Why Should I Participate in Speech Contests?

    I have participated in speech contests many times over the years, and I highly recommend that all of you consider it as well. I believe it expands your speaking abilities in several distinct ways.

  

First, it gives you a brand-new audience. We all get comfortable in our club environment, and that is genuinely a good thing! We want our members to feel comfortable giving speeches and participating as quickly as possible. However, this comfort can also lead to a bit of coasting.

I remember a year or two into my Toastmasters journey, I volunteered to be a test speaker for an Area evaluation contest. I ended up in downtown Denver, in a basement room at the RTD headquarters. The audience was considerably larger than my home club—I am guessing around 50 people. I remember welcoming back those old, familiar friends: the butterflies in my stomach. I hadn't been that nervous in a long time! But I like to think of anxiety as just extra energy, and you can direct that energy right into the performance of your speech. It was a great experience that broadened my horizons significantly. While this example was a test speaker being the contest speaker has the same implications. 

  Second, contests force you to refine and hone your material. Many times in our regular club meetings and Pathways paths, we prepare, practice, and deliver a speech once, only to file it away, never to be performed again. For a contest, you will practice that speech many times. If you win and move on to the next level, you will practice and refine it even more. It requires a level of polishing and editing that most standard club speeches just don't get.

 
Finally, it builds an even deeper level of confidence. Performing in front of larger, unfamiliar audiences builds your speaking muscles.

After being in Toastmasters for all these years, I know how easy it is to fall into "coast mode" or to just go through the motions. I encourage you all to think about participating in the upcoming speech contests. Club contests will begin this January, featuring the International Speech Contest and the Tall Tales Contest. Challenge yourself, step out of your comfort zone, and see how much you can grow!

The "Disappearing Story Tool" Interview: From Raw Memory to Speech Outline

📝 The "Disappearing Story Tool" Interview: From Raw Memory to Speech Outline

The following is a live demonstration of how to recreate the logic of Toastmasters’ deleted Story Collection tool using a simple, five-step guided interview process. You can use this exact framework on your own computer to pull a raw memory out of your head and structure it for the stage.

👥 The Guided Framework

Step 1: The Raw Spark

• The Coach: Give me a one- or two-sentence summary of a raw memory, mistake, or moment from your life. Don't worry about structure yet.
• The Speaker: "One of my first memories as a young child, I am thinking probably 3 or 4 years old. I had wandered out of the yard and scared my Dad something awful. I remember him shaking me so hard I bit my tongue. He was yelling, 'I told you to not go outside the fence!' I with huge eyes scared nodded yes and he said 'Why did you do it!' He then said, 'Get back in the yard and don't do it again!'"

Step 2: Sensory Mapping

• The Coach: What did the scene look or sound like? We need a concrete physical detail to anchor the audience in that exact moment.
• The Speaker: "The yard was a rural-looking property, even though it was in the Lakewood suburbs—it was a 1-acre lot. The fence was not much; it was a basic wire fence. I was just on the other side of that fence by the road when he found me."

Step 3: The Internal Shift

• The Coach: What was the contrast in your feelings? What were you experiencing before the panic, and what did you feel during it?
• The Speaker: "My stepbrothers and I were playing outside. They were 3 and 6 years older. They went outside the fence, so in my 3-year-old mind, I thought it must be okay if they are doing it, even though Dad said not to. I was having a blissful, peaceful moment before my Dad found me."

Step 4: Crafting the Climax

• The Coach: Pinpoint the exact dialogue and physical tension at the peak of the story. How do we bring this to life on stage?
• The Speaker: [The Climax focuses on the physical shock of being shaken, the sting of a bitten tongue, and the terrifying contrast between a towering, panicked father and a silent, wide-eyed 3-year-old child trapped by the wire fence next to the open road.]

