A brilliant District 91 convention on Saturday 5th November, filled with insight, meeting old and new Toastmasters of which some had traveled from other continents and of course laughing at some great jokes.
Thien Trang started the morning with very funny and heartfelt keynote speech on her journey to becoming this year’s District 91 Speech champion and her success in the world finals in Washington (placed in top 10 in the world!).
In the contests, due to huge membership growth over the year, District 91 has now expanded to 7 Divisions, each one providing a Humorous Speech champion and a Table Topics champion – these champions have won their respective Club, Area and then Division contests to get to this final. One of our members, Leanne had succeeded through all these rounds in the Table Topics contest and we were cheering her on to go for the District title.
The quality of speeches this year was outstanding and huge congratulations to everyone who took part. The results are as follows:
Humorous Speech Contest competitors (in speaking order)
- Richard Day – Education, Education, Education
- Ian Hawkins – A big, little country
- Angela Meringolo – I am a single lady
- Sean little – TRM made me a man
- Dallas Leigh-Martene – Jump
- Mark Pratt – Top tips for top public speaking
- Gareth McHale – Flop
Table Topics Contest Competitors (in speaking order – with the impromptu topic: “With culture obsessed with youth, is there a place for age and experience?”)
- Chris Boden
- Leanne Wenham
- Daniel Broadbent
- Jamie Jai
- Steve Dance
- David Saer
- Andrew Klimaytys
And the results for the Humorous Speech Contest:
- Winner: Dallas Leigh-Marlene
- Second Place: Sean Little
- Third Place: Gareth McHale
And the results for the Table Topics Contest:
- Winner: Andrew Kilmaytys
- Second Place: David Saer
- Third Place: Steven Dance
Whilst she didn’t place, it was a great performance from Leanne who did our club proud.
The next conference will be in Southampton 5th-7th May 2017, hosting the International Speech and Speech Evaluation Contest. Details will be sent out soon.
