Mullingar Toastmasters Club recently hosted its International Speech and Evaluation Contest in the Greville Arms Hotel. This event happens once a year and it involves a lot of preparation and dedication in terms of planning and organisation, not to mention the amount of practice on the part of speech contestants.
Geraldine Smith acted as contest chair on the night and was responsible for the smooth running of the meeting. Jude Portbury was topicsmaster. While the judges were deliberating the final verdict, people were given topics to entertain each other and to speak on a given subject without having much time to prepare.
The first part of the meeting comprised five interesting speeches which were of a very high standard. It was very obvious that each contestant spent a lot of time practising, researching, and preparing their speech. Rachel Waldron won the International Speech and Evaluation Contest at club level. She will represent the area on Sunday April 5 in Athlone and will be competing against three other clubs: Athlone, Longford, and Tullamore.
The second part of the meeting consisted of the test speech and the evaluation contest. The test speech was called The Message by Al McGuinness. In the speech he described the many facets of love. There were five evaluators. Joan Heduan won the evaluation contest. She will also represent Mullingar in the area final on Sunday April 5 in Athlone.
