This is Part 2 of my liveblog of the February 10, 2009 club-level Toastmasters Speech Contest. The evaluation portion of the contest, where evaluators compete for the best evaluation. You can read part 1 here: Speech Contest Part 1. In case you don't know, in Toastmasters, not only are there speakers, who prepare speeches in advance, there are also evaluators, who give feedback to the speakers on their speeches; the feedback itself being in the form of a speech. Speaker, evaluator, and other roles aren't fixed, but change from meeting to meeting, with members signing up in advance for the roles they want to take in future meetings. For a lot more on the different jobs in Toastmaster, read my Introduction to Toastmasters.
The Chief Judge announced the rules of the evaluation contest, which were similar to the rules of the main speech contest. In order to make things nice and uniform, a speaker gives a "target speech" which all the evaluators will evaluate. After the "target speaker" gives his speech, the contestants are escorted out of the room by the Sergeant At Arms. They're given five minutes to write notes, and then the Sergeant takes their notes and leads the first contestant back into the meeting room. Basically, a contestant isn't allowed to see the other contestants' evaluations until he's already given his own. Obviously to prevent one contestant from influencing another. Each evaluatory speech is required to be 2-3 minutes long to be eligible, with a 30-second grace period either way.
Our Toastmaster wanted to read the "objectives" for the target speaker. In a normal club meeting, the prepared speeches follow certain projects from the manuals, which come with a set of "objectives". These objectives are then taken into consideration for evaluation of the speech, e.g., if it's the body language speech project then the objectives will involve a lot of body language stuff and when the speaker's evaluated, he should hear a lot about his body language. However, the Club President corrected the Toastmaster: apparently there is no reading-of-the-objectives for the target speaker in the evaluation contest. I guess that's to ensure uniformity across clubs, or whatever. In a sentence, the evaluators do a generic evaluation.
The target speaker was introduced and called up to the podium.
TARGET SPEECH: "MY WORTHY OPPONENT"
I have to say, it was a little unfortunate this speaker was just doing the target speech for the evaluators, and not participating in the speech part of the contest. Because, this speech turned out to be one of the better speeches I've heard in Toastmasters. It would've had a very good chance of winning if it was pitted against the three speeches from part 1.
At first, the audience was kept in suspense wondering who or what exactly the "worthy opponent" was. The speaker talked about how this horrible Ohio Winter was making him reminisce about Summer, and thinking about Summer reminded him of his epic battle with his worthy opponent. And that worthy opponent was: the mighty chipmunk. We heard all about how the speaker found a chipmunk hole on the outside wall of his house one Summer, and the battles he proceeded to wage against the animal invaders. The war was fought with four different tactics.
First tactic: The first advice our speechmaker received for how to get rid of a chipmunk: "Flood it out!" He dutifully put this watery strategy to use, but "all it achieved was to worsen the erosion and give the chipmunk a laugh".
Second tactic: Our chipmunk-fighting orator called up the exterminators, who told him they could install some chipmunk traps and come check up on them periodically-- but that he could just as well do this himself. So, four Sherman Traps were bought-- Sherman Traps are the traps you use on chipmunks. The way one of these works is, it catches the critter live, and then you have to go release it somewhere. Preferably somewhere at least 5 miles away, cuz we're talking about some territorial vermin here. For two weeks, the speaker came home to empty traps, but just when he was about to give up on that strategy, his Shermans caught him his first chipmunk. Problem is, once that first victim got tangled in the traps, it seems every other chipmunk in the world wanted to follow suit, and our friend was finding freshly trapped varmints every time he came home. He trapped over 60 chipmunks before the tedium of turning them loose all the time got to be too much!
Third tactic: Fed up with playing cheuffer to his forest friends, the speaker decided to get down to business, and picked up the "gopher gasser", some sort of apparatus designed to kill 'em with toxic fumes. The problem is, he found the 'munks had already dug their way into the crawlspace behind his wall. If he was gonna gas them in there, he'd be filling his home with foul-smelling poison gas for years to come. One more tactic failed. Chipmunks 3, Speaker 0.
Fourth tactic: Truce. Going a more pacifist route, our speaker decided that as long as he never saw or heard the chipmunks, he'd try to just tolerate them. This worked fine until one morning when, drinking his morning coffee, he was greeted by one of the rodents staring at him through his window. So much for "never saw or heard". And so much for truce.
