The organization required for these competitions can be quite daunting to newer members but it’s very important that everything happens in accordance with the official rules. To help ensure that people know how to run a contest successfully there are training sessions held to help get them up to speed.

In the past, I’ve competed, judged, chaired and mentored speech contests so I’m fairly confident that I know my way around one, but I know that you can never know EVERYTHING, so last weekend I attended a speech contest training session run by District 21 Division B in Vancouver.

Despite having experienced many contests in the past and despite being very familiar with the contents of the official rulebook, I learnt LOTS. I took lots of notes and decided to pass them on in the hope that they might help someone else too.

This information isn’t a definitive guide on how to run a contest but it expands on the information in the Toastmasters Speech Contest Rulebook. You should probably be familiar with the rulebook in order to get the most out of these notes…

Why is it important to run a good contest? It’s important because the competitors have put time and effort into taking part, you owe it to them to ensure that your contest is FAIR and abides by the rules.

I was guest judge at a neighbouring club’s contest this week and noticed several things which didn’t go smoothly so I guess I can add a supplemental set of tips:

• Remember that if a contestant in the FIRST contest is also taking part in the SECOND contest then you shouldn’t interview them after the first contest. This is to prevent the judges for the second contest hearing anything that might sway their opinion
• Make sure that no competitors wear any badges or other indication of rank or awards
• If you’re using borrowed lights or anything else that isn’t your club’s usual equipment then make sure that everybody who will use this or be affected by it is given a full demonstration beforehand to ensure there are no slip-ups or misunderstandings
• Prepare your questions before the contestant interview – don’t be reading the bio on stage
• If you’re handing out participation certificates then do it when you interview the competitors. This saves you having to call them all up to the stage again later on

There were also plenty of things that went RIGHT, and I picked up some tips myself:

• If you’ve finished interviewing the contestants and the counters haven’t finished calculating the result yet then call up one of your visiting dignitaries to talk to the audience. If you’ve got an Area/Division/District Governor in attendance then everybody would love to hear from them and this way you don’t have to tag on extra time for that at the end of the contest
• I think it’s reasonably well understood that you only announce third place if you have five or more competitors in a contest. The reason for this is to ensure that there are at least two contestants whose names are not announced. This makes sure that nobody knows who came last. However what do you do if you only have three contestants? You need a second place because you need to have a reserve in case the winner can’t represent your club at the Area contest. But if you announce second place then everybody knows who came last. The answer is that you only announce first place and then you discretely present the second place contestant with their certificate after the meeting has ended. That way you have your second place backup but the audience don’t know who came last. (That tip came direct from our current District Governor, Tom Jones, who was in attendance)

I mentioned earlier “be sure you have plenty of copies of all the forms”. Here’s a quick checklist of the forms I think you need for a contest:

• contestant eligibility & originality form
• contestant bio form
• a sheet to record the speaking order for both contests
• humorous speech judging form
• table topics speech judging form
• tie-breaker judging forms for both contests
• timing record form
• counters record form
• notification of winner form

I’ve got one final tip that I put into our Club Contest agenda when I last ran a contest and has now spread down the road to our neighbours. When you’re giving a prepared speech in a contest and you’re NOT speaking first, you gain an advantage over the first speaker as you have one minute of silence before you take the stage in which to gather your thoughts. This is the one minute that the judges are using to write their scores for the preceding speaker. With nobody speaking before them, the first speaker doesn’t get this time. In order to balance things out and make everything as fair as possible I added one minute of silence to the agenda before the first speaker speaks – I think it’s a nice little touch.

I was pretty depressed about it going into our meeting… I’d only had replies from two of our members and they’d both said “put me on whichever side you see fit”. They were just trying to make life easier for me but it rather short-circuited my evil plans: if they don’t tell me their personal preference then I can’t switch them to the opposite team. And I’d wanted SIX volunteers.

I got to the meeting early and had a quick word with the Chairman and asked him to call me up for 5 minutes before we got to the speakers.

So I stood in the middle of the stage and explained again what we were doing for Table Topics: “we’re having a mini-debate with two minute speeches. The topic is ‘Money is corrupting sports’ and I want 3 volunteers for each side of the debate”. I gestured theatrically with my arms and said “I’d like 3 people who believe that money IS corrupting sports to come and stand on my LEFT and 3 people who believe that money is NOT corrupting sports to come and stand on my RIGHT”. By asking them to come up to the front and stand on one side of me or the other I forced them to make a commitment to one preferred opinion or the other. I got my six speakers up front and then I gave them the twist.

The response was fantastic: some looks of horror, some looks of confusion, some “oh Jon you are EVIL” looks and some wide grins. I explained it again… “the people on my LEFT who’ve come up here because they believe that money IS corrupting sports, I want you to each talk about why money is NOT corrupting sports. The people on my RIGHT who believe that money is NOT corrupting sports, you’ll be talking about why money IS corrupting sports”. I explained that the purpose of the debate wasn’t to persuade people that your personal opinion was right but to make the speakers think and exercise their speaking skills.

