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Each year two main contest types are held within Toastmasters:
The Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest
(begins in September at the club level)
The International Speech and Table Topics
Contest
(begins in January at the club level)
The Humorous Speech and
Evaluating Contest
To qualify to participate in either the Humorous or Evaluation
speech contest, a member must be a member in good standing and belong
to a chartered club in good standing. This means the members dues
have been paid to the club and the club has forwarded its members'
dues to Toastmasters International. Yes, if you just joined your
club yesterday, you qualify to participate in these contests.
Humorous Speech Contest
Each speech is 5-7 minutes in length and can be about any subject
as long as it is your original material. Of course, the whole idea
is for your speech to be funny. But, the speeches that win have
some type of message too. Stand-up comedy routines usually lose
at contests whereas humorous anecdotes consistently help to win.
Here's another way to say this: At lower levels of competition,
the people who generally win are those who get the most laughs.
At higher levels, every speech "gets laughs" so speech
content and value plays an important role. I once counted 72 laughs
by the crowd for a winning humorous speech given at our District
conference.
Evaluation Contest
This portion requires what we call a Test Speaker, or someone to
perform a speech on any topic. The test speaker prepare a speech
that is 5-7 minutes in length, but the Test Speaker is typically
not timed during the presentation.
Then, each evaluator contestant is escorted out of the room. Each
is brought back into the room individually to conduct a 2-3 minute
evaluation. Whomever is voted to have the best evaluation wins the
contest.
Note: The Test Speaker should be recruited from another club for
a club contest, from another area for an Area contest and from another
division for a Division contest. This tradition helps to eliminate
bias and provide an equal platform for each contestant.
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The International
Speech and Table Topics Contest
To qualify to
participate in either the International Speech or theTable Topics
contest, a member must be a member in good standing and belong to
a chartered club in good standing. For the Table Topics section,
that is the only requirement. For the speech contest, however, you
must also have 6 speeches completed from the C&L manual (Basic
Manual). It is NOT permitted to allow a contestant to perform his
or her 6th speech as the contest speech.
International Speech Contest
Speeches are 5-7 minutes and can focus on any subject
as long as it is original. This means you can't recite Martin Luther
King's speech. Formerly known as the "Serious Speech"
contest, this event has evolved to allow for any subject or approach.
Long-time Toastmasters or wrongly informed contestants often make
the mistake of preparing a 100% "serious" speech because
that used to be the main objective of this contest. The winners
at Division and District levels of today almost always have at least
some humor, LOTS of energy and some type of inspiring call to action.
Table Topics Contest
This portion requires all contestants to be escorted
out of the contest room. They are individually brought back in to
respond to the same topic as their competitors for 1-2 minutes.
The contestant voted to have the best response wins the contest.
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Rising Through the Levels
No matter which contest is being held, the process of how
someone rises from the Club, to the Area, to the Division, to
the District is the same up until the District.
The first-place finisher at the club advances to the Area level
which usually consists of the winners from 3 to 6 other clubs.
The first place finishers of the Area contest advance to the Division
to compete against those who advanced from 4-8 different Areas.
The 1st place finisher at the Division advances to the District
conference.
If, at any level, that person cannot attend the next level of
competition, the second place finisher is offered the opportunity
to compete.
At this time, the only contestant for any contest that advances
beyond the District level is the winner of the International Speech
Contest.
This fortunate person will need to create a new speech and present
it at the Regional. If he or she wins the Regional, a new speech
must once again be created and delivered at the Finals!
Key Players in a Contest
What does a Chief Judge do? What's a Test Speaker? This page describes
all of the roles in detail.
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International