Fifth and final tactic: The final tactic was one our speechgiver didn't come up with on his own. His neighbors got a pair of cats. Every animal has a natural predator, and apparently the natural predator of the chipmunk is the domestic cat. The neighbor's cats made a science of their chipmunkicide, killing them and dragging them back to their own place. Apparently cats like to eat the whole chipmunk up, but leave just the feet uneaten. Our friend's chipmunk problem was solved.
The nonlethal methods were truce or relocation-by-trapping. The two lethal methods were "gopher gasser" or neighbor's cat. The semi-lethal method was flooding. Of all those methods, the only one which freed the orator from his chipmunk infestation was: the neighbor's cat.
FIRST FEEDBACK: IT'S ALL ABOUT BODY LANGUAGE
The Toastmaster Of The Evening regained control of the lectern and the Sergant at Arms escorted the evaluators from the room. We now had five minutes to kill while the evaluation contestents scribbled their notes outside. Our Area Governor went up to the lectern to make some announcements during the wait. Mostly just dates of upcoming TM events: the make-up officer training (apparently elected officers have to take training bianually) and the next level in the contest, the Area Contest. Apparently here in Ohio, Area 14 and Area 15 get together to do one combined contest. Guests are welcome at the Area Contests. And lastly, she announced the upcoming District 40 Conference, in Dayton Ohio. Finally the Sergeant returned so we could hear the first eval.
This first evaluation focused a lot on body language and eye contact. The evaluator went out of his way to illustrate what he was saying about body language by repeating the same body language himself, gesturing and articulating like a pro. The speaker (according to this evaluation) displayed lots of speaking confidence and ease.
The evaluation wasn't bad, but like so many evals, it lacked much real substance. I don't think the speaker learned much from it. It lacked any concrete constructive advice on how the speech could've been better or how the speaker could grow. In a word, the feedback was generic. You could repackage it and give it to any speaker and it'd work.
On the plus side, the evaluator presented it very well, with great body language, tonality, and speaking-ease of his own.
SECOND FEEDBACK: DETAILS AND SPECIFICS. PICTURE YOURSELF IN A GAS MASK.
There was a minute of quiet while the judges conferred with each other. The next evaluator the Sergeant-at-Arms brought out is a very interesting guy. Once a corporate officer, he decided to quit the corporate life to pursue his dreams. He became a ventriloquist, taking a gigantic pay cut but generally becoming a more fulfilled and happy person in the process. Anyway, he's a terrific public speaker so it's always great when he goes up.
This former-executive began his eval in a very generic and noncreative way, "Fellow Toastmasters, guests, and especially (speaker's name)". If you're in TM for awhile you'll hear this eval opening so many times it's crazy.
Fortunately, the genericness ended right there, and he launched into one of the most detailed and specific evals I've ever heard. He started by saying how much he wanted a gopher gasser himself (or was it a "gopher phaser"? a "gopher tazer"?) Next he applauded how the speaker carefully set his notes down on the podium and then stepped aside before making any verbal or non-verbal communication to actually start the timing of the speech. (Putting the notes on the podium lets the speaker look back at them occasionally, without actually carrying them around during the speech) The Evaluator suggested a further pause after the place-and-step, something to build suspense and radiate ease, all before timing starts.
The style of the evaluation was, specific details. It was feedback tailored very carefully for the actual speech, and this is a rare gem, giving the speaker quite a lot to ponder. The evaluator commented on the speaker's effective use of words, citing specific examples (shameless self-promotion: check out my article, Using Words Effectively). The fact that the speaker mostly memorized the entire speech, was addressed.
The Timeline and the Circle
Next, our ventriloquist evaluator got into some details which really blew my mind. He pointed out how the speaker almost pulled off a clever public speaking trick called "the timeline". You use the timeline when you're giving an anecdote like the chipmunk story in question. Basically, you start at one extreme side (in this case, all the way to the left of the podium) and gradually step toward the other as the story unfolds.
Unfortunately the speaker didn't quite pull the timeline off, in fact it only appeared he was doing it initially by sheer luck. Still it was very good of the evaluator to bring it up, since it even taught me something about public speaking, and I wasn't even the subject of the feedback!
