Things to avoid at a contest

Reflecting on the contest season, Mark started a thread with this list of things to avoid if you are running a contest event. I have sorted contributions by Mark, Rich, Joy, Colin, Jim, Phyrne and Robert into sub headings to make it easier to find suggestions for your role, but harder to appreciate the individual contributors frustrations.

Presentation time
Please take the blanking award out of the blanking bag before you present it to the first and second place winner.

In a contest with three or fewer contestants, announce only the first place winner - then give the second place person a call afterwards, and perhaps mail the trophy or present it at a club instead of 'sneaking' it to them in the back of the room.

On announcing only first place: That would be a violation of the rules. I understand what you're trying to do, but let's go by the rules. To be honest, I would rather that the rank of ALL the contestants be announced. If you're in a contest, then you already know that there will be a first place ... and everyone else. Let's put on our big boy/big girl shorts and realize that being ranked last in a contest does not mean you are a bad person. However, that's not what the rules say, and we have to follow the rules.

Don't ever say - "the first place winner is, no surprise, ___________________"

Don't ever say, before awarding the winners, "Well, that's all folks. Oh, am I forgetting something?" or any other similar riff. It was never funny in the first place.

As contest Toastmaster, I do my own little spin on things. When I was interviewing the contestants, my opening question would be a variation of, "If it's Wednesday at 6:30 PM, where can we find you?" The answer, of course, is the contestant's club. It's a slight variation of, "What club do you belong to?"

As contest master, don't turn the "meet the contestants" interview portion into a session of "stump the chump". I've seen too many contest masters launch into Table Topics from Hell, just - it seemed - to demonstrate how clever/witty/smart they were. They seemed to delight in leaving the contestants scrambling for a response.

Tell the contestants during the briefing that you are not going to try to stump them with any interview questions. Tell them the requisite things you plan to ask (name, club, how long a TM, TM educational level), and if you know what follow- up question you're going to ask, give it to them in advance.

Find a creative/fun/CONCISE way to handle briefing the audience. I've seen too many belabor so many parts of the briefing, the thought crossed my mind to stand up and say "ENOUGH ALREADY!!! GET ON WITH THE CONTEST!!!" In some cases, it was the briefer (either the TM or the CJ) wanting to thoroughly explain all the rules. In others, it was about the briefer wanting to enjoy as much time in the spotlight as possible.

You may think this is unnecessary, but one contributor suggested: "Make sure that the person you are announcing in the winner's list actually competed."

It seems that third place in a nine person evaluation contest was awarded to a member who had dropped out at the last moment, but prior to the contest.

Scheduling
Please do not wait until the end of the month to schedule your area contests. We run short of judges when you have six contests on a Friday night.... and three of the contests are in different rooms in the same building.

If you get all of the clubs/areas participating, plan for the contest to run two-and-a-half hours. Don't try to say that it will run two hours. IT WON'T HAPPEN.

If the division A contest is in Lodi, CA and the division C contest is in Orland, CA they are 140 miles apart. If you want the district officers to attend both contests, please allow plenty of time for travel. Scheduling the Division C contest at 9 AM with six contestant per contest AND having a raffle to pay for the room does not provide enough time for officers and judges to make it down to the 1:30 Division A contest.

Venue
Please, if there is more than one entrance, post a Sgt at Arms committee member at EACH ONE, and train them properly.

Sound System

If there is a sound system, work out all the details of who will operate what and how the system works BEFORE the contest, not during the contest.

If there is a PA system in the building, see if the contest site can be omitted from announcements unless it is an emergency situation so as not to interrupt contest presentations

Timekeeping

The book says that you need two stopwatches. Four work better.... * Two for the timing table * One to act as backup and to time the one minute * One for the five minutes during the evaluation contests

Contest Chairman

The Contest Chairman should NEVER NEVER NEVER try to be the focus of attention. Your job is to facilitate the contest and keep the focus on the contestants. I absolutely detest the "warm up the audience" routines that I'm subjected to prior to humorous speech contests.

