

I tried humorous speech for project 6 with the title ‘Those were the days’ describing my school

and college days. It was received well by the audience with laughter. That gave me the

confidence to participate in the humorous contest not with the winning objective but to test

my humorous skills again.

Anyhow I got the Second (Runners up) award. Thanks to the Judges and the audience.

I believe that the area in which you have experience would enable you to exaggerate that

experience and create laughter. As I have learnt meditation from good gurus and practicing that

though not regularly, I have taken that subject ‘My meditation journey ‘for this speech.


I have segmented the speech into six parts, childhood, primary school life, high school life,

college life, work life, family life as this helped me to organize my speech and remember the

speech in a proper order.

I thought about the serious incidents that happened in those segments, typed them and then

connected them with the subject, to give a twist in each segment for laughter.

I started with childhood days. I have seen that in some cases, the child don’t open her eyes

immediately on her birth and this makes the parents apprehensive. I used this serious incident

and gave a twist by connecting this to my topic by saying that ‘ I was doing meditation for that

five minutes and my meditation journey started from that moment ‘. This created little bit of

laugher in the audience.

My primary school days: Generally, during after-lunch session, the kids would not be able to

control their sleeping. I used this serious incident and gave a twist by saying that I was

practicing one of the types of meditation called ‘snoring mediation’.

My high school life: We all know that there are back benchers and front benchers and the back

benchers’ prefer the back bench to sleep. I used this incident to quote that I have moved from

‘snoring meditation ‘to non-snoring meditation’ so that teachers could not notice me sleeping.

My college days: As you know, these are the days when the girls and boys get attracted to each

other. Now days it started happening in school days itself. But remember that the title was

‘Those were the days’ from a middle aged man’s perspective. I twisted this incident by saying

that ‘boys meditated on girls and girls meditated on boys and I found a different dimension to

the meditation’.

Please remember that all along I was using only conversational mode with other characters like,

mother, doctor, and teacher etc, to bring out the drama in these incidents.

Then I got into the work life where I tried learning meditation through a guru. Here I gave a

social satire by saying that it was very difficult for me to get a guru as gurus prefer only female

disciples. This also created laughter among the audience. I briefly explained the process of

mediation (value addition to the audience) but then twisted with some comic unconscious

state.

Finally, I brought the family life where wife is the dominating factor and referred her as

commander in chief and the necessity of seeking her permission to do meditation at home. And

the description of our small home with several rooms without walls and these rooms are

identified by the activities happening there during day and night. Little bit raw but created

laughter with the matured audience.


I wanted to end with a positive note on mediation as meditation is a good practice to be

followed. Hence I concluded by saying that after my mediation (for me, it was sleeping), my

face was fresh but with oiliness and hence my wife said that my face was glooming and that

was because of the meditation and looked at me with lot of respect. Hence I decided to

continue the meditation to make subconscious mind meet the super conscious mind for

achieving that blissful state of meditation.

Lessons learned:

As I tried to cover all the six segments in those five to seven minutes in a fact pace, I could

notice that some of the punch lines were not noticed by the audience. This was also reflected in

the feedback I got from my evaluator, mentor and few members. Hence I decided that in future

I have to reduce the content to suit the time limit and practice speaking at a slower pace to

avoid ‘ah’s as well.

Suggestions:

With my little bit of experience in humorous speeches, I would suggest the members to take

the subject from your experience so that you can twist them to bring laughter. I found that

when I did my project 7 with the title ‘Freedom in 21st

century’, I found it little bit difficult to

twist the events as I have not participated in freedom movement or any other movement;

Hence I managed to twist the language to bring the laughter, but I was not satisfied with that

speech as I was with the speech ‘My meditation journey’ and ‘Those were the days’. Anyhow

there could be different perspectives from different people as humor is a vast area with lot of

scope for each and every one with their unique ideas.

Conclusion

I would conclude by saying that I am putting all my efforts to make this journey of me

becoming ‘a professional speaker on banking themes with humorous touch’, a successful one.

Though I am a non-believer in God and Religion, I regularly ask my wife to pray for my health.

With all your blessings, I continue my journey. Those who are interested in reading my business

poems in English with humorous touch may visit my webpage

http://www.businesspoemsbynagendra.com. This is available in e-book and print format.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble links to purchase this book are also available at this place.

