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Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Toastmasters International?|
Speech Contests
1. What's all this about speech contests?
In order to provide for people who enjoy competitive speaking, and in order to showcase the best, Toastmasters clubs hold speech contests as many as five times a year. Each contest starts at the club level and works its way up through Area and Division to the District.
The contests are:
* Table Topics - 1 to 2 minutes in length.
Impromptu speaking. All contestants are taken out of the room and brought back in one by one to speak on the *same* topic, which should be general in nature and not require specialized knowledge which some contestants might have while others might not. Since no contestant hears the topic before his turn to speak on it, you can judge their impromptu speaking abilities by the way in which each person's effort stacks up against the others.
* Evaluation - 2 to 3 minutes in length.
A target speaker gives a speech which all the evaluation contestants are to evaluate. The contestants are taken from the room and given five minutes to prepare their speeches and make notes. Then, their notes are taken away and they are brought back into the room one by one (at which time the contestant gets his notes back) to deliver their oral evaluation of the target speech. Since no contestant hears what another said about the target speech, the judges can compare the analytical abilities of the contestants.
* Humorous speech - 5 to 7 minutes.
Humorous speaking, which must be original. It's supposed to be a *speech*, not a monologue, and it MUST be original. It should also be "clean." So-called "blue humor" will get you zero points in the "appropriateness" column of the judges' forms. In other words, it should be a five-to-seven minute speech with a lot of humor value, but ALSO displaying good speechmaking abilities.
* International Speech - 5 to 7 minutes.
Any topic at all, so long as it's original. Can be funny, serious, whatever. It should be the best speech you can give, and it must be original. Did I mention that it must be original? Don't do what so many speakers do and crib at length from someone else's works and then expect that no one in the audience will smell a rat. The reason this contest is called "International Speech" instead of "General Speech" or "Miscellaneous Speech" is because it's the only one of the five contests that goes as far as the World level. Each August, winners from the eight Regions and the Overseas clubs (9 contestants in all) compete at the World Convention in the World Championship of Public Speaking.
2. How do you pick the winners?
Each contest has a set of rules which mandate originality and lay down the procedures. If you go over your time limit by thirty seconds, you're eliminated. If you go UNDER your time limit by thirty seconds, you're eliminated -- except in Table Topics, where you must speak at least one minute, no less. Out in the audience, there'll be a set of judges, scattered among the audience, each with a points form that they use to rate you against what a winning effort should be and how you stack up against the others. There's a different form for each contest, since each contest involves different skills.
3. What do I get if I win a contest?
At the club level, sometimes all you get is a handshake and some applause. By the time you've gotten up to Division and District levels, you're getting some fairly impressive trophies.