I suggested that they think of possible topics during the first half of the meeting and then confer with their team members during the break to make sure that they’re not all saying the same things and to decide on their speaking order.

As I sat down, the person sitting next to me, one of the debate speakers, turned and said “Jon, that is SO evil”. I replied “I know. Awesome isn’t it?” – she grinned and nodded.

During the mid-meeting break, the room was a hive of activity. I could hear people brainstorming ideas and dividing up topics. Non-speaking members joined in – they went over to join with the groups and share their ideas.

Just to add some further spice, I asked for a secret vote before the debate and again afterwards. According to the pre-debate vote, we narrowly believed that money IS corrupting sports.

The first affirmative speaker talked about the Olympics and the vast quantities of money that flows in and out of that – a strong argument with which to lead off. The first rebuttal talked about children and their love of playing sports – a good argument that reminded us that ‘sports’ isn’t just professional sports.

The second affirmative looked at superstars like Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant – do they still love sport or have the multi-million dollar paychecks led to their problems? The second rebuttal brought us back to the Olympics again but this time looking at the investments that the Lower Mainland has got out of the event – would we ever have got the Richmond Oval or the Canada Line without the Olympics?

The third affirmative talked about sports gambling and the billions of dollars which change hands based on the results of sports games. The debate finished with the third rebuttal speaker who talked about how money led to professional sports which in turn redefined what was possible in the field of human achievement.

Six great two minute speeches with six great opinions. I was glad I was sitting down to listen because I was just blown away by how well our members stepped up to the challenge.

After the debate the second secret vote said resoundingly that money is NOT corrupting sports. That doesn’t mean that we had winners or losers in our contest though… everybody put on a great performance. Several members said to me afterwards that it was the best Table Topics they’ve seen. I can only take some of the responsibility – the original idea wasn’t mine and it was the amazing performances from our members that really made it a winning evening. It just goes to show that when you shake things up at Toastmasters you really get the best out of your club members.

It’s a role I’ve done a dozen times before and the format is always the same: the Table Topics Master poses questions and invites members to come up and talk, spontaneously, on the topic for 1-2 minutes. Stuff like “my favorite vacation” or “how would you feel if you had no internet for a day?”. It’s a lot of fun and we hear some great speeches and some not-so-great speeches but it’s always the same format.

This week I’m changing things around and we’re having a debate.

I got the idea from the Toastmasters officer training that I went to tonight. I’ve seen a mini-debate done in Table Topics before but one of the other VP Education officers at tonight’s training mentioned a twist. Something evil. And I’m stealing the idea because it makes me do a little evil happy dance inside.

The subject that I’ve chosen for the debate is “Money is corrupting sports”… a topic that I hope many of our members will feel passionate about one way or the other but also I hope that nobody will feel offended by people arguing against their point-of-view. I chose the subject from an incredible pair of lists at http://www.ada.org.nz/moots.php

So I’m looking for 3 speakers for each side of the debate – I’ve emailed out the subject in advance and asked for volunteer speakers for each side.

Usually with Table Topics you don’t tell anybody the subject in advance… that’s sort of the point. But I need to this week because I want people who are passionate about the subject to step forward. I’ve also warned them that I’d like it to be in the spirit of a normal Table Topics session – i.e. even though you’ve had the question in advance I don’t want you to do a lot of preparation for it.

Except… here’s the kicker…

At the start of the meeting I’m going to tell them all that they’re speaking for the opposite side of the debate to the one that they’ve signed up for.

It’s beautifully evil. But it’s also totally valid. The point of a debate at Toastmasters is not really to persuade people about the opinion that you hold but to make you think on your feet and exercise your speaking skills. Being forced to talk against your personally held beliefs is a perfect example.

I’m still waiting to hear back from the club members. I’ll be sure to post again after the meeting.

Instead I’m Table Topics Master. It’s an interesting role… you get to stand up and, to a certain extent, be the focus of attention… but on the other hand you can’t let your creativity run riot. You have to set table topics questions which are fun and interesting but not too difficult – especially as we usually try to get our guests to come up and speak during Table Topics.

The first time I was TT Master the theme I set was “Spinning Bad News Into Good” and had people pretend to be politicians taking subjects like “an earthquake has just flattened downtown Vancouver” and tell us why this was good news. We can safely say it was one of the harder Table Topics sessions!

Tonight’s meeting theme is “New Beginning”… and what’s the ultimate “beginning”? Why, a birth of course! So I’m going to be presenting the names of several people born on the 7th August and asking people to talk about them. I’m not expecting anybody (apart from me!) to know who Alexei Sayle is – it’s more for people to just talk randomly for two minutes about what they imagine when they see the name they’ve picked. And then I’ve got 15 seconds of info to give after their speech about who the person actually was. I think it could go down quite well – wish me luck!