Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club, Singapore (Sengkang): November 2020

Charlie Chaplin once said, “A day without laughter is a day wasted”, and the 50-odd of us who attended Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club’s Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contests held on 7 November 2020 certainly did not waste our Saturday as the many talented contestants had us splitting our sides with laughter the whole afternoon.

The first contestant, Chee Sian, left us craving for more as he talked all about food and linguistics in his speech, “Food for thought paradise”. Valli, went next, entertaining us with her re-enactment of the interactions she had with her son vs those she had with her mother when she was younger, in her speech titled “Generation Gap”. She also gave us helpful advice on how to bridge this gap. Next, Salma enthralled us with her torrid love affair with—Youtube! In her speech “My Love Affair with Online Videos”, she explains to us her love-hate relationship with the popular video-sharing site. This was followed by Valliappan, who condensed his past 10 years of experience in trying to find a good helper into his speech titled “How to find a domestic helper for dummies”.

Clockwise from top left: Chee Sian, Valli, Salma and Valliappan

The fifth contestant, Kok Siong, had us all in stitches as he enumerated the seemingly endless benefits of having a shaved head, in his speech, “My Unique, Cool Hairstyle”. Bharathamma, the sixth contestant, kept us on the edge of our seats as she recounted an anecdote of how she successfully pulled a prank on her grandmother’s friend in her speech, “One Fine Sunday”. Rusman then grabbed our attention with some fancy martial arts moves as he told us a hilarious story of how he got beaten up by bullies when his cockiness got the better of him after a few kungfu lessons in his speech, “My Story”. The eighth contestant, Joseph, surprised us by listing the ways in which the pandemic has not changed people’s behavior much in his amusing speech, “Has Covid-19 changed people’s behaviour?” He did however, end on a heartwarming note where he observes that many people have shown kindness and charity to those who have lost their jobs, businesses and loved ones, and concluded with a call to action for us to do the same. The final contestant, Siva, told us all about his penchant for “i-products” with his speech titled, “My Obsession with Apple Products”. He had us all roaring with laughter when he confessed that he remembers his wedding anniversary and children’s birthdays because they coincide with the launches of certain apple products! (For his sake, I hope his wife doesn’t read this!)

From top: Kok Siong, Bharathamma, Rusman, Joseph and Siva

After wiping away our tears (from laughing), Contest Toastmaster, Jennifer Lim, led everyone to take a Zoom group photo before adjourning for our coffee-break.

Zoom screen almost cannot contain all enthusiastic participants

After the break, it was time for the much-anticipated Evaluation Contest! To hype us up, Contest Chair, Aaron Ting, showed us the random draw that decided the contestants’ speaking order—which to our amusement, picked Chee Sian as the first contestant and Siva as the final contestant, like the Humorous Speech Contest earlier. After a quick briefing on the rules and regulations by the Contest Toastmaster, the Test Speaker for the Evaluations Contest was introduced—Divya Sharma, from SIA Toastmasters Club. In her speech, “How did this happen?” her vivacious personality shone through as she shared with us how her various passions led her to becoming a flight attendant, taking up a Masters degree in psychology, and joining Toastmasters. With her well-delivered speech, she definitely did not make it easy for our evaluators to pick out points of improvement!

Evaluating Test Speaker, Divya Sharma

The Evaluation Contest contestants were then placed in a separate zoom breakout room to prepare their evaluations while Jennifer held a little informal Q&A with Divya. After which, the contestants, Chee Sian, Valliappan, Rusman, Santwana, Marc, Sarah, Salma and Siva delivered their insightful evaluations on Divya’s speech. In particular, Salma (winner of the Evaluation Contest) amazed us all with her ingenuity as she delivered her evaluation to Divya in the form of a mother-in-law giving advice to her future daughter-in-law.

Overall, it was definitely a Saturday well-spent. Congratulations to all the contest participants for a job well done and special thanks to all the appointment holders, without which this contest would not have been possible.