Congratulations to Liz Burnett for winning this 'BEST SPEAKER' award for her speech entitled 'FROM HERE TO THERE'.
The speech was project number 4 'The Dramatic Talk' from the Toastmasters' Advanced Communication Manual: The Entertaining Speaker. Liz's challenge was to give a talk, perhaps relating to a personal experience, with unexpected twists and turns. The speech itself should focus on vocal variety by involving different personalities and ending on a dramatic note.
It took Liz a while to decide what to talk about but then she remembered a holiday many years ago that she and her husband took with two friends camping in Europe.
The Toastmaters' manual offered Liz guidance on structure, language and delivery and in line with this, Liz created her speech.
Liz started her speech 'From Here To There' with a brief dramatic introduction which set the scene for the remainder of the story..."we were lost in the Swiss Alps late at night, with no money, little fuel and no idea of how we would get out...it was becoming claustrophobic!"
Having wetted the audience's appetite and provided some intrigue, Liz went on to describe the scene, when it took place, where and who was involved. She told the story of her journey and what befell. It was comically interlaced with an insight into the personalities of the four friends...from the arrival at the Austrian camp site where they inadvertently pitched their tent in the middle of the camp's volleyball court...to the final protracted journey across Switzerland with the stranglehold they felt the mountains imprisoned upon them.
The journey from here to there should have taken the four friends 7 hours, but in fact it took them 15 hours!
Thankfully they were finally delivered into France to the wonderful resort of Chamonix...alive and vibrant even after midnight!
From listening to this wonderful delivery of Liz's speech, her evaluator was able to offer suggestions on how Liz could capitalise on her speech next time to make it even more dramatic and engaging with the audience - this is certainly great advice that that Liz will take with her to her next speech.
Speech 5 will be After Dinner Speaking which will encourage Liz to pull on all of the entertaining skills and techniques that she has learnt to date.
Well done to Liz on completing this wonderful Entertaining speech and for winning the Best Speaker on the evening.