Thank you all TMs.

By Nagendra Bharathi (Second (Runners Up) Award winner)

Mentor about Mentee – An Insight of the remarkable turnaround

Q1. As a Mentor to Bhavani what were your role between the 2 speeches that we are referring

to 408th

& 409th

CTM meetings, How did you see Bhavani’s potential to make a turnaround in

his delivery?

Mentor: on the night of the 408th meeting I had a chat with Bhavani over the phone and he

was understandably dejected. I tried to soothe his nerves by sharing my own experiences of

delivering speeches which did not come out well. I sensitized him to the fact that it was

perfectly OK to fail within four walls of the ruby hall as these "failures” would prepare us

extensively for the next round of success. I advised him to focus his attention on the

preparation and not unduly worry about performance.

The next day morning at 6:30 AM, I received a call from Bhavani

informing me that he would like to give the speech next week!! I was dazed by his confidence.

On one hand I admired his courage and determination to bounce back from a tough situation;

on the other I felt that he should attempt his speech after some more practice. However

Bhavani was insistent and committed to practicing the speech multiple times before delivering

it. I could see a huge potential in Bhavani, a firm commitment and a burning desire to put in his

best foot forward in-spite of not having completed the speech in the previous attempt.I vetted

the speech, made minor modification and we decided to freeze the speech by Monday itself. I

advised him to practice the speech at-least 20 times over the next 4 days (Tuesday to Saturday).

He went a step ahead and practiced the speech 30 times and the results speak for themselves.

Q2. What’s your advice to new Toastmasters who wants to overcome their fear and become a

better speaker?

Mentor: To become better speakers, my advice to new toastmasters would be:


a) Attend toastmaster meeting regularly and keep taking different roles .Toastmasters is an

ocean and if you bring a spoonful of sincerity and commitment, you will take back a spoonful,

bring truckload of sincerity and commitment and take back truckloads of learning!!

b) For all your speeches clearly write a script, have it reviewed by your mentor and practice it

multiple times. Practicing multiple times instills confidence in the speaker and performance is

bound to improve.

c) Attend other club meetings so that you can get exposure in different environment and with

different set of audience

d) Set education goals for yourself; share it with your mentor and VP education and work

actively to achieve them.

Q3.How new toastmaster’s can make a difference through Contests?

Mentor: New toastmasters must participate in contests as it

a) Offers a steep learning curve to enhance their leadership and communication skills as they

get to watch the top speakers in action at the same time

b) Gives them a feel of the contest ambience which is very important for preparing them for

future participation.(Answers by Shan Kar, Bhavani’s mentor).


The steep growth curve

Come contest season, it's always fun. It’s all about educational sessions, organizing the contest

and contesting. Even if you experience a little bit, any of these 3, it is a lot of learning, then

imagine a combination of all the 3 - you will experience a steep growth curve.

That is exactly what happened to me. I joined Chennai Toastmasters Club (CTM) in Dec 2012.

The International Speech Contest at the club level happened in March. The minimum

requirement to contest is CC6. Just because I wanted to qualify to contest, I fast tracked my CC,

and was done with CC6 in 2 and a half months and exactly a week before the contest.

I wouldn’t say that I prepared very well, but I should say that I did my best at the contest.

Though I was nowhere close to winning, I was very happy that I was in the race.

Whether we like it or not, everywhere we go and whatever we do, there is competition. At

school/college, competitive exams for admission, at work, when you start your own company,

when you have kids: competition is all around us. How we deal with it - do we succumb to it or

do we use it as a platform to grow, is what is ultimately important.

This whole concept of competition and competing took over me, until a realization dawned,

when I contested by last season. At school, my only aim would be to make sure that I am first in

the class as opposed to learning things. Until the day I witnessed my first contest at CTM,

competition was all about winning for me. If I think I won’t win, I would never participate.

But things changed. Realization dawned on me when I participated/witnessed my first contest

at CTM. There was no tension in the air. People were least worried about winning. There was

more of fun and laughter. It was like a festival. People were encouraging each other, mentors

motivating their mentees, mentors and mentees contesting together and at the end of it all,

everybody being happy irrespective of whom the winner is. What did I learn that day?

