It may not have been the best of times, for Toastmasters who were trying to get to our contest venue on time. Some experienced adverse traffic condition, taking more than an hour to reach our venue. A non-Toastmaster had to park his car on the other side of LDP and used the pedestrian bridge to get to KDU College. However, no obstacle was too big to overcome, in their quest to attend Division W International Speech and Table Topics Contests (ISTT) on 24 April 2010.

We started with the Awards presentation for

• TLI2 7 Out of 7 Attendance (5 clubs)
• Membership Awards for Clubs that have paid membership dues for 20 members or more by 30 March 2010 (15 clubs)
• Gold Pin Awards for CL and AC goals achieved by 30 March 2010 (40 recipients)
• Certificates for TLI1 and TLI2 Club Officer Attendance (210 and 165 respectively for TLI1 and TLI2)

After the Awards presentation, we started with the Table Topics Contest. The million dollar topic for our 8 contestants was – Action is the foundation and key to all success.

All contestants agreed that without action, there will be no success.

Jason Moi advocated taking action smartly, to seize the opportunities that life provides. Without action, our dreams will remain as dreams.

In Darcy Steinhardt’s opinion, if you don’t take action, action takes control of you. You will be swept by the tide of events and will move forward but perhaps the outcome is not of your choice.

Our Table Topics Champion confided to us that he had a grand plan to finish all 15 Advanced Communicator Manuals within a short time frame. Then excuses after excuses came up. His message for us was to execute the plans you have set and not to have excuses.




For the International Speech Contest, Jason Moi’s “Pass It On” had this inspirational message for us – a thousand candles can be lit from one candle. Listen to the Mother Theresa in your heart. You can light the candle of happiness in someone’s life.

The winning speech was “Keep Dreaming”. The story started with a 7 year old boy who had violin lessons for 4 years. He then told his mum that he doesn’t want to play violin anymore. His mother agreed with the condition that he does something else.

He took up chess and had more success in this pursuit, representing Penang in tournaments. In one of the many humorous moments of his speech, the winner told us that the economic crisis of 1997 also affected the chess industry. Tournaments were cancelled and he started attending Toastmasters meeting. He went on to win Division W Humourous Speech Contest last year. His message to us was – keep dreaming, keep going, keep doing. Live the life you never thought was possible.



Not only did we have 8 table topics speeches and 8 International speeches, we also had additional learning points from DTM Loghandran on Delivery Skills and Contest.

Our delivery skills make up 30% of the value of a presentation. Areas to take note of are

• Does our attire complement or distract?
• Does the speaker appear lifeless?
• Do gestures have a purpose?
• Do facial expressions reveal the emotional side of the speaker’s message? For example we should look angry, followed by angry words instead of angry words, then put on an angry look.

It is not a solo endeavour, it takes a team to win a speech contest. The contestant will need the help of others to provide constructive feedback and areas of improvement.

The delivery style that we should adopt is dependent upon the theme or message for our speech. Is it confiding, informing, inspiring, entertaining or persuading ? It can also be a combination of these themes.


To all aspiring International Speech, Humorous Speech, Table Topics and Evaluation contestants, good luck in your future speech contests. Keep Dreaming, with action as the foundation and key to all success, and practising what Loghandran shared on delivery skills, you might be the next Lee Xi Wen !