Competition season is with us again, and I’m so pleased that we’re now spending our weekend evenings with the curtains closed and one of the talent shows on the telly – X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing are both getting into their stride, and Mike’s re-discovered his talent for acting as a fifth judge. He also has a really weird ability to guess the scores on Strictly before they come up.

I’ve had a new contest in my life this year, too; we had our Toastmasters area competition day this past weekend, with members of our club competing against people from five other clubs in our area.  Each had already held its own competition to choose entrants for the two rounds taking place on the day, Humorous Speaking and Table Topics (Table Topics are short, unprepared speeches on a theme given immediately beforehand – they’re great fun, but also a real challenge).

We were treated to 18 great speeches during the afternoon, on themes including health and safety, policing, dating, the x factor, dreams, nightmares and the power of ambition.

Our winners go through to the division contest in Manchester later this month, and there’s a final round taking place in Glasgow in November.

When I joined Toastmasters earlier this year, I was there to learn about public speaking and to perhaps meet a few new people. It’s become a real highlight for me and I’m learning so much about far more than speaking.

When we have events like the area competition, it’s great to feel part of a team and go along to root for each other. It also gives us chance to meet people from elsewhere and have a lot of fun together.

We’ve been having a bit of a membership drive at our club recently, and one of our members spent some time creating a video that gives a bit of an insight into our sessions.  So here’s Fred with a bit of info about us…

There are Toastmasters groups all over the world; there’s some information here about joining a Toastmasters club near you.