Save your best jokes for the spring contests and the bad jokes for the humorous speech contests. You don't want to upstage the humorous speech contestants.

If you're the contest toastmaster, save your jokes for your club when you give your manual speech.

Please discuss with Eval and TTopic contestants where they should stand when you will be asking them the question, or introducing them. I'm tired of guessing.

Please, please don't say "A drum roll please" before announcing each award recipient!

Develop an appropriate timing serum that will alert late night speakers (keynote, awards presenters, etc.) that it is late and perhaps they should curtail their prepared remarks.

Double check all equipment from the clocks and lights to sound system and the stage...t'aint nothing more detrimental to an effective presentation than a portion of the stage buckling.

Read the results correctly.

Table Topics contest
Make sure your table topic is vetted by the Chief Judge and contest chair. They should not hear the topic for the first time when you introduce the first contestant.

Let the district officer responsible for the contest (AG, Div Gov, etc.) vet the Table Topics question. It is their contest.

Evaluation Contests
When running an evaluation contest don't use a brand new never- been-to-a-contest rookie for your SAA.

Judges
Do not, repeat, DO NOT publish the judge's names in the contest program.


Contestants
If you want to intentionally lose a contest, come to the contest in casual clothing, have your checkbook in your shirt pocket, bring up your water bottle, and keep holding up that water bottle while answering the table topics question while never using it as a prop. It says to me as a judge, "I want to lose this contest intentionally." (And, yes, this happened at a division level contest)

Everybody
Your contest photographer is your friend. Please allow him to take the pictures of the contest.

Don't talk during the minute of silence, Mr./Madame TM - not "good job", "wow", "Does someone have a tissue", NOTHING - its called a minute of silence for a reason.

The contest should focus on the contestants, not the staff, contest master, chief judge, etc

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Evaluations

In May 1999 Arif was preparing for an evaluation contest and sought ideas on what makes a good evaluation. The thread was Evaluation Contest. These tips can be used equally effectively in routine evaluations in the club.

Arif had already these factors in mind:

1. How well did the speech convey the message to the audience?
2. Did the speech have a good intro. , body, and a powerful conclusion?
3. Speaker's eye-contat?
4. Speaker's body-language?

Terry suggested when pointing out areas needing improvement, be sure to suggest ways to make those improvements.

Joe recalled his time as a target speakers in a contest when more important than anything else, a good evaluator builds the self-esteem of the speaker. Emphasize your feelings as well as mechanics. Were you inspired or motivated by the speech? Did the speech make you feel good or did it anger you? Avoid trite phrases such as, "I look forward to hearing your next speech.

Joy added Vocal variety is something to listen for, as well. Incidentally, regarding eye contact, I have noticed that most speakers favor one side of the room with eye contact. You might watch for that, especially if the speaker is especially good, and you're having trouble coming up with suggestions.

Denis suggested
Voice: vocal variety, projection, pace, pauses as being appropriate to subject and setting.
Movement and gestures: appropriate and again big enough for a bigger setting. think about stiffness or any sign of apparent nervousness. Did movement add or detract from presentation.
Eyes: Did speaker connect with all the parts of audience or did speaker lose part of room -- again based on size of audience.
Avoid any tendency to repeat the speech, and winning evals I have heard do find suggestions for even the best speech and speaker!

He also recalled the conflicting feedback he recieved as a rtarget speaker in a contest
The first evaluaor said; "I like your eye contact, you really connected" , second evaluator said: "try not to stare at people during your speech"

In another eval contest, one evaluator said of test speaker; "I loved how you worked the stage and involved whole audience, later evalator said, " you were all over the stage and made me lose track of message"

So, remember we all see different things differently.

In December 2004, Chris sought ideas for an Evaluation Workshop.

The most common mistake Mark sees is in thinking that the evaluation is about finding what's wrong with the speech. This leads very nice, but well meaning, members to say, "I can't find anything wrong." This is pleasant, but unhelpful. Other members, who are not afraid to point out flaws, wind up giving scorching evaluations. This is both unpleasant and unhelpful.

