Building up to competitions night at Speakeasy Toastmasters

SPEAKEASY Toastmasters Club will host the North Cork (Area 17) Finals of the Speech and Evaluation Contests this Thursday night in the Hibernian Hotel, Mallow at 8pm.

Qualifying Contestants from Fermoy, Failte (Charleville), and Speakeasy Toastmasters will do verbal battle in two contests. Among the participants will be Frank O’Driscoll, Jerry Hennessy and Johanna Hegarty of Fermoy and Sean Corcoran, Brendan Foley and Pat Sexton of Speakeasy.

The conventional Toastmasters meeting works at creating a relaxed athmosphere to reduce any nervousness that speakers may have. The two competition nights are a little like what speakers might experience in speaking engagements in the workplace, in the dressing room or in meetings of voluntary organisations.

Competition encourages members to move outside of their “comfort zone”. It provides the opportunity to members to test their skills in a competitive context as it helps them to broaden their communication skills.

Moreover, contests can be hugely entertaining and fascinating for an audience, be it of Toastmasters members or guests. The audience witness speakers perform at a higher level and experience a broad range of ideas on a range of worthy subjects.

Speeches are of a five to ten minutes duration and contestants are judged on communication skills and speech value.

In the Speech Evaluation Contest, contestants are required to listen to a ‘ test speaker’ and provide a three minute evaluation of that speech (contestants cannot hear previous evaluations). They are judged on their analytical skills and the quality of the recommendations offered to the speaker.

The first and second place winners in each contest will qualify for the Division B (North Munster) Finals in Limerick on April 7.

Area 17 has a proud record of achievements in these contests. Kevin Walsh, Orison Carlie (Fermoy), Joe Portley (Crusaders) and Deirdre Linehan, Kieran Butler and Pat Sexton of Speakeasy have all participated in Irish and British (District 71) Speech Contest Finals.

Indeed, Joe Portley in 1998 and Deirdre Linehan in 2018 are the only Cork representatives to capture victory at District level. In the Speech Evaluation Contest, Michael Cronin, Pat Sexton and Tony O’Regan have represented Speakeasy and Area 17 at District level, with Pat Sexton emerging victorious in 2018.

In other news, Speakeasy members are privileged to be involved in the up coming Kanturk Arts Festival. Liam Flynn, Bobby Buckley and Kieran Butler will be part of the impressive line-up of performers at the festival opening night at O’Callaghans Motors Showroom on Friday, March 15. The next day, Sean Corcoran and Kieran Buckley will participate in the Drama Night at the Edel Quinn Hall. Both events are worthy of support.

In the meantime, all roads lead to the Hibernian Hotel on this Thursday for the Area Finals of the Speech and Evaluation Contests. Proceedings commence at 8pm sharp.

For more information about this Club, please check out the website speakeasytoastmasters.com or on Facebook.