On 30th October 2019, I was at
Chong Pang Toastmasters Club as Chief Judge, my 101st club visit on
the 122nd day of the Toastmaster year. This marked the seventh year of Chong Pang
Toastmasters’ Next Top Speaker, open to secondary school students across the
area. The organising team drew from the
club’s own Executive Committee, including Kok Yee Keong, Chang Soek Khim, Tony
Tan, Shirley Tham, DTM, and others.
A 2009 study by Ben Silliman, published in
the Journal of Youth Development, examined youth participants’ own reported
outcomes from public speaking experience, finding 84% reported improved school
performance and 94% reported improved ability to relate to others, alongside
measurable gains in confidence, goal setting, and organisational skill. A secondary school student stepping onto a
stage in a competition like this is not merely chasing a placing. He is acquiring a skillset the research
consistently links to measurable improvement across academic and social domains
that have nothing directly to do with public speaking itself.
The Scale of the Preliminary Round
Because of the sheer number of
participants, the preliminary round required several judging panels running
simultaneously. Group 1 was chaired by
Ho Chiu Lin, DTM, with Tony Lim, DTM, Angela Lansbury and Roger
Sng, DTM, as Judges, and Meng Da Onn as Timer. Group 2 was chaired by Jenny Wan, with James
Clifton, DTM, as Chief Judge, Annabelle de Arroz, DTM, and Annie
Goh, DTM, as Judges, and Gavin Lim as Timer. Group 3 was chaired by Zheng Yuan Yuan, with
Timothy Lin, DTM, as Chief Judge, Penny Radcliffe, and Julia Chen, DTM,
as Judges, and Thinesh Rajan as Timer.
Group 4 was chaired by Rina Tay, DTM, with me as Chief Judge, Lim
Chee Hoo and Joshua Sathasivam as Judges, and Belinda Lee as Timer.
Out of twenty contestants per group, only
two qualify for the finals, scheduled for Wednesday, 6th November. A ten-to-one elimination ratio at the
preliminary stage is not a gentle introduction to competitive speaking. It demands differentiation between speakers
who have all already cleared the bar of being interesting enough to enter in
the first place. The event ran like
clockwork across four parallel panels judging eighty students in total, and
Chong Pang Toastmasters Club can be justifiably proud of what they have
achieved, organising a competition of this scale, seven years running, without
a single visible seam showing.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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