The evaluation is, in my opinion, about finding where the speech can be improved. For some speakers, there were be a struggle to decided which two or three points to raise. For other speakers, it will be a struggle to find two or three points. However, I firmly believe that all speeches can be improved.

Focusing on how the speech can be "better" also ties in to the incremental progress approach in Toastmasters. For someone who reads from a verbatim script, the "better" suggestion is to use notes. For someone who relies heavily on notes, the "better" suggestion is to memorize an outline. We wouldn't normally go from a person reading their Icebreaker speech to completely discarding the lectern in Speech #2. We usually ease members into more advanced concepts and techniqes.

For the very advanced speaker flying with notes, who suddenly goes blank and spends many painful seconds trying to get back on track, the "better" suggestion is to have the notes available. There's nothing in the slightest bit wrong in the occasional use of a well prepared note.

In April 1999 the thread was Effective Speech Evaluation, and the biggest mistake Denis sees is the evaluator repeating the speech. The evaluator should only repeat enough specific points to highlight a point of praise or a suggestion of improvement. This repetition should happen sparingly.

The club should get in the habit of always stating member goals and project objectives, just before speech. This will help focus the speaker and the evaluators and get everyone on the same page.

Jenny words all the positives in a way that gives the speaker the credit and makes it seem like this is a permanent, far-reaching trait. Conversely, the negatives should be worded in a way that doesn't assess blame and makes it seem like a temporary trait.

Examples:

Positive: You spoke so eloquently and gave us such wonderful word pictures, as you always do. Negative: This speech was not as well-organized as usual. (instead of "YOU were not organized", or worse, "YOU are NEVER very organized")

Positive: You have mastered the art of gesturing! (a very permanent thing)
Negative: Try (add your tip here), and the signs of nervousness will be invisible next time. (temporary, won't be there forever).

There's nothing wrong with saying "This was a good speech" - but why not give the speaker the pride of personal accomplishment by saying, "YOU gave a good speech".

At the same time, there's no white-washing the negatives; it's just a way of wording them so that the sharp sting is dulled and there's hope of improving the next time. After all, if you were told "You have a nervous mannerism", it would seem like a permanent, hopeless problem - why make the effort to change? Instead, by saying, "Ear-pulling happened during times of nervousness - here's my tip for controlling nerves...", you acknowledge the problem, indicate that it's temporary and offer some hope for fixing it in future speeches.

An added caution - don't lie or make up stuff! If you've never heard this speaker or if this speaker, in fact, ALWAYS makes the same mistake, you can hardly say "This is not your usual way". Use your best judgement, and try not to sound like you're using a "technique".

In July 2005, the heading was Evaluating.
Nigel suggested telling the speaker how you connected with the speech and how it connected with you, without having to give your own story. "I enjoyed your speech about car racing because that has been a life long ambition of mine". Point out some good points about the speech "You gestures were great, for example when you said "zoom" and used your hands to relate the speed of the car". Try and pick a point where the speaker improved from the previous speech. "I noticed you used notes on your last speech, but this was without notes and it seemed like it was more natual because of that".

Pick one or two points to improve on and why. "I would like you to use more pauses in your speech. "Rather than ready, set go, try ready........set........ GOOOOOOOOOO to give a more dramatic start to the race". I would also like to see you move from behind the podium so you can connect more with your audience".

Finally, give another good point, a reinforcement. "Your vocal variety has improved greaty over the last few speeches, and I'm really looking forward to your next one".

Try to avoid commenting on the content on the speech too much. Your job as an evaluator is to examine the delivery, but be sure to follow the guidelines in the manual to make sure the speech achives the goals that are set out. Basically, did the content fill the requirements.

A few days before the meeting, find out who you are supposed to evaluate and ask them what they would like you to look out for specifically. Find out which manual speech they're doing so you can check the requirements rather than have to do it during the meeting.

