Speech contest has everyone talking
Richard Francis ranked third from 10 contestants at the Southern African Championships for Speech Evaluations.
An evening of speech contests took centre-stage at the Thaba Eco Lodge where Richard Francis of Egoli Golden City Toastmasters Club ranked third in the Southern African Championships.
Matt Makoni of Chuckle and Chirp Toastmasters Club in Somerset West won first place and Annette Lovemore of the Algoa Bay Toastmasters Club in Port Elizabeth came in second place.
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Francis, who entered the competition as part of the 10 best speech evaluators in Southern Africa, was pleased to bag third place.
The competition saw the 10 speech evaluators kicking off the night’s events by observing a demo speaker, who delivered a five to seven minute speech, which the contestants in turn critiqued.
This, according to Francis, had never been seen or heard of before.
“The trick to a good evaluation is to give enough praise to the speaker in addition to giving them enough suggestions on how they can improve their speech. This will result in an improved speaker the next time around,” said Francis after his own short speech referencing the demo speaker’s one.
Adjudicators assessed contestants on audience reaction, vocal variety, body language, speech structure as well as the evaluator’s ability to effectively evaluate a speech.
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