As if that's not enough, the evaluator then pointed out how, after the "timeline" broke, the speaker almost pulled off "the circle". A similar tactic, the circle is where you make a full circle around the podium each time you knock out a "piece" of the speech. In the example in question, the speaker almost did one circle around the podium with each chipmunk-fighting "tactic". Again, the circle pattern didn't quite go through, and it probably wasn't deliberate to begin with, but it was still very interesting to hear about.
Finally, the speechgiver was encouraged to spice things up. "Elaborate," the evaluator encouraged. "Lie... Picture yourself in a gas mask" (for the part of the speech about the gopher gasser).
The evaluation was absolutely steller. Only problem is, it went way too long. I remember glancing at the timer's red signal, thinking, "this can't possibly still be in the thirty second grace period..."
THIRD EVALUATION: GOOD IMPROVEMENT FROM YOUR FIRST SPEECH...
After another minute for the judges, the third and final contestant came to preech to the target speaker.
The third evaluator is a relative newbie in our club, and his presentation of the eval was nowhere near as good as the previous two. He had poor eye contact, focusing his eyes throughout almost all the evaluation on the speaker, and not on the general audience.
However, I liked the content of his eval a lot. He made some specific suggestions. One thing he suggested was that the speaker could broaden the emotional range of the speech. As is, the speech was entirely lighthearted and humorous. However, if the speaker would've just donned a more serious face during, say, the part about the gopher gasser, it would've added emotional depth.
"You nailed it," he said, "you put more pressure on the evaluators than on yourself." Here the evaluator was praising the speaker for the great speech, but in a less cliche way than the usual "Great speech!" sound bite. The initial suspense (who is this Worthy Opponent??) was also commented on.
And lastly, the evaluator whipped out an eval trick I've never seen before and which really blew me away. He compared the speech with the speaker's first speech (his "Icebreaker Speech") from when the speaker first joined. Wow! I can hardly even remember what speech I gave the last time I spoke, much less the specific speeches other people gave months ago! This deft maneuvre was truly a great closing note on what was a great evaluation contest.
REWARDS AND THE CLOSING OF THE CONTEST
The timer gave the timer's report. All the speeches and evals were eligible, except only for the second evaluation. As I suspected, it went way beyond the 30-second grace period. Too bad, because that was a really good evaluation. The judges left the room to talk amongst each other, and all the participants (speakers and evaluators) were called to the front of the room by the Toastmaster, where we were recognized and handed certificates for participating.
The Toastmaster asked each of us a question as he handed us our certificate. To me he asked: "Glowing Face Man, I always loved how imaginative you are... where did you get it from?" I was caught a little off guard because I wasn't expecting a question (I was the first one) and I blurted something like, "I got it from a witch's spell." Unfortunately this pattern ("make ridiculous stuff up") is something I fall into a lot when I have to speak with zero preparation (I've always tended to rely on it in Table Topics, the spontaneous speech portion of TM). It's all part of the Dancing Monkey social crutch I developed (click that link for more details).
Finally, the judges finished and the winners were announced. The winning speech (from part 1) was "My Economic Bailout". The winning evaluation was the first one, the generic one. Of course the second eval was objectively the best by far, however, it was ineligible because of the time requirement. Personally, I think with the second eval DQ'd, the third eval should've won, because it had actual unique content. The first eval no doubt won based on the presentation: it was well-presented generic praise vs. less-well-presented specific details, and the generic praise won. Ah well, such it is.
The Toastmaster started closing the meeting, asking if anyone had any announcements. There was a rather surprising announcement, via SMS to one of our members: our former club president had just become a father, during the meeting! That's right, while we were working through our public speaking skills, he and his wife were working through the birth of their first child!
As usual, the very last thing in the meeting was asking for comments from the guests. From the many guests, who had come in piecemeal throughout the contest. Their comments were pretty generic and I didn't write them down. The Club President adjourned the meeting and I had my first international speaking contest under my belt!
FURTHER READING
The speech contest is a lot different than a normal club meeting. If you'd like to read about what a club meeting is like, check out the one I liveblogger. Toastmasters Liveblog: Worthington Toastmasters, 13 Jan 09.
