Kilcoy Toastmasters

Toastmasters can be a fun way to meet new people, extend your own abilities and learn new skills. Good communication is the key to success. You need good communication skills in the workplace, within the family and in social life.

Wednesday 18 August Kilcoy Toastmasters held their club competition; winners are able to progress to compete at Area level.

Four competitions were held, the first being International Speech which can progress to international level. Speakers choose a topic and present a five to seven minute speech which is judged using specific criteria. The second contest, Table Topics involves speakers being given a topic and developing an impromptu speech, speaking for two to three minutes. The Humorous contest was the third event for the evening, this involved presenting a prepared speech with an element of humour and the final contest involved a speech evaluation.

Winners for the club were as follows: Donna Sheehan, International Speech – Donna chose to speak about “The Magic of the Cold”. Judy Wallace won Table Topics, speaking on the topic “It’s Time to Decide” and Brenda King was the winner of both the Humorous and Evaluation contests. Brenda spoke about “The Joys of Technology” in the Humorous section and evaluated a speech, “Dining a Le Fresh”.

Winner of both Humorous and Evaluation Competitions - Brenda King

If you sometimes find the butterflies in your stomach are creating havoc when you are called upon to speak in front of a group you should try the experience of Toastmasters. The contestants in the competitions will tell you that they still experienced some degree of anxiety, but the trick is to manage those butterflies so they are flying in “V formation”.

The judges for the evening commented on the high quality of all speeches, not only the winners so congratulations must go to all Kilcoy Toastmasters for the efforts they put in to make this competition such a success. Kilcoy Toastmasters is a relatively new club being just two years old and many of the speakers are relatively new to the club. Toastmasters meet on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 7.00pm at the Christian Outreach Centre, Kilcoy.