AREA Z3 INTERNATIONAL SPEECH & TABLE TOPICS CONTEST

Having been distracted by my trip to China during the March holidays, I came back realising with great alarm that preparations for the Area Z3 Contest have been left pretty much unattended.

Thankfully my good friend Michael Wee had already agreed to be chief judge earlier on and NOL had graciously agreed on the use of their lecture theatre for the event.  NOL President Peter was a real god-sent. He swiftly attended to all my pleas for help by providing names of club members to be appointment holders and even agreeing to sponsor drinks for the event!

Division Z Governor Sau Ying has already ordered the trophies and all I had to do was collect them from Queensway Shopping Centre and pay for them.  Next was buying the tokens and getting them wrapped.  That was promptly settled within two hours during my lunch break. 

One day before the contest, I went down to NOL to hand over the tokens, trophies and cash for food to Lee Hong as I knew I could not arrive early for the event.  On the day of contest, I arrived feeling flustered and out of sorts.  But I was immensely relieved to see that everything had been set up and sorted.  Jerry from NOL had even printed all the contest forms! Only problem was I couldn't find my script.  How on earth was I going to read out the contest rules now?

Thankfully Michael had brought the contest rules manual along and I could read from there.  The rest of it was improvisation.  So much work goes into organising every contest but not many people realise that. It is great to be part of a winning team where everyone chips in to play their part in ensuring the success of a toastmasters event.

The contestants showcased their informative, insightful and inspiring speeches, as well as intuitive, intelligent impromptu speeches on the topic "Winning can be defined as the science of being totally prepared."  We heard about 'encouragement', 'aging is living', 'the greatest obstacle to success', 'chase your dream' and 'pop and blow'.    We listened, we laughed and we even cried!

Here are the results of the AREA Z3 INTERNATIONAL SPEECH & TABLE TOPICS CONTESTS 2010:

INTERNATIONAL SPEECH CONTEST                              
Champion: Kok Yee Keong (Chong Pang)
1st runner-up: Christine Lim (NOL)                            
2nd runner-up: Kenneth Tian (Katong)                     

TABLE TOPICS CONTEST
Champion: Lee Hong (NOL)
1st runner-up: Christian Immanuel (AIA Alexandra)
2nd runner-up: Grace Tan (Katong)

The Area Champions will represent AREA Z3 at the Division Z ISTT Contests 2010 on Sat 17 APRIL 2010 at Kampong Glam CC from 2-5pm.