Hot Springs Toastmasters Club 7643 will hold one of its two semi-annual club speaking contest dates at 8 a.m. Saturday in Room 203 at Champion Christian College, on the campus of Gospel Light Baptist Church, 600 Garland St.
Attendance this week is planned by area and division directors Adren Duncan, for Area A-3, and Craig Nunemaker, for Division A.
The club welcomes all interested persons to attend. The regular meeting format will be altered for the contest. The club will be back to its regular meeting format on Feb. 25.
Two speaking contests are held in most Toastmasters districts, each time there are contest series. This time of year the contests are for International Speech, a seriously themed speech that can include humor, and Speech Evaluation, one of the methods of providing formal feedback that is part of most Toastmasters meetings. For the International Speech contest, all contest speeches are expected to be 5-7 minutes long, with a 30-second leeway allowed on each end of the listed time frame, to be eligible to win.
In the late summer and early fall contest series leading up to the fall district conference, contests are usually held for Humorous Speech and Table Topics, off-the-cuff speaking.
Toastmasters speech contest series start at the club level, and move on through area, division and district. Hot Springs Toastmasters is part of District 43 of Toastmasters International, and covers all of Arkansas, western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. Winners at these club contests will be eligible to go on to the Area A-3 contests in Little Rock in March. This club has historically had at least four or five contest participants who continued through the contest series to win at the district level.
The International Speech series is the one Toastmasters speaking contest series each year which proceeds past the district level, to international.
This is the only active Toastmasters club in Garland, Hot Spring, Montgomery and Clark counties. It is open to members of all backgrounds willing to commit to Toastmasters principles.
To find the meeting location, use the parking lot for the college, on Garland Avenue between 4th and 5th streets. The meeting room is in the building with the Champion College sign on it, use the cafeteria door, then go upstairs. There is an elevator near the other entrance.
Toastmasters offers resources, feedback and a supportive atmosphere to help members develop, or practice, varied skills in speaking in front of an audience or in chairing a meeting. Visitors may choose their level of participation while learning about Toastmasters.
For more information, call 262-1664, 501-840-0669, or in Hot Springs Village, 922-3492.
Society on 02/17/2017