The Area D3 Speech Contest was held on Saturday, September 15th, 2012, at the Shriner’s hospital in SLC. Jon Henry competed in the Evaluation contest and John Concannon competed in the Humorous contest. Both were only competing against the clock since no other area club provided a contestant to go up against. Both of these guys will be competing (against others) at the Division D contest in two weeks at the Shriner’s hospital. Yeah Park City!
1st place – Jon Henry
2nd place – Tracy Harden
3rd place – Hae Buldoc
The International contest is the toughest contest Toastmasters offers. This is the one contest, that if you keep winning you progress from club to area to division to district to semi-finals and finally to the international contest. If you manage to win this bugger at the international level, you just may have an instant public speaking career.
And Stacy has won at the club, area, division, and now at the district level. Our district is made up of Utah, Idaho, and several surrounding communities in neighboring states. She is now invited to attend the Toastmasters International convention in August in Orlando Florida to compete in the semi-finals and possibly, if she keeps winning, in the final.
We have had several members of the Park City club win various Toastmaster contests, but no one has won the International contest at the District level. Until now.
Way to go Stacy!
Not all Division Contests, or District contests for that matter, possess equally compelling speakers. This contest did. And the Park City club made up the better part of the audience with nine members and family members present.
Cathy Barker, a.k.a. Caffeine Barker, competed in the Table Topics contest. The question was, “If you could go any where for a day, what place would that be?” An inside source said that the judging ballots were all over the place, meaning that the table topics contestants were all very good and the judges had a hard time choosing who was the best. We were all very pleased with Cathy’s performance, but unfortunately she didn’t come out on top this time.
The international contest was hard fought with four really good speeches. One on ‘being there’ and the death of a mother, another on ‘feeding what is important in your life’, and a third on how luck is a combination of working hard and opportunity.
Stacy gave another great rendition of her speech, ‘Wynton Marsalis has my back’ and won a well-deserved first place and will go on to compete at the district contest in May.
Stacy Dymalski and Cathy Barker represented Park City at the Area International and Table Topics Contests and both came away with a 1st place award. Both will go on to compete at the Division D speech contests in April.
Stacy gave her most heart-felt rendition of Wynton Marsalis Has My Back. She talked with lots of animation about how an unexpected encounter with Wynton allowed a perfect stranger to help direct her son’s future. When she sat down she noticed someone in the audience with tears and she proceeded to lose it herself. Her son, the topic of her speech, was in the audience to hear his mom give this speech.
Cathy, along with the other Table Topics contestants, were given an odd object to describe and tell the audience what it is used for. This is spontaneity at its best – the speakers must speak at least one minute and no more than two and half minutes. Cathy came out with an immediate answer and proceeded to get more and more excited about her idea and the audience ate up her enthusiasm. It was like were were on the shopping channel.
Way to go Stacy and Cathy!
