First-ever Division-wide Rookie Speech Festival
The Division F Rookie Speech Festival was held online on December 11, 2021. This first-ever event consisted of three major sessions, judge training sessions in Japanese and English, mock contests in Japanese and English featuring speakers who are new to Toastmasters, and a feedback session. Shin-Osaka Leaders played a significant role in organizing this event.
First and foremost, the chief organizer of the event was Hideo, the founding president of the club. "Ever since I heard about a similar event held in Kanagawa Prefecture, I've always wanted a similar one in Division F, too," says Hideo. "After serving as an Area Director last year working with a lot of people from outside my own clubs, I felt ready to launch an event of this kind myself." He first talked with Mariko, one of our members succeeding him as Area 63 Director, Yuuki Uchida, Immediate Past Division F Director, and Ikumi Nishikawa, an up-and-coming Toastmaster of Osaka Sunshine Toastmasters Club, who co-hosted a couple of public relations workshops with Hideo.
Mariko helped organize the mock contests, Yuki and Pan served as interviewers in the mock contests, and KImiaki participated as a contestant. Yuki also designed the event's virtual background image posted above. Last but not least, Maho helped finetune the entire event making sure everything is taken care of.
The judge training sessions were insightful and the mock contests were well prepared. The contestants in the mock contests are not eligible to compete in the regular speech contest because they haven't delivered the required number of speeches so far. Yet, they delivered well-prepared good speeches and seemed to enjoy a rare opportunity to make speeches in front of an unfamiliar audience outside their clubs. Though it was unfortunate the events took longer than planned and we had to skip the feedback session, it was a great success with almost all staying for a feedback session after the event was officially over.
Shin-Osaka Leaders members played important roles in making this event a success. "I'm glad that five other members from my club participated in this event and did a wonderful job," explains Hideo. "The members who participated in this event truly understand the virtue of Toastmasters as a place to try new things. This is in perfect alignment with our club vision, Shin-Osaka Leaders Toastmasters Club is a vehicle that growth-oriented people proactively utilize for their personal development as communicators and leaders."
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