Yow Kia

On 4th of August, I attended a workshop – “How to Win Humorous Speech Contest?” held by Bradell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club. I must say that Bradell Heights Advanced TMC is a very CHAMPION club. This club has a pool of speech contest Champions. I think the theme of the club was named very well – “We make CHAMPIONS!”

The first speaker was a young, charming lady who was claimed to be single and available. Her name is Cheng Chia Yi. She was crowned champion once in a Division Humorous Speech Contest.

Here is the summary of her sharing:
1) Choose a common topic.
2) Give examples like personal stories and anecdotes.
3) Use simple words and descriptions. Straight to the point.
4) Use visible and big PROPS.
5) For bigger group of audience, use bigger action.
6) Before the contest:
- Regularly editing the scripts. (She edited her winning scripts more than 30 times).
- Continuously practise, minimum twice a day.
- Get a mentor to seek for advice.
- Record and playback own voice to do self-evaluation.
7) During the contest:
- Try to build rapport.
=> I have discovered one thing that we all already know since long time ago, but we just refuse to apply it. That is practice makes perfect. I used to have a misconception that if I practise my speech, says a few weeks before the actual presentation day, I will not be considered as a good speaker. This is because I’ve spent too much time to do preparation. Therefore, usually I spent only 3-6 days to prepare my speech. However, this concept is WRONG!!! Through the sharing from this young lady, even a good speaker, a champion need to constantly editing her scripts and practising it very frequently, what about me – a little unknown.

The second speaker is a professional speaker – Benjamin Cheng, who has won champions in District Humorous Speech Contest and Table Topics Contest. The way he presented his sharing was slightly different from Chia Yi. He preferred to do his presentation in impromptu way. No wonder he was the District Table Topics Champion.

His valuable comments are shown as below:
1) ERP -> Editing, Rehearsing, Pauses
2) Build as many laughter points as possible. The good one would be laughter upon laughter
3) Write out the full story. Don’t memorize word-to-word, but memorize the punch line.
4) Prepare a 6-minute speech. This is to allow audience to have time to laugh at your speech.
5) You need to know your strength and your style of humour. By trying the different styles to different groups of people.
=> Normally, to prepare a 5-7 minutes speech, I used to prepare for 7-minute speech. I think this is too dangerous for a humorous speech. I think 6-minute speech is just nice. Great suggestion!

The last speaker was twice champion in Inter Community Club Humorous Speech Contest and first runner up of District Humorous Speech Contest. His name is Cheng Suan Soon. He is a very analytical guy. He analyzed the humorous speeches of one of the district contests in term of number of laughter points. The way he presented the analysis through chart impressed me. It was shown that the champion was the one who got the most number of laughter points.
=> I have already crafted a humorous speech script for my club contest before the workshop. I think after seeing his analysis, I need to go back to add more laughter points to my scripts.

Do you notice one thing? A similarity that these 3 trainers possess… The SURNAME-CHENG… They are all from the Cheng’s family!! Wow, what a champion family. Normal people may think that Chia Yi is so fortunate to be born in a Toastmasters Family, but not me. She may have the advantage at the beginning, but to win a Champion, it’s definitely all by her hard work and the guidance from her mentors.

So, people, if you really want to win the contest, practise, practise and practise! But, don’t forget to find a mentor to give you some comments… GOOD LUCK!