Today, I went to the first speech contest of this year 2008. It’s an International Speech and Table Topic contest hold by Choa Chu Kang Toastmasters Club.

Normally, people who will go to a contest are people who are taking part in the contest, holding appointment, supporting the contestant and observing the contest. Today, I belonged to the last category.

I must admit that I was blown away by all the quality speeches that the contestants have presented. What a sparkling club which can produce so many superstar speaker, I wondered.

Here is a summary of the International Speech Contest Speeches:
1) Don’t loosen
Messages:
- Just do it!
- Stay away from distracters and naysayers.
- Get rid of the messages like “It’s impossible!”, “It’s difficult”
Examples:
- Folk tale: Story of a deaf frog
- Personal story: Learnt swimming so that he could take part in a triathlon contest.
- Big names: Steve Job, Elton John

2) Follow your heart, take the chance
Message:
- Follow whatever that you FEEL that it’s correct and go for it.
Examples:
- Personal story: The reason why his girl friend chooses him.
- Personal story: Took part in night cycling.
- Personal story: How his mum fought for her illness and at last she won and pursue her dream to go traveling.
- Personal story: A long distance love story between him and his girl friend.

3) Let them laugh
Messages:
- Believe in your dream and don’t care of the laughs from others.
Examples:
- Personal story: Daughter’s swimming lesson.
- Personal story: Cousin’s bicycle riding lesson.
- Personal story: His own Chinese learning lesson.
- Big names: Bill Gate

4) Where are you
Message:
- Set your goals and don’t stop fulfilling your goals.
Examples:
- Personal story: His journey in martial art activities - From “an enthusiastic martial art lover who once had a big dream in taking part in martial art competition” to “a person who got distracted from outside influencers and stopped taking martial art lessons”.

5) Thank you Toastmasters
Message:
- Make your choice to join Toastmasters
Examples:
- Personal story: Her journey in Toastmasters Movement - The transformation of a person who couldn’t speak confidently to someone who can sparkle in her speeches and furthermore influenced her family to join her in Toastmasters Movement.

6) Push the button
Message:
- Perceive and value the encouragement from mother
Examples:
- Personal story: About her mum - From “her mum’s stumble in using electronic devices due to pushing the wrong button” to “pushing the button of family whole-heartedly”

7) Instant romance
Message:
- You have to put effort in getting what you want
Examples:
- Personal story: The perception of her friend about love and how’re her friend’s dates.

8 ) A helping hand
Message:
- To offer a helping hand, we don’t have to wait until a drastic event happened.
Examples:
- Story from public: A man fainted in a train.
- Story from public: A BMW driver helped a kid to send the kid’s mum to hospital.
- Personal story: His witness of a guy fainted in a bus
- Big name: Alexander Fleming - inventor of penicllin

Who is the champion? Take a guess…

Here is the result of the contest:
Champion: Push the button
1st runner-up: A helping hand
2nd runner-up: Follow your heart, take the chance

My Observation:
Today, I was like consuming motivational pills from the 8 contestants. Their speeches were so motivating and inspiring, sometimes quite humorous. It’s not easy to judge this contest. Overall, I would say that in international speech contest, almost all the speeches are quite similar. The messages that the contestants want to convey are about positive mindset - Just do it, Pursue your dream, Don’t afraid of failure, Try again and again… So, what makes a speech a champion speech? From my observation, the 3 winning speeches are somehow or rather, emotionally engaged with the audience. Remember this word - “EMOTION”. Let the audience to FEEL something after listening to your speech, that kind of FEELING. It’s quite abstract though… How to make a speech comes lively? Inject EMOTION into your speech. Think about the incidents that emotionally aroused you and start crafting your speech with that FEELING… You could be the next winner of your speech contest!