A Tiebraking Judge--Joint Area C1 & C4 Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contests

Area C1 Governor Yvonne Kao is a responsible Toastmaster. In order to organize the Joint Area C1 & C4 Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contests smoothly, she attended many area contests to learn the savoir-faire. The evening before the joint C1 & C4 contest, Yvonne called me to discuss the details for an hour. On the contest day, she bought 5 chicken hamburgers and 10 pan-fried stuffed buns to feed the contest chair Ben Chao and the tiebreaking judge and helpers (Hui- yu Chuang and Pamela Wang) at a pre-contest lunch gathering at Taipei 228 Memorial Museum before 11:30. With an extra hour of preparation, we went through contest proceedings, rearrangement of the venue layout and the sound system. By the time, the open was open, everything was in order. The joint Area C1 & C4 contest turned out to be one of the most successful area contests with laughter and joy.

Be it a joint Area C1 & C4 contest, there were 8 contestants from C1 and 1 contest from C4 at the humorous speech contest, 8 contestants from C1 and 1 contestant from C4 at the evaluation contest! I can't help reflecting upon the proper alignment of Toastmasters clubs in each area. It's not only about the club numbers, but only the club character (community, corporate, campus, government) and club quality (high, medium, low) in each area. Take Area C1 for example, there are five clubs, including 2 strong community clubs (Legacy & Galaxy) and 3 campus clubs (FJU, Soochow, NTUT). Under Area C4, there are three clubs, two community clubs (Excellence & Hualien) and 1 campus club (NTUST).

Eight humorous speech contestants had their strengths in their ways. Everyone of them had a chance to place at District level. It was not hard to imagine the keen competition with a full house of laughter from the beginning till the end. The champion speaker Toastmaster Michael Woods (Legacy) talked about how much he wished to get ride of his old cell phone and what his cell phone taught him in the end. The first runner-up Toastmaster Moses Mo (Galaxy) talked about his super idle. After his beloved wife got retired, she decided to join EMBA course diligently. The second runner-up Toastmaster Carol Liou talked about her experiences  with boys. It was a pity that 5 contestants had to miss the opportunity to represent Area C1 to compete at Division C contest, including Ingrid Hsueh's (Legacy) My Husband's Girls; Crystal Chien's (Legacy) Just Listen; Sophie Chen's (SCU) Culture Differences; Godfrey Wu's (SCU) Fish Tank & HOt Pot; Philip Botha's (NTUT) Sacrifice. 

The target speaker was Eric Chan from MOFA Toastmasters Club. He delivered his third speech (get to the point) about APEC Voices of the Future 2013 at MOFA Toastmasters Club Thursday noon, October 17th. Being his individual evaluator, I was happy to see Eric take the challenge as a target speaker at the Joint Area C1 & C4 Evaluation Contest to be evaluated by 9 evaluation contestants. I was happy to see his improvement of contents and delivery in three short days. And I saw with my eyes that speakers are made in an encouraging and supportive learning environment. The evaluation contest was competitive among the contestants. The official ballot of a tiebreaking judge was of use!

After the contest, I joined the Dream Parade in front of the Presidential Hall. Wow, how I felt excited and recharged when I saw energetic elementary school kids from aboriginal tribes all over Taiwan. The blend of costumes, floats, music, and participants of all ages reminded of the Mardi Gras in New Orleans when I was a graduate student between 1979 and 1983. I was overwhelmed at those at age of 60 plus ladies dancers in sexy dazzling colorful samba outfits It was a thrill to follow the parade crowd for an hour with drummers and dancers of all ages on Chung-shan South Road and Jen-ai Road. I looked forward to joining the samba beauty competition for ladies over 60 in 2015.