Sunday, November 22, 2015

District 84 Fall 2015 Conference

What a weekend! My son was certainly disappointed at missing the conference, but my step-daughter got to experience her first Toastmasters District Conference.

We were challenged to post about the conference to social media. On Twitter we were to use the hashtag #TMD84.

Friday Night

The first night is the night everyone dresses up for the theme. Since the theme was "The Rhythm's Gonna Getcha", a play off of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine's song "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You",  the costumes were based on rock stars.
The chicken breast was rather tough, I'm afraid. I made the mistake of getting up from my chair and taking a couple steps away to talk to a Toastmaster at the next table. When I turned around

I was not in costume Friday night, though, because I was in the

District 84 Evaluation Contest

This was my first time ever getting to the District finals. This is how I got there:

Lake Mary Toastmasters
Central Florida Facilitators
Safe Words No recordings available. I placed second (out of two!) at this club contest, but since both first and second place were permitted to advance to the Area 33 contest, I chose to represent Safe Words at the Area level since that allowed all the competitors in my other clubs to also compete at the area level.
Area 33
Division C

Now it was time for the finals!

 Test Speech: "If At First You Don't Succeed" - Carey David


While preparing my evaluation, I had identified a few opportunities for technical improvements, but they all seemed rather small and nitpicky to me. So I decided to emphasize the speech's flexibility for many different situations. I was aiming for something unique as well as productive, an idea that would help take that speech to a higher level.

 Contestant 6 - Steven Morgan


Alas, I did not place in the contest. The feedback I received from various people afterward was interesting. Several people thought I had done well. A few thought I should have placed or won outright. One liked my unusual approach  but thought it was probably not appreciated by the judges. Another thought I had not given any useful feedback and if I had stuck to my usual style I would have won.

Saturday Lunch

During the Saturday lunch at the fall conference, District 84 roasts the Immediate Past District Governor. This year, that person was someone who first joined Toastmasters as a member of Omni Toastmasters back when I was a member there in 2008. I wanted in on this roast, so I specifically requested a speaking slot. When I qualified for the Evaluation Contest, I realized I would not be able to dress up Friday night. My son was also bummed at not being able to go as his (and my) favorite artist, Weird Al Yankovic. So I decided to take on that role and dress up for the roast, and here is what I did!




It was fun! And quite memorable!

Saturday Night

Saturday night is the Humorous Speech contest. That is the one contest I have yet to get to the District level. This is also the night to dress formally! Of course, my wife loves to get all dressed up, especially if it involves sparkles:

She also loves her red meat:

Those water and tea pitchers were ridiculous. It was nearly impossible to pour out of them without dribbling all over everything. Who invented these?

At the end of the evening, the winners of the social media challenges were announced. Lucky me, I won for my Twitter tweets!


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