On Saturday, March 14, I officially became a member of Beijing Advanced Speakers Toastmasters Club.  On Saturday, March 28, I competed in our club’s International Speech Contest.

Contestants Tegory, Thomas, Mike, Gamp, Molly; Contestmaster Keith.

With around sixty spectators, the five of us competed for one spot in the Area Contest.  The speech has to be betweeen 4:30 to 7:30.  Anything under or over those times means disqualification. 

Because it is an advanced club, every speaker is very fluent and understandable speaking English, on top of having very solid, inspiring messages.  Somehow I got lucky and won the competition.  I’ll speak at the next level either this weekend or next weekend.

         Molly (3rd), Mike (1st), Tegory (2nd).

If you are unfamiliar with Toastmasters, the international communication and leadership organization annually hosts a “World Championship of Public Speaking.”  The best way to describe it is either the “March Madness” or “American Idol” of Public Speaking.  The actual “World Championship” happens during round number six, but the tournament begins within simple Toastmaster clubs around the world (there are 235,000 members in 12,036 clubs in 106 countries).

Here is the full round-by-round path:

Round 1:     Club                                                            

Round 2:             Area                            

Round 3:                     Division          

Round 4:                                  District

Round 5:                                              Region (or DNAR)

Round 6:                                                                            World Championship of Public Speaking

Last year, I won District 25 (Fort Worth, TX) and advanced to the Region 3 Contest, where I lost to the eventual 2008 World Champion of Public Speaking, LaShunda Rundles.  This year if I were to make it to round five, I would compete at the 2009 Toastmasters International Convention in Connecticut.  My district is not assigned to a region (DNAR), so I would be in one of two competitions for the final two spots of the World Championship, Saturday, August 15.  You are required to perform different speeches for District, Region, and International.