My first article about Toastmasters was the article, Introduction To Toastmasters, which is a great read if you want to know more about the structure and roles in the club and what the various positions are, and that sort of thing.
If you're interested in public speaking, you might also be interested in my article, Leadership And Language. The focus is mostly on communications between a couple.
The Chief Judge announced the rules of the evaluation contest, which were similar to the rules of the main speech contest. In order to make things nice and uniform, a speaker gives a "target speech" which all the evaluators will evaluate. After the "target speaker" gives his speech, the contestants are escorted out of the room by the Sergeant At Arms. They're given five minutes to write notes, and then the Sergeant takes their notes and leads the first contestant back into the meeting room. Basically, a contestant isn't allowed to see the other contestants' evaluations until he's already given his own. Obviously to prevent one contestant from influencing another. Each evaluatory speech is required to be 2-3 minutes long to be eligible, with a 30-second grace period either way.
Our Toastmaster wanted to read the "objectives" for the target speaker. In a normal club meeting, the prepared speeches follow certain projects from the manuals, which come with a set of "objectives". These objectives are then taken into consideration for evaluation of the speech, e.g., if it's the body language speech project then the objectives will involve a lot of body language stuff and when the speaker's evaluated, he should hear a lot about his body language. However, the Club President corrected the Toastmaster: apparently there is no reading-of-the-objectives for the target speaker in the evaluation contest. I guess that's to ensure uniformity across clubs, or whatever. In a sentence, the evaluators do a generic evaluation.
The target speaker was introduced and called up to the podium.
TARGET SPEECH: "MY WORTHY OPPONENT"
I have to say, it was a little unfortunate this speaker was just doing the target speech for the evaluators, and not participating in the speech part of the contest. Because, this speech turned out to be one of the better speeches I've heard in Toastmasters. It would've had a very good chance of winning if it was pitted against the three speeches from part 1.
At first, the audience was kept in suspense wondering who or what exactly the "worthy opponent" was. The speaker talked about how this horrible Ohio Winter was making him reminisce about Summer, and thinking about Summer reminded him of his epic battle with his worthy opponent. And that worthy opponent was: the mighty chipmunk. We heard all about how the speaker found a chipmunk hole on the outside wall of his house one Summer, and the battles he proceeded to wage against the animal invaders. The war was fought with four different tactics.
First tactic: The first advice our speechmaker received for how to get rid of a chipmunk: "Flood it out!" He dutifully put this watery strategy to use, but "all it achieved was to worsen the erosion and give the chipmunk a laugh".
Second tactic: Our chipmunk-fighting orator called up the exterminators, who told him they could install some chipmunk traps and come check up on them periodically-- but that he could just as well do this himself. So, four Sherman Traps were bought-- Sherman Traps are the traps you use on chipmunks. The way one of these works is, it catches the critter live, and then you have to go release it somewhere. Preferably somewhere at least 5 miles away, cuz we're talking about some territorial vermin here. For two weeks, the speaker came home to empty traps, but just when he was about to give up on that strategy, his Shermans caught him his first chipmunk. Problem is, once that first victim got tangled in the traps, it seems every other chipmunk in the world wanted to follow suit, and our friend was finding freshly trapped varmints every time he came home. He trapped over 60 chipmunks before the tedium of turning them loose all the time got to be too much!
Third tactic: Fed up with playing cheuffer to his forest friends, the speaker decided to get down to business, and picked up the "gopher gasser", some sort of apparatus designed to kill 'em with toxic fumes. The problem is, he found the 'munks had already dug their way into the crawlspace behind his wall. If he was gonna gas them in there, he'd be filling his home with foul-smelling poison gas for years to come. One more tactic failed. Chipmunks 3, Speaker 0.
Fourth tactic: Truce. Going a more pacifist route, our speaker decided that as long as he never saw or heard the chipmunks, he'd try to just tolerate them. This worked fine until one morning when, drinking his morning coffee, he was greeted by one of the rodents staring at him through his window. So much for "never saw or heard". And so much for truce.
