Last Saturday Sep17, Park Beach Bowls Club in Coffs was the venue for the Oxley Division Contest (Humorous & Table Topics), bringing together clubs from Tweed Heads to Taree. It was nice not having to travel to this event, but rather have the entertainment come to us.
One thing about contests and conferences at higher levels (Area, Division, District) is you get to experience progressively higher standards, not only of speeches (prepared or off-the-cuff), but also of organisation, MC-ing and training. So whichever aspect of Toastmasters interests you, there is opportunity to observe, participate and learn. And at the end of the day it remains friendly because we’re all just ‘clubbies’.
Many of the 7 Humorous speeches were highly visual, acted out with gesture and expression. So for example, like after watching a movie, I can still replay in my head many moments from the speech “Five blokes and a boat-full of beer”.
The Table Topic was “Did I really do that?”. Most of the 8 contestants spoke about their achievements, but I got a chuckle from 2 exceptions who spoke instead about avoiding the pointing finger of blame, and of the blunders of DIY man
Next event is the District Semi Annual Conference in Gosford Nov4-5, which includes Humorous and Table Topic contests. District 90 is, roughly speaking, all NSW clubs north of Sydney Harbour. It consists of 6 Divisions, 30 Areas, 150 Clubs and about 3,000 members.