2015 Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest.

Saturday, 22/8/2015

Today was the much anticipated...

HELP University Toastmasters Club's Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest of 2015! 

Our contestants and members, role players and guests came early this very morning in an excited and lively spirit. Chairs were arranged and everything was (pretty much!) in order. With our smiling guests, enthusiastic conversations and our pristine, ready-looking and suited-up contestants, we could tell that everyone in the room just could not wait for today's event to unfold!

President Pravena and TM Tory discussing their preparations. 

Our wonderful guests! 

Today's contest started off with Humorous Speech. We had 5 of our treasured Toastmasters members contesting and before they began, each had to draw their numbers from today's Contest Chair for Humorous Speech, TM Yi-Jia.

TM Bryan waiting for his turn to deliver his Humorous Speech!

And guess who was our first contestant? It was TM Bryan Wong! Delivering his Humorous Speech, "Workout Habits". Being the past champion of our contest, Bryan had a lot to live up to, and he certainly didn't disappoint us with his speech on jogging and exercising - Doing pushups. "1, 2, 3..." A pretty girl passes by. "51, 52, 53....". He used a lot of acting and movement to induce humour in his speech and judging by the laughters we could hear throughout his speech, the audience certainly loved it!

TM Bryan waiting for his turn to deliver his Humorous Speech.

The second speech, "Phd of B&C " was delivered by TM Vincent and in his hilarious and entertaining speech he talked about himself being a Phd holder of Blaming and Complaining. The best part? It was definitely when he was promoting his book on Blaming & Complaining, which he had written himself in his speech. From flipping the pages of his book to telling the audience to 'ignore the blank pages' and 'its a good book', 'you should buy', we had a good laugh!

The third speech was "The Day That Was " by TM James Kan. As usual, he used his jocular acting and his high pitch voice to induce humor into his speech. He shared with us a memorable day of his life, using a lot of acting and dialogue to create vivid pictures for the audience's imagination.

TM James adjusting his tie, and looking professional! 

The fourth Humorous Speech was delivered by our club member, TM Vanessa, whom we haven't seen for a pretty long time (glad to see you again Vanessa!). In her speech, she talked about her working experience, but with appropriate pauses throughout her storytelling, she successfully delivered a really humorous speech as well. Boy do we want to work at this fun and interesting Club Med now - the place where she worked!

TM Vanessa. (We love that Club Med shirt!)

And finally, our final contestant was our very own Division International Speech Champion of this year, TM Taufiq. He shared with us his amusing story of going to the US, and standing up for his "beard", as this is an identity he holds dear to but is often misunderstood.

We took a short break for about 25 minutes, and then it was our Evaluation Speech Contest.

The test speaker, Yves, is a truly amazing speaker. He would certainly have been the champion of our Humorous Speech Contest if he was one of our participants! He delivered a speech on his first day of primary school, sharing with us a variety of stories from multiple angles. I say, the most memorable part was when he joked about himself, where one of his friend stereotyped him as Asian and asked - "Do you know Kungfu?". It was a funny and beautiful speech about his experience on his first day of primary school, that it swept a huge wave of nostalgia to the audience about theirs!

Again, we had our contestants drawing their numbers from the Contest Chair for our Evaluation Contest, TM Tory, before the contest began. The contestants were expected to assess Yves' speech and share with him their personal opinions.

TM Tory as Contest Chair for the Evaluation Contest 

Our first contestant was TM Vincent whom complimented Yves on his structured speech. Followed by, TM James, who evaluated Yves' speech and commended his use of creative twist. Then it was TM Yi-Jia and TM Edward sharing with us many points about what they liked about the speech and what they thought could be improved on. TM Bryan's turn came next and he shared several really detailed, comprehensive and well elaborated points of improvement in his evaluation. Finally,TM Taufiq praised Yves' use of using a unique method - ICE, which is an acronym: Introduction, Content, Ending. He gave only one very helpful but simple point of improvement to the speaker. Yves could be seen nodding his head and intently listening to our evaluators giving their feedback in the audience throughout the competition. What a productive and enjoyable part of today's contest it was indeed to be able to learn something from each evaluators, and our dear Yves.

The event is coming to an end, and after handing out a few Certificates of Appreciation to our role players for today, it was time for the price giving session!

The Champion of the Humorous Speech Contest went to TM Vincent, with the 1st runner up, TM Taufiq and 2nd runner up, TM Bryan.

Not forgetting the Champion of the Evaluation Speech Contest which went to TM Bryan, with the 1st runner up, TM Vincent, and the 2nd runner up, TM James Kan.

Our handsome winners! 

Congratulations to everyone!

A huge thanks to our chief judge and his panel of judges. We would like to thank our Area J1 Director, Gerard A Peter for being our chief judge for today. And also, to our role players who have done so much in making today's event a success!

Our dashing and helpful role players - timers for today's contest!

But the event hadn't come to an end yet!

After the price giving session, we had everyone sitting together mingling, chatting, laughing and eating together while enjoying our delicious curry chicken lunch. Not forgetting, taking quite a number of fun and candid pictures together! It was truly a great day for HUTMC.

Till our next meeting and special event - the 2015 Area Contest!

We hope to see everyone really, really, soon.

Thank you for reading!

From the perspective of  VPPR, Vincent Sar and Secretary, Woh Yi-Jia.