Comradely Organize Nurture Thrill Encourage Support Treat

Now contests to me, have barely anything to do with winning.

- Lakshmi Lakshminarayanan


Into Unchartered Territory

I seriously learned a lot while contesting in Chennai Toastmasters where every week it is like

witnessing a contest. Participating in a contest is like giving 10 speeches. You will put so much

effort in preparation and practice. That will far exceed your comfort zone and tremendously

boost your learning curve. A few new things I came across during the contest season are:

Blogs:

Blogs are the Free Backdoors which leads you in acquiring the wisdom of a person. All you have

to do is, search in the Google under the blog tab. I have found great blogs of many World

Champions who tell the "secrets" of public speaking. In Saro’s Corner (a blog by DTM Saro) has

useful tips and checklist for both communication and leadership skills.

Multiple Mentors:

Normally every toastmaster is assigned "a" mentor. But, during contest you can send your

script to many people as you like for the feedback, both inside and outside the home club. Be it

toastmasters or non-toastmasters. Taking inputs from all of them and blending it in best ratios

to create great speeches.

Slow Cook:

A food cooked slowly in lower temperature over a long time tastes better. Similarly, a speech

prepared slowly for a month will taste delicious to audience. Let us see the difference. When

you prepare for a speech spending 4 to 5 hours for two days there will be very little time for

improvisation. When longer the time period like spending 10mins each day for a month,

incubation of ideas happen and cool new things will unfold in your speech. It adds high flavor

and spice to your speech if you cook it slowly. Now for the next speech let it simmer.

So, I can see you are warming up for the International Public Speaking contest. Best wishes to

our Contestants.

Thanks and regards – Bharath Raja.


It all started from a Contest

My Toastmaster journey started due to a contest. Yes, first time I opened my mouth to give a

speech as a member of CTM was during the Club level Table Topics contest which held during

Feb 2013. It was a great beginning for me in CTM, as a new member I gave my first impromptu

speech and I was the first contestant too. I had no clue what the club level winner will do next

and I had no idea about the purpose of organising a contest, all I thought was that I should take

the opportunity and speak for two minutes in front of the audience. Those two minutes

elevated my confidence level and helped me in delivering my Ice Breaker Speech.

The second contest which I witnessed was district level contest 'Ovation 2013'. Ovation was all

about plethora of things like tons of flawless speeches, Education sessions, Fun night and most

importantly a great networking platform.

The third contest which I witnessed was the Humorous speech and Evaluation contest of CTM.

Thanks to the VP-E of CTM and the Contest chair who gave me the opportunity for playing the

role of 'Contest Master'. It was a great experience, unlike the role of 'Toastmaster of the Day',

contest master doesn't have the liberty to pass comments about a speech and no voice

modulation is permitted when announcing the introduction of a speaker, I got to know how

serious a contest is.

A week back I was invited as a target speaker for an area level contest, I gave my CC4 speech in

front of a new audience. My speech was evaluated by 6 to 7 evaluators in various perspectives

and it was a new experience for me. As a token of appreciation I was also given a book "Kiss

that Frog". With division and district contests lining up, I am sure it will be a season of abundant

take away for Toastmasters. By Anirudh N.


Contest season

The contest seasons have begun and there is excitement and anxiety in the air .Excitement

because we get to witness electrifying competition amongst well prepared contestants who

have a burning desire to lay their hands on the coveted trophy. Anxiety is attributable to the

proverbial “butterflies in stomach” feeling that all the contestants have to go through. Over the

next couple of months, toastmasters all over the world would stand witness to contests held at

club, area, division and district levels as best folks wade through different levels to win the

coveted trophy .Here are a few tips on how we can maximize our learning’s from the contest

season

Participate: - The biggest inertia for not participating in the contests is treating the contest

speeches as very different from the usual toastmaster speeches. We often end up waiting for

the elusive “best speech to ace the contest” and make the BIG mistake of not participating in

the contest. The mere act of participating in the contest empowers us with a steep learning

curve with respect to communication and leadership skills which raises our future performance

to a great extent. Some of the greatest feats in history have been achieved by just showing up

for the game and overcoming the inertia to back out by the last minute

Compete with your potential: As a contestant we feel anxious on hearing a brilliant speech

rendered by other contestant and start feeling nervous and this directly impacts our

performance. The one liner’s and punches you prepared for the last 3 weeks seems to be

wasted as other contestants are performing much better. RELAX….. The right approach to

contesting is to compete with your own self and ensure that you keep raising the bar every

time you go out and deliver a speech. You have little control over how the other contestants

are performing. Once you adopt this attitude to contests, you would be surprised to witness

that anxiety levels are coming down and excitement levels shooting up. The ultimate victory in

competition is derived from the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your best and


that you have gotten the most out of what you had to give. Celine Dion’s words are worth

mulling over to drive home this point “I'm not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal

is to beat my last performance”

