Blogtrek

Winning speech contests

I attended a Toastmaster meeting recently in which two speakers talked about winning speech contests. One speaker gave a talk on how to evaluate another speaker. This does not seem to be about contests, except that one of the upcoming contests is about evaluation. He used a football analogy which did not always fit. The other one spoke about humorous speech contests; his humorous remarks kept our attention on him. He did say we should avoid "blue humor"; it will never win. But it did win one year at a regional conference where a speaker talked about her passionate desire for a candy bar. He said the speech had no purpose or message. To me it did - it illustrated how the flaws in our society's sexual ethics lead some to weird pursuits. He said a speech about bathroom functions wasn't funny. But it drove the audience to stitches. But he was right - the contestant did not win. I would not have selected that one as the winner either. All this shows we can't make hard and fast conclusions about things. We can't categorically say that blue speeches are inappropriate or will not win, or that they will win. It depends on the audience, which brings up an important speaker's maxim: know your audience.