🤖 Putting It Together

I then asked AI to put my story together into one unified paragraph:

One of my earliest memories is a blissful, peaceful moment when I was just three or four years old, playing on our one-acre, rural-looking property in the Lakewood suburbs. My stepbrothers, who were three and six years older, wandered outside our basic wire fence, and in my toddler mind, I figured if they were doing it, it must be okay—even though my dad had strictly told us not to. I followed them out and was standing just on the other side of that wire fence right by the road when my dad suddenly found me. Terrified out of his mind, he grabbed me and shook me so hard that I bit my tongue. With my eyes huge and wide with fear, I silently nodded as he yelled, “I told you to not go outside the fence! Why did you do it!” before finally commanding, “Get back in the yard and don’t do it again!”

💾 Build Your Independent Story Bank

This is just one idea of how to use Google AI to help transform your raw memories into structured stories, and then create a local folder to save these files in your own independent "story bank."

If you spend just five or ten minutes a couple of times a week recording a story or two, in no time you will build an entire personal library of narratives pulled directly from your own memories and experiences. This will prove to be an invaluable resource for you in your future speech projects!

What do I choose for a speech topic?

https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2023/apr/back-to-the-basics-speech-topics

  This article is a great catalyst for thinking about what to speak on. I feel like the possibilities for speech topics are all around us all the time and we sometimes discount them as something no one would be interested in. I would counter that thought with People are very interested! 

 The most obvious is perhaps to pull from your own life:

•  What joys have you experienced?
•  What challenges have you faced and overcome.
•  What challenges are you now dealing with? 
•  What surprising things happened to you? 
•  What was your first car and how did you pay for it? 
•  What are you interests? 
•  Hobbies? 
•  Profession?
•  Places you have traveled?
•  People you have meet?
•  What inspires you and why?
•  What makes you laugh? 
•  What saddens you and how can you or we make it   better? 
• 
  
• What table topics questions do you think were so good you can make an entire speech from it?

I remember George Carlin the comedian had as part of his comedy routine (Especially back in the 80’s and 90”s)  He said If two or more people are doing something there is a magazine about it! He would go on to say “there is a magazine for WALKING!”  He would yell the word “walking” and emphasize how something so common has a magazine about it. It was very funny one quote was “Look here is an article “Putting one foot in front of another”.  Speech topics are like this if you do something probably that could be made into a speech! A speech bout walking? Sure maybe it could be how walking changed your life with better physical fitness or maybe some places in they world you walked!

Bottom line is You are interesting and we all want to hear about you and your life! 

 If you follow the link at the top of this post there is a video about this about 3/4 way down the page which is good,  also there is a list of other articles at the bottom of that one.   

Explorations: Online Meeting Mastery

  If you want to sharpen a few specific skills but don’t feel like committing to a whole new multi-level path right now, Toastmasters has a new option that fits the bill. They just rolled out something called "Explorations."These are shorter, targeted modules meant for quick, practical learning.

The first one is live now, and it's a solid option for anyone looking to build up their skills or help the club hit its upcoming targets. Here is the breakdown:

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• Bite-Sized Deep Dives: "Explorations" are shorter, specialized learning modules within Pathways designed for rapid skill-building without the long-term commitment of a full path.
• Three Targeted Projects: The premier module lets you dive deep into three specific projects covering how to effectively attend virtual meetings, deliver online presentations, and lead online sessions.
• Pricing: The Online Meeting Mastery exploration is available for a one-time purchase of just $15 USDon the platform.
• Easy Platform Access: You can find and buy it directly by navigating to the “Additional Learning”section of the “Choose My Learning” page inside the standard Toastmasters Learning Hub.
• Earns Full Club Credit: Completing an exploration satisfies a Level 2 slot for the club, counting as a direct substitution toward your DCP Goals 2 or 3.
• Distinct Member Recognition: While it benefits the club like a Level 2, your personal Member Overview Dashboard tracks and celebrates it specifically as a completed exploration under your “Completed Learning” history.
• Simple VPE Approval: Once you finish the projects, your club's Vice President Education (VPE) simply logs into Club Central to submit and claim the educational credit for the club.

Take the Next Step

If you want to give it a shot, log into the website, head over to Base Camp, and check it out under the additional learning section. It’s a quick way to knock out three projects and give the club a boost at the same time.

https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2026/september/explore-online-meetings

https://www.toastmasters.org/Education/Pathways/Pathways%20Paths%20and%20Projects