Humorous Speech Competition
This week, our weekly meeting took the form of a humorous speech contest – apparently, an annual occurrence.
There were four very funny speeches from some of Maindenhead Speakers’ finest. In particular, I was impressed by Sheila, who discussed Toilet Grafitti. While this did call for the odd smutty joke, Sheila always dealt with the subject with class. It is incredible, the gravitas she brought to this subject! (That was funny in itself.)
There are no evaluators as such for a competition – instead, there are judges, who mark all the speeches against set criteria, giving point points for each. The points from each judge are then combined to give a winning score. I wasn’t surprised when Sheila’s toilet humour won the day.
My job for the evening was timer with Joyce, one of the club’s most experienced members. We had a great time and got so carried away with the funny speeches, it was hard to remember to light the correct timing lights. Still, one way and another, we kept each other right, and all the speakers finished on time.
The other interesting thing about the meeting was that the table topics were judged too. After the main speeches were over, the table topics speakers were asked to leave the room. Then each was called in and given the same topic – how they would plan a campaign to help people overcome the number one fear, learning public speaking.
I was surprised that the Table Topics speeches came after the main speakers – on a normal meet, this is the other way around. Joyce explained that this is to let the poor, nervous contestants off the hook as soon as possible!