Focus on preparation and not on performance: - This is key learning that we can take from

contests. On the D-Day of contest, you may have little control over most things – the crowd, the

reaction of the crowd, performance of other contestants. The only thing which is in your control

is on your preparation .Focus your complete energies on the preparation and others things

would fall into place. Performance anxiety on the contest day has a negative effect on your

performance

Be a role player: - It is a common mistake to restrict our involvement with contest to that of a

contestant. In fact the real learning takes place when you take up roles in the area /division and

district level as you get a chance to showcase your leadership skills in a larger forum

Manage fear: - You have to accept the fact that as a contestant and as a role player or as an

organizer the proverbial “butterflies in the tummy feeling” cannot be avoided. Fear is an

intrinsic part of our lives and stems from the uncertainty related to performing at a big level

.You cannot avoid fear but you can definitely manage it .Use fear to shore up your preparation

but do not allow fear to affect your performance. The best way to handle fear is to confront it

and the joy of overcoming fear is incomparable. You should be too positive to be doubtful, too

optimistic to be fearful and too determined to be defeated. – By Shan Kar.


Learning's from Contest

It is always fun to be a part of the contest whether it is at school, college, sports or even

toastmasters club. This time I would talk about my experiential learning's from a toastmaster

contest which held recently in my parent club Chennai Toastmasters.

As you all know contests mean serious business in toastmasters and especially if you are

holding a contest for the lighthouse club of Chennai - Chennai Toastmasters Club, the

expectations are pretty high. There is a peer pressure of excellence alongside the excitement

and ecstasy. I was experiencing these emotions more fiercely as it was my first time to hold the

contest or even attend one, I was a newbie by then. Now let’s move to the crux of the story.

I was thinking everything will go along well as I was well ahead of time and there should be no

problems at all, but as you know things never go as you have planned else I would have been

the president of our country.

Learning no 1: Avoid being Overconfident

Just because you are from IIT and you have managed other big events you can’t just do this

event with the snap of fingers. This I got to know when Area Governor Sudha Rajesh gave me

lessons about “How to organize a Contest".


Actually I was also told to visit the emergence but Out of my laziness I overslept and i was not

able to go to the emergence. I was just wondering why these valuable things happen to be at 9

in the morning. This was really very difficult task for me. Anyhow with the bit of scolding and

angry looks, I was brought down to earth by Sudha. So the first lesson was that you should

avoid being overconfident about your skills and start taking up the tasks one by one. She gave

me a big task list & I kept noting down which continued…

Learning No 2: Everybody Avoids Roles in Contests

As soon as I announced that there are many roles available for the contests people started

avoiding it. I wouldn't complaint about this as few people who voluntarily came forward but

most of them wanted to avoid the contest citing various other commitments, on the contest

day. So first week, i asked gently, politely on Face book & email, taking help. Everybody was

hesitant, why should I take, what would happen and all that stuff, I was just amazed at the way

people were behaving. After that very few Toastmasters took up the role. Then the date of

contest was nearing. I even announced in the meeting. That some roles were filled but not to

my surprise most of them pulled out. Those who said that they were busy and won't be coming

turned up.


It must be looking funny to you, indeed it looks funny to me as well when I am writing this

article but when it was going on and it was really very frustrating.

