Race to the Finish Line

- July 23, 2013

The last of our contest preparation meeting was themed “Race to the Finish Line”, in which we had several interesting speeches, a fabulous educational speech, and the final practice for evaluation.

Ikhwan delivered his BM7 last week, speaking about “Polyglot”. Polyglot is a multi-linguist, or someone who can speak several languages. He said that being a polyglot has many benefits. Better learning abilities, avoids Alzheimer, and also makes the polyglot become the citizen of the world, not just of one country, for he/she is able to understand the languages of many countries.

Suraj gave a really entertaining BM3 about his life as an Indonesian-Indian. Describing the funny things he experienced, making the whole room laughed hysterically to his humor. It was a very entertaining speech!

Ikuyo-san before her speech.

Ikuyo-san performed his AM in which she played a role of a Kumon area manager with Lia as the owner of a Kumon class. She did an interview, asked for the difficulties experienced, and basically gave useful feedbacks, as it was the aim for her AM. It really showed the multitude of Toastmasters range of public speaking!

Joyce delivered her BM5. Sometimes in life we will hear people saying things that could hurt us. Or there would be times when we have a bad day because of someone’s attitude. Despite the annoyance, there would always be a lesson behind it. Those occasions could make us more patient, calmer, and even try harder in everything we do. So, whenever someone treats you badly, say thank you, either literally or figuratively. For behind that experience, it would be a chance for us to better in many aspects.

Praw giving a token of appreciation to Viraj.

Dinesh delivering his educational speech.

Dinesh brought a surprise, his 11 year old student came and gave a speech about conquering the fear of speaking in public. It was amazing to see this boy spoke on stage. His English was perfect, like listening to an English audio tutorial. Plus, he spoke really well and showed awesome use of body language and vocal variety.

Viraj gave three tips to overcome the fear of speaking in front of many people. One, find people who can encourage you. This will motivate and encourage you to be brave and better.

Two, control your breathing to control your emotion. Inhale for 3 seconds, hold it for 3 seconds, then exhale it in 3 seconds. This exercise will make you feel calmer and refreshed.

The third, don't memorize your speech. Because if you do and forget, you'll go blank and will find it hard to focus again. Just remember the keywords!

It showed that Viraj had practiced a lot, trained by Dinesh himself, who has a school of public speaking.

If that little boy can do it, why can't us, right? All we have to do is just practice, practice, and practice!

A video of Viraj giving his speech (credit to Patricia) :

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Onto the educational speech itself, Dinesh spoke as the District Champion for evaluation. The speech was enlightening yet entertaining!

He gave three strategies for a great evaluation speech.

One, the 3 and 3 method. Just list 3 positive things about the speech and 3 things that can be improved. Say it by mentioning 2 positive things, then the room for improvement, and wrap it up with the best positive point the speaker has.

Second, remember the packaging. Many forgot that an evaluation speech is still a speech. So put an opening, body, and conclusion, always. It would be great if you can open and close it with a quote.

Last, but not least, don't touch the content, touch the format. The content of the speaker's speech will always change, but the way he/she represents it generally stays the same. So try to improve on the way the speech was delivered, not the content.

Check out the video of Dinesh's educational speech (credit to Suraj) :

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4p-CWslRubM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

For his ending message to anticipate the upcoming Motivators Contest, Dinesh said, "If you are a guy, consider this as a message from your brother. If you are a girl, consider this a message from your boyfriend. This is not about winning. Sometimes when you lose, you'll learn more than when you win".

So it's about doing our best, not just to get the trophy!

Praw giving a token of appreciation to Dinesh.

The evaluation for contest practice was joined not only by Motzers, but also visiting Toastmasters. Kelvin and Erwin were joined by Claudia from SCBD and Neeraj from JTC. Claudia said the practice felt close to a real contest and she got nervous because of it. Well, it was good that the contest practice could give the participants a taste of the contest, to prepare and get more familiar with the idea of it!