From the London Division B team
Saturday 3 October 2015 saw the Division B Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contests take place at Freemason’s Hall in Covent Garden, and what cracking contests they were! With seven contestants in each we had quite the show of mental gymnastics and the finest and funniest of speechcraft on show.
Jean Gamester, District Director, delivered an address to the Division and Sandra Lawes gave us the latest information on the Revitalised Education Programe. Immediate Past Division Governor, Hilary Briggs and team were also on hand throughout the day to talk to promote the leadership opportunities the District has to offer.
Table Topics Contest
The afternoon kicked off with the Table Topics Contest led with flare and precision by co-chairs Anja Eichen and Charlotte Crowther. The topic that our contestants faced was inspired by recent events:
“You can’t trust anyone these days”
Each contestant found a different angle of approach to the subject which made for enthralling spectating. Ian Hawkins of Early Bird Speakers placed third with his topic where he asked us if we could even trust ourselves. Mark Yansen of London Olympians placed second with his encouraging us to approach the world with an open heart and an open mind. But the top spot went to Paul Carroll of 104 London Debaters and his cunning dissection of the topic that even with a Shakespearean reference thrown in. A super contest with masterful mental agility on show.
Humorous Speech Contest
The Humorous Speech contest was equally hard fought with chuckles aplenty. David Salamons as contest chair led us through the Humorous Speech contest with lighthearted jests and even an accidental proposal of marriage to one of the contestants. Third place was taken by Daniela Ortner of 104 London Debaters with her tales of modern dating in I’m dumped, you’re dumped, he’s dumped, we’re dumped, you’re dumped, they’re dumped. Second place went to Richard Fallon of City Limits with his similarly long-titled How An Everyday Wardrobe Malfunction Led To A Fate Worse Than Death – An Entirely Factual Account that was both gut busting and rib-tickling. In the end, Irene Bradshaw of Berkeley Square Speakers emerged victorious with her cracking speech which you can see if you come to the contest final on 7 November!
Big thanks to our all who competed, our aforementioned contest chairs and our Chief Judge Ellie Raycheva of Canary Wharf Communicators.
Paul and Irene go forward to the next and final rounds of competition. These will be held at the District 91 Great Western Conference in Swindon (Read more and book here). We wish them the best of luck.
Report on SpeakFest 15 from the SpeakFest team
In the morning session we debuted a new concept: SpeakFest15. The concept was simply, yet uniquely innovative. There were no booked speakers, no planned workshops, just four rooms, and an empty schedule. So, how did we get on?
Division B wanted to trial something completely new - never seen before. Early Bird Speakers' IPP, Iain Scott, originally put forward the idea at the start of the year, and Division B's Director, Neil Coleman agreed to run the pilot during the first contest in his leadership role.
The concept was simple: the delegates become the speakers, as the stage is handed over to anyone who wishes to take it. There were six time slots spread among the four rooms, providing 24 sessions in total. Delegates were encourages to fill the schedule with their own talks by picking a room and slot on the grid. During each session, all other delegates could select a session to attend based solely on the name and title of the talk on the grid.
Sessions could be anything: a speech, a workshop, an interactive Q&A, host a debate, hold a table topics session, deliver a pitch, sing a song, dance - whatever.
The energy was high, and the build up was tense, but once the schedule grid opened, a huge rush to fill the slots meant the whole event started with a bang!
As each slot was only 10 minutes, with 5 minutes change over, this fast paced morning, meant that there was plenty to see, hear and get involved in. And with plenty of speaking slots for the delegates, everyone who wanted to speak got their chance. The variety of subjects was huge, ranging from a workshop on eye contact, to personal inspirational stories, to a preview of a TedX speech.
"It was great to see everyone getting involved. We had interest from people way before the day of the event, so we knew it would be popular. Now that we've proven the concept, I'm really hoping we can make this a regular event, 
and possibly run this as a standalone full day session", says Iain Scott, event organiser.
A big thanks to everyone who came, and those who stepped up from delegate to speaker and got involved. Also huge thanks to those who helped behind the scenes for what was a successful morning.