Fifth and final tactic: The final tactic was one our speechgiver didn't come up with on his own. His neighbors got a pair of cats. Every animal has a natural predator, and apparently the natural predator of the chipmunk is the domestic cat. The neighbor's cats made a science of their chipmunkicide, killing them and dragging them back to their own place. Apparently cats like to eat the whole chipmunk up, but leave just the feet uneaten. Our friend's chipmunk problem was solved.
The nonlethal methods were truce or relocation-by-trapping. The two lethal methods were "gopher gasser" or neighbor's cat. The semi-lethal method was flooding. Of all those methods, the only one which freed the orator from his chipmunk infestation was: the neighbor's cat.
FIRST FEEDBACK: IT'S ALL ABOUT BODY LANGUAGE
The Toastmaster Of The Evening regained control of the lectern and the Sergant at Arms escorted the evaluators from the room. We now had five minutes to kill while the evaluation contestents scribbled their notes outside. Our Area Governor went up to the lectern to make some announcements during the wait. Mostly just dates of upcoming TM events: the make-up officer training (apparently elected officers have to take training bianually) and the next level in the contest, the Area Contest. Apparently here in Ohio, Area 14 and Area 15 get together to do one combined contest. Guests are welcome at the Area Contests. And lastly, she announced the upcoming District 40 Conference, in Dayton Ohio. Finally the Sergeant returned so we could hear the first eval.
This first evaluation focused a lot on body language and eye contact. The evaluator went out of his way to illustrate what he was saying about body language by repeating the same body language himself, gesturing and articulating like a pro. The speaker (according to this evaluation) displayed lots of speaking confidence and ease.
The evaluation wasn't bad, but like so many evals, it lacked much real substance. I don't think the speaker learned much from it. It lacked any concrete constructive advice on how the speech could've been better or how the speaker could grow. In a word, the feedback was generic. You could repackage it and give it to any speaker and it'd work.
On the plus side, the evaluator presented it very well, with great body language, tonality, and speaking-ease of his own.
SECOND FEEDBACK: DETAILS AND SPECIFICS. PICTURE YOURSELF IN A GAS MASK.
There was a minute of quiet while the judges conferred with each other. The next evaluator the Sergeant-at-Arms brought out is a very interesting guy. Once a corporate officer, he decided to quit the corporate life to pursue his dreams. He became a ventriloquist, taking a gigantic pay cut but generally becoming a more fulfilled and happy person in the process. Anyway, he's a terrific public speaker so it's always great when he goes up.
This former-executive began his eval in a very generic and noncreative way, "Fellow Toastmasters, guests, and especially (speaker's name)". If you're in TM for awhile you'll hear this eval opening so many times it's crazy.
Fortunately, the genericness ended right there, and he launched into one of the most detailed and specific evals I've ever heard. He started by saying how much he wanted a gopher gasser himself (or was it a "gopher phaser"? a "gopher tazer"?) Next he applauded how the speaker carefully set his notes down on the podium and then stepped aside before making any verbal or non-verbal communication to actually start the timing of the speech. (Putting the notes on the podium lets the speaker look back at them occasionally, without actually carrying them around during the speech) The Evaluator suggested a further pause after the place-and-step, something to build suspense and radiate ease, all before timing starts.
The style of the evaluation was, specific details. It was feedback tailored very carefully for the actual speech, and this is a rare gem, giving the speaker quite a lot to ponder. The evaluator commented on the speaker's effective use of words, citing specific examples (shameless self-promotion: check out my article, Using Words Effectively). The fact that the speaker mostly memorized the entire speech, was addressed.
The Timeline and the Circle
Next, our ventriloquist evaluator got into some details which really blew my mind. He pointed out how the speaker almost pulled off a clever public speaking trick called "the timeline". You use the timeline when you're giving an anecdote like the chipmunk story in question. Basically, you start at one extreme side (in this case, all the way to the left of the podium) and gradually step toward the other as the story unfolds.
Unfortunately the speaker didn't quite pull the timeline off, in fact it only appeared he was doing it initially by sheer luck. Still it was very good of the evaluator to bring it up, since it even taught me something about public speaking, and I wasn't even the subject of the feedback!
As if that's not enough, the evaluator then pointed out how, after the "timeline" broke, the speaker almost pulled off "the circle". A similar tactic, the circle is where you make a full circle around the podium each time you knock out a "piece" of the speech. In the example in question, the speaker almost did one circle around the podium with each chipmunk-fighting "tactic". Again, the circle pattern didn't quite go through, and it probably wasn't deliberate to begin with, but it was still very interesting to hear about.
