The Mirror Effect: November 2022

On the 26^th November 2022, AIA Toastmasters and Tampines Changkat Toastmasters ran the Elite Speaker Incubator at AIA Tampines, on behalf of Division G. The premise was simple. Take Toastmasters serious about the International Speech Contest, and give them the one thing most speech workshops refuse to give anyone: genuine depth.

Toastmasters International’s World Championship of Public Speaking draws over 30,000 participants from more than 100 countries in a typical year. That field narrows through club, Area, Division, and District rounds down to a semifinal group, and finally to a mere eight or ten finalists standing on the world stage. The odds of reaching that stage are worse than most people’s odds of getting into a top university, and yet the industry response to this filtering process is, overwhelmingly, a two-hour generic workshop covering tips for confident speaking.

The Elite Speaker Incubator refused to play that game. It was one session, intensive, and unapologetically narrow in focus. It drilled into what actually separates a good speech from a memorable one, then moved participants into breakout groups with facilitators for direct, individual scrutiny. Intake was capped at the first 24 people to sign up. No padding the room for optics, no diluting the ratio of coaching to participant. Twenty-four people got real attention. Two hundred people would have got a lecture.

The credentials in the room justified the exclusivity. Lead trainer Kin Ng, DTM, is a two-time finalist at the World Championship of Public Speaking, which places him among a handful of people worldwide who have twice survived a filtering process that eliminates over 99.9% of the field before the final round. That is someone who has been tested at the level the programme’s participants were actually aiming for.

The full slate of appointment holders is worth recording for anyone tracking Division G’s bench strength: Terence Nunis, DTM, served as Organising Chair and doubled as a facilitator; facilitators Eric Tan, DTM, and Hyder Taufik, ran breakout sessions alongside him; Amos Yio, and Johnny Bao managed logistics; Zhuo Shu Zhen, DTM, and Cindy Gan, ran refreshments; Rominia Leonard Sarte, PI2, was photographer; and Regine Sim, handled publicity.

That is a lot of experienced Toastmasters organising a single afternoon for 24 people. It should be. Getting past the club round of a contest with 30,000 entrants is not achieved by attending a workshop that treats speech craft as a checklist. It is achieved by exactly this: small numbers, serious trainers, and a refusal to confuse volume with value.

Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters