Toastmasters contests give a chance to demonstrate your speaking and evaluation skills, and to compete alongside members of other clubs. Who knows, if you are good enough you could end up as International champion!
You could also take on a role to help organise the contests.
Types of Speech Contest
International Speech Contest
Green light: 5 minutes – Yellow light: 6 minutes – Red light: 7 minutes
The speech can be any subject so long as it’s original.
District contests must be held by June. In August, District winners go to the International Convention where they compete in Semi-Finals then, if successful, the World Final. Competitors in the Word Final must deliver a different speech, determined as sufficiently different by a majority of five Qualifying Judges (who are separate from the normal Judges). The current World Final winning speech can be viewed here.
Green light: 5 minutes – Yellow light: 6 minutes – Red light: 7 minutes
The speech can be any subject so long as it’s original.
District contests must be held by June. In August, District winners go to the International Convention where they compete in Semi-Finals then, if successful, the World Final. Competitors in the Word Final must deliver a different speech, determined as sufficiently different by a majority of five Qualifying Judges (who are separate from the normal Judges). The current World Final winning speech can be viewed here.
Table Topics Contest
Green light: 1 minute – Yellow light: 1.5 minutes – Red light: 2 minutes
The topic should be general in nature and not require specialised knowledge.
All Contestants are taken out of the room and brought back individually by the Usher. Thereby a Contestant does not hear the topic or any other Constestant’s speech before delivering their own speech.
Goes as far as District level.
Evaluation Contest
Green light: 2 minutes – Yellow light: 2.5 minutes – Red light: 3 minutes
A target speaker gives a speech during which the Contestants may take notes.
After the target speech the Contestants are taken from the room by the Usher to prepare their speeches. After 5 minutes their notes are taken away. Then each Contestants is brought back into the room individually, their notes are returned and they deliver their evaluation. Thereby a Contestant does not hear any other Constestant’s evaluation before delivering their own.
Goes as far as District level.
Humorous Speech Contest
Green light: 5 minutes – Yellow light: 6 minutes – Red light: 7 minutes
An original speech with humour value, but also displaying good speechmaking abilities.
Goes as far as District level.
Tall Tales Contest
Green light: 3 minutes – Yellow light: 4 minutes – Red light: 5 minutes
An original, highly improbable, humorous tale. Wikipedia’s definition of a Tall Tale is here.
Goes as far as District level.
Although there are 5 types of contest, each District may hold no more than 4 of them.
Autumn – Humorous Speech and Table Topics
Spring – International Speech and Evaluation
Time parameters
Contestants are disqualifed if they fall short of the minimum times, or exceed the maximum times, shown below.
contest | minimum | maximum |
International Speech | 4.5 minutes | 7.5 minutes |
Table Topics | 1.0 minute | 2.5 minutes |
Evaluation | 1.5 minutes | 3.5 minutes |
Humorous Speech | 4.5 minutes | 7.5 minutes |
Tall Tales | 2.5 minutes | 5.5 minutes |
You will notice that the disqualification timings are 30 seconds either side of the speech times as signaled by turning on the green and red lights – except for Table Topics, where Contestants must speak for at least one minute to avoid disqualification.
Special Thanks
Special thanks to Toastmasters EasySpeak for the resources for this page
https://toastmasterclub.org/kb.php?mode=article&k=27