Learning No 3: We Indians never do Anything in Time

This is an interesting one, I had notified all the role players as well as participants to come 1

hour ahead of the meeting. But as the learning says nobody came on time. Some people

thought if contest starts at 2:30 then why we should come an hour early and some thought if I

have to go 1 hour before then reaching at 3 will be great as I would be 1 hour ahead of usual

meeting time that is 4 PM. One more disastrous event happened. As Participants quit in the last

moment. Whole schedule went ahead of time and because of that the second contest had to

start a bit early. And because of that One deserving participant TM Shankar lost his chance as

he was exactly on time as per schedule but we were unusually ahead of time creating another

time based issue. So What I learned was, you must do the hard work of reminding everybody

that they have to reach on time. I did via SMS, Call and email but it was barely noticed. Next

time I am planning to go home and invite so that I get a free coffee as well as some snacks. This

was pretty hard learning but gave me lot of lessons.

Speak Out

Learning No 4: You feel that everybody reads your email, but nobody

even bothers what's inside it

It takes almost half an hour to draft a good email regarding the schedule, event description,

motivation and you expect that your email will be read by everybody, But Nobody reads. In this

world, some Toastmasters email are put in spam or get filtered, at

replies and encourages. Same thing will happen to newsletter in future I guess. People will clap

for it, Oh yeah it has been released, but my article will be read only by the editors and they will

publish it. But nobody else will read

should we bother to comment? Our 3

toastmasters this is not only your problem but problem of all Indians, we read, we copy and we

don’t comment or even give credit. I knew this long back, but unread mails of toastmasters

being deleted just reinforced my beliefs. As I wrote everything in email and then they would say

‘I didn't get your email!!’ Did you really send it?



even bothers what's inside it



world, some Toastmasters email are put in spam or get filtered, at times rarely somebody



publish it. But nobody else will read it. Even if they read, nobody will comment on it. Why

should we bother to comment? Our 3-4 words comment won’t change anything. Don't worry


n give credit. I knew this long back, but unread mails of toastmasters


‘I didn't get your email!!’ Did you really send it?




times rarely somebody



it. Even if they read, nobody will comment on it. Why

4 words comment won’t change anything. Don't worry


n give credit. I knew this long back, but unread mails of toastmasters



Learning No 5: Ask for Help and it will be given to you

This I realized very late during the contest preparations but it did help me as I sought out for

help. Selva, Lakshmi, Harish and Sudha. These three toastmasters came forward in helping me

in conducting this event. I bored them with my question but they still gave me interesting

answers. I never found a platform to thank them. Hopefully they would read this article. I would

like to ask them to come out for a treat. It’s really cool of me to give treat, I always ask for a

treat but I never give one. If I am giving that means that something good might have done by

them to me.

It was fun to write this stuff. Thanks Hari for reminding me that I have to write something. You

also did play a good role in our contest.

I would also acknowledge all the role players who came forward and helped me in my new

adventurous event.

This article has been a bit informal, but I really wanted to write. So I wrote. It depends on you

how your perceive it.

Just do read :)

-By Kush.


September 2013 – Memories:


Photos of Area G1 Contest Winners Evaluation Contest Winners

Winner: Madam Toastmaster Harini Srinivasan (Amazon Toastmasters Club)

Second Runner: Madam Toastmaster Deepa Bharathkumar (Chennai Toastmasters Club)


Photos of Area G1 Contest Winners Humorous Speech Contest Winners

Winner: Toastmaster Nagendra Bharathi (Chennai Toastmasters Club)

Second Runner Up: Madam Toastmaster Harini Srinivasan (Amazon Toastmasters Club)


Congrats to all the Winners & Participants and also for the Organisers for making the event

grand success.

Chennai Toastmasters Club Members at Area G1 Contest.


Crossword:

Across

2. Winner of the club level humorous speech contest

in 2012

4. Winner of Area G1 International speech contest in

2013

5. He was the last person who represented CTM at the

district for International speeh contest

Down

1. Winner of Table Topics contest at

the club level in 2013

3. In 2012 evaluation contest this

CTMer went to the Dtstrict level

“Contests are the path ways to succeed in Public Speaking & Leadership development”

“Let us all CONTEST & be a WINNER”

1

2

3

4

5


To know more about Chennai Toastmasters club

To know more about Toastmasters visit the following link.

http://www.toastmasters.org/

To view Toastmasters magazine online visit the following link.

http://www.toastmasters.org/magazine.aspx.

speak out - september 2013

Documents

seasoned toastmasters

amazon toastmasters

humorous speech contest

evaluation speech contest

speech evaluation

contest season

crossword contest

contests page