Rohde & Schwarz TMC as Chief Judge, 07th February 2020

On the 07^th February 2020, I was at Rohde & Schwarz Toastmasters Club, as chief judge, for their International Speech & Humorous Speech Contest.  This was my 156^th club visit on the 222^nd day of the Toastmaster year.

The contest chair, as well as Contest Toastmaster of the Day, was Anand Rangarajan.  The sergeants-at-arms were Kunal Arora and Edmund Pang.  The timers were Lisa Wong Pui Wan, and Vasanthi Jagannathan Ravi.  The tally counters were Livio Deltin, Putu Sanjaya Setiawan, and Jerry Lim.

International Speech

Arnold Stanley spoke about the lottery, and how too much money, without the right values, created bigger problems for the winners.  He gave the example of Michael Carroll, the so-called “Lotto Lout”, who won almost £10 million when he was 19 years old.  He was a garbage man, he spent all that money on drugs and prostitutes, and returned to being a garbage man with a multimillion-pound debt.

Alexander Gummenscheimer spoke about his childhood, growing up in Russia, from an ethnic German family.  He was given the impossible goal of mastering German in a short time because they migrating there.  He spoke about impossible goals, and how they are sometimes not impossible, how they drive us to excellence.

Vignesh Natarajan spoke about multilingual intelligence, and how the ability to not only speak, but think in multiple languages is an underrated advantage in a globalised world.

Humorous Speech

Lee Kah Heng spoke about the lessons he learned from his grandmother, mother, and wife.  They were quotes from his women.

Anugeetha Vishwanatha gave an account of a road trip that did not quite work out.

The third speaker was Amol Malokar.  Unfortunately, I did not manage to record notes down.

International Speech Winner: Alexander Gummenscheimer;

International Speech 1^st Runner-Up: Vignesh Natarajan;

Humorous Speech Winner: Lee Kah Heng;

Humorous Speech 1^st Runner-Up: Anugeetha Vishwanatha; and

Humorous Speech 2^nd Runner-Up: Amol Malokar.