John S offered some ways that I am likely to start an evaluation, but in each case they are in response to the speech, not prepared before hand.
====== EXAMPLES
Your comments on yak racing took me back to a childhood visit to Mesopotamia, but I think that the way you brought the subject to life was more vivid than my memory of the actual trip. I liked .... (but only if the speech topic was about yak racing - or adapted to suit the actual speech and your actual experience - this is the only time your experience is mentioned. Too often I have heard evaluators expounding their greater knowledge)

I've often wondered where the quote of the week people get their pithy sayings from - nicely encapsulated phrases that say it all in 10 seconds. To me, your statement .... deserves to be on an http://www.quotations.com/. (which may or may not exist.)

I've never believed in evaluations where the expert (me) tells the student (you) what you did wrong. To me it is a chance to watch closely and decide which of your techniques I can incorporate in one of my future speeches. Well tonight I got three: the way that you ...., your use of ..... and .... (particularly useful when evaluating an experienced speaker - but all Toastmasters have experiences, just different ones. You can tell that to www.quotations.com)

Thank you for the inspiration. (or laughs, or information) What made it inspirational to me was .... And then end with something like: Again thank you. Tonight, I have decided to do something about it.
=====
In each case, I hope I would convey the impact that a speech had on me, an important part of evaluation.
But never try to upstage the speaker with your greater knowledge, even if it is valid.

Mark believes that a good evaluation is really a two to three minute motivational speech. You want the speaker to be deeply inspired to make changes and also to be eager to give their next speech. It is your time to shine, but not to outshine!

Use all the good speech techniques you've learned in Toastmasters and elsewhere. They say that in giving a powerful presentation it's all about the audience, that's every bit as true for an evaluation. Use the methods that will reach your audience.

Anthony rephrased that to "remember that a good evaluation is really about providing productive and useful feedback to the speaker.

As your evaluation skills develop, you will find that an evaluation also provides you with an opportunity to present a speech (the evaluation) that is good practice and a learning opportunity for future evaluations and speeches.


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Substantially original - a case study for a judging workshop

In September 2002, I posted a speech and sought an opinion on whether it would pass the "substantially original" test for speech contests. The thread was entitled "An original bit of plagiarism and like all posts in this blog is based on responses through the newsgroup alt.org.toastmasters.


First the speech
An Internet Connection - the true story behind an urban myth

When I was a child, there was no internet.
But, I spent just as many hours on my precious bike.
There was no part of the district surrounding the village that I had not explored.
Except the cemetery near the church-yard.
There was something about that place with its giant chestnut tree that was spooky. Until that memorable day....
I don't know what drew me to the graveyard, I will never forget what happened there.
From behind the ivy covered fence, I distinctly heard:
. One for you, One for me, One for you, One for me ...
Now I didn't need anyone to explain to me what was happening.
St Peter and the devil were dividing the souls of the dear departed.
But who would believe me?
I needed a witness.
There was no one to turn to.
The only person I could see was grumpy old Mr Bright, trudging wearily towards the town.
And we children were all terrified of him and his walking stick.
But I was desperate.
"Mr Bright, Mr Bright, Come with me this is urgent," I pleaded
"Go away, urchin, or you shall feel the end of this stick," he replied
"Please Mr Bright, this is very important."
Eventually my persistence outlasted his resistance.
As a fearful child and a grumbling old man approached the graveyard, we could both hear:
One for me, One for you, One for me, One for you .
"We'll soon get to the bottom of this," the elderly gentleman assured me with a scowl.
I very tentatively followed behind him, as he approached the entrance to the graveyard.
It seemed to hold no dread for him.
As we came close to the gate, the counting seemed to stop, and then we heard:
Well that seems to be the lot now, except for those last couple of nuts over by the gate.
I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but Mr Bright's walking stick went flying through the air, and he kept pace with me no matter how fast I pedalled. But as fast as we were going, we were overtaken by the two European tourists who had been in town for the last few days.
They ran past us as though we were standing still, and I was amazed by their Olympic leap onto the second last wagon of a wheat train which was passing through town.

Now I know you are going to say that you have seen this story before; it is on the internet... it's an urban myth.
And you are partly right.