Finally, the speechgiver was encouraged to spice things up. "Elaborate," the evaluator encouraged. "Lie... Picture yourself in a gas mask" (for the part of the speech about the gopher gasser).
The evaluation was absolutely steller. Only problem is, it went way too long. I remember glancing at the timer's red signal, thinking, "this can't possibly still be in the thirty second grace period..."
THIRD EVALUATION: GOOD IMPROVEMENT FROM YOUR FIRST SPEECH...
After another minute for the judges, the third and final contestant came to preech to the target speaker.
The third evaluator is a relative newbie in our club, and his presentation of the eval was nowhere near as good as the previous two. He had poor eye contact, focusing his eyes throughout almost all the evaluation on the speaker, and not on the general audience.
However, I liked the content of his eval a lot. He made some specific suggestions. One thing he suggested was that the speaker could broaden the emotional range of the speech. As is, the speech was entirely lighthearted and humorous. However, if the speaker would've just donned a more serious face during, say, the part about the gopher gasser, it would've added emotional depth.
"You nailed it," he said, "you put more pressure on the evaluators than on yourself." Here the evaluator was praising the speaker for the great speech, but in a less cliche way than the usual "Great speech!" sound bite. The initial suspense (who is this Worthy Opponent??) was also commented on.
And lastly, the evaluator whipped out an eval trick I've never seen before and which really blew me away. He compared the speech with the speaker's first speech (his "Icebreaker Speech") from when the speaker first joined. Wow! I can hardly even remember what speech I gave the last time I spoke, much less the specific speeches other people gave months ago! This deft maneuvre was truly a great closing note on what was a great evaluation contest.
REWARDS AND THE CLOSING OF THE CONTEST
The timer gave the timer's report. All the speeches and evals were eligible, except only for the second evaluation. As I suspected, it went way beyond the 30-second grace period. Too bad, because that was a really good evaluation. The judges left the room to talk amongst each other, and all the participants (speakers and evaluators) were called to the front of the room by the Toastmaster, where we were recognized and handed certificates for participating.
The Toastmaster asked each of us a question as he handed us our certificate. To me he asked: "Glowing Face Man, I always loved how imaginative you are... where did you get it from?" I was caught a little off guard because I wasn't expecting a question (I was the first one) and I blurted something like, "I got it from a witch's spell." Unfortunately this pattern ("make ridiculous stuff up") is something I fall into a lot when I have to speak with zero preparation (I've always tended to rely on it in Table Topics, the spontaneous speech portion of TM). It's all part of the Dancing Monkey social crutch I developed (click that link for more details).
Finally, the judges finished and the winners were announced. The winning speech (from part 1) was "My Economic Bailout". The winning evaluation was the first one, the generic one. Of course the second eval was objectively the best by far, however, it was ineligible because of the time requirement. Personally, I think with the second eval DQ'd, the third eval should've won, because it had actual unique content. The first eval no doubt won based on the presentation: it was well-presented generic praise vs. less-well-presented specific details, and the generic praise won. Ah well, such it is.
The Toastmaster started closing the meeting, asking if anyone had any announcements. There was a rather surprising announcement, via SMS to one of our members: our former club president had just become a father, during the meeting! That's right, while we were working through our public speaking skills, he and his wife were working through the birth of their first child!
As usual, the very last thing in the meeting was asking for comments from the guests. From the many guests, who had come in piecemeal throughout the contest. Their comments were pretty generic and I didn't write them down. The Club President adjourned the meeting and I had my first international speaking contest under my belt!
FURTHER READING
The speech contest is a lot different than a normal club meeting. If you'd like to read about what a club meeting is like, check out the one I liveblogger. Toastmasters Liveblog: Worthington Toastmasters, 13 Jan 09.
My first article about Toastmasters was the article, Introduction To Toastmasters, which is a great read if you want to know more about the structure and roles in the club and what the various positions are, and that sort of thing.
If you're interested in public speaking, you might also be interested in my article, Leadership And Language. The focus is mostly on communications between a couple.
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