Great contest over breakfast

The Bacon & Egg Toastmasters delivered brilliant speeches in a contest over breakfast on Saturday morning, 15 March.

This Toastmasters Club followed their usual tradition of meeting over breakfast every second Saturday, this time around having five speakers compete for two titles in both the Club’s Speech Contest and the International Prepared Speech Contest.

From 8.30 am on Saturday, Toastmasters gathered and put their breakfast orders in after which the meeting officially began. Ori van der Walt, Glen Campbell, Khetha Cele, Derrick Yuh Neim and Malibongwe Mlonzi were tasked to speak in front of the audience in competition with one another. The evaluators were announced as Glen Campbell, Khetha Cele and Ori van der Walt. Campbell and Cele evaluated Mlonzi while Van der Walt evaluated Cele. Evaluating one another is another aspect of Toastmasters training and the evaluators are not to be confused with judges in the competition. Evaluating offers Toastmasters the chance to get constructive feedback on their speeches and gives them the responsibility to give fellow Toastmasters a fair listen and a constructive evaluation. Judges were appointed separately and were not familiar to the audience or speakers. The contest was attended by Toastmasters Lieutenant governer of marketing Paul Jensen and Area governor Niki Quinn. Sandra Cooper hosted the contest.

Ori van der Walt delivered a speech titled ‘Word Power’, in which she discussed the power with which words can hurt or inspire. Glen Campbell continued on a serious tone with her speech, ‘Drugs and parenting today’, after which Khetha Cele inspired his audience in a humoristic way with his speech titled ‘The voice in my head’. Derrick Yuh Neim conveyed a powerful argument for online education in his speech, ‘Online Education vs. Traditional Education’.

After a break during which breakfast was served, the competition continued with Malibongwe Mlonzi in his speech, ‘Out to get you’, where he spoke about the consequences of and battle against stress.

Jensen explained that the district goal with the Toastmasters in 2014 is to “have everyone reach their personal bests – each club and each member”. Soon after Ori van der Walt was announced the runner-up in both the in-club Speech Contest and the International Prepared Speech Contest, and Khetha Cele walked away with both titles.

Club public relations officer Glen Campbell invites Roodepoort residents to join them for breakfast every second Saturday, of which the next meeting is in April. For more information, contact her on 011 472 3043 or 082 465 0462. Alternatively, email her at glen@securifind.co.za .