Last year, a respected German lawyer bought one million e-mail addresses and sent out spam seeking more details on an event which occurred in my home town about twenty years ago.
He and a friend had been back-packing around rural Australia.
They found their way to our town and were quite enjoying the stay.

One day they were collecting chestnuts from beneath a tree in the village graveyard.
They had shared the bounty evenly, and were about to pick up the last few which had rolled over towards the graveyard gate,

Suddenly one was struck on the head by a flying walking stick, which ricocheted and hit his companion in the chest.
The friend joined a contemplative convent and has not spoken since, but the lawyer was less convinced that it was an act of God.

However, until the spread of the internet, he did not know how to find out what really happened.
... without venturing back to our town... and he certainly was not ready to do that.

Because of the marvels of e-mail I was able to add my side to his story, and together we worked out what really happened.
We haven't yet told Mr. Bright yet, though.

Every evening he entertains the village children with stories from a full and exciting life before the internet.
He is 92 now, and since that day has walked upright-no cane in sight.
In fact, he jogs five kilometres every morning, but he has never told anyone why he speeds up to a very respectable sprint whenever he passes the village churchyard.

The responses
Joy pasted it into Word Perfect to get a word count. The speech is 692 words, and the joke is 353 of those words. That's about half, which would mean the speech is not substantially original.
However, you have given it a very clever treatment, which does seem original to me.

You might very well get away with it, but it is possible that if one contestant or judge protested that it wasn't original, you'd be disqualified. It's a good thing you said you weren't asking for advice, because I don't have any.

Rod saw the core story as an old chestnut dating back at least 50 years, while the rest of the speech may well be original. I certainly wouldn't lodge a protest on the basis of originality in this case. If a substantial portion of the script were alleged to come from the internet or any other source, it changes the perspective. One can only protest originality based on one's own knowledge.

To Phillip "As long as you identify the source of the story and give the appropriate credit then it would not plagiarism, which leaves the question of originality. We can give an 'original' pin to an old story making it 'original' but whether or not it would pass the test of substantially original would be uncertain. Does substantially original mean over 50%? 66%? or is it in the purview of the judges to decide what percentage counts for substantially original?

For Rick: If the story came off the Internet or was a 50 year old story (or both), the question is how much was copied and how much of a new spin was put on it.

Rod returned with: As for the interpretation of 'substantially', I think it's a good thing that it's undefined because it's almost impossible to quantify. I'm happy that it's left to the judges to decide, understanding that different groups of judges may come to different conclusions. Yet another good reason for having a large number of judges at any contest.

Tom contributed: "There are no new jokes, just old rehashed jokes." Similarly, I have heard many speeches that have put a "new spin" on an old story. My interpretation of the Rules is for the contestant to produce an original speech which may include a brief anecdote or quote to reinforce a point being made. The source of the anecdote or quote would need to be acknowledged to avoid plagiarism. Percentage wise, I believe "substantially original" would mean at least 85%. When speakers pad their speeches with unoriginal anecdotes to use up their allocated time, if I am judging I mark them down on originality. While plagiarism may disqualify a contestant, the use of unoriginal material will, at the most, cost the contestant 15 points in a contest.

This reminded Susan of a question she was asked a few years ago while conducting a communication (speaking) skills workshop - talking about the fact that ordinary words are often interpreted differently by different people. I asked the group, when you use the word "usually" what do you mean? What percentage of the time is "usually" to you? As in ... "I usually go to bed by 11 o'clock." or "I usually watch (name a TV show)." The participants wrote down their response and passed them to the front, and .... surprise, surprise ... their responses varied from 50% to 95%.
Having been involved in a few contest judges' meetings around the "substantially original" issue, my experience has shown a similar range of opinion. I suggest to the judges that the "intent" of the rule is to ensure that contestants are coming up with their own speech ideas and themes; but that we are probably best advised to be a bit reasonable about it ... i.e., as has been said in this thread before ... are there really ANY totally new ideas?!!!)
About 85% or 90% seems about right to me too.

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