I competed in the Division D Evaluation contest Thursday night (9 Oct 14) in Dartmouth, NS. I placed second which is thrilling at this level. Only the 1st place winner will proceed and I wish the Division D winner, Karen Caldwell all the best on October 26th at the District 45 Toastmaster competition in Charlottetown, PEI. I must thank Karen for her encouragement and advice during the contest. I was really nervous when I competed this year as it has been many years since I competed. I wanted to improve my evaluation skills so I thought a little competition might help encourage me to ramp up my skills. Honestly, I had a weak evaluation at the club level, but without competition, I progressed to the area level competition. Oh no! Time to crack the books and figure out how to improve. At the area level competition, I was still a bundle of nerves, but a little less so. I had done a lot of research, but did not practice my technique so was still really nervous during the competition. I did place 2nd in the competition and advanced to the Division (Western NS) level. At the Division level, I was still quite nervous, but surprisingly, less so than at the area contest. I had a lot of good thoughts in my head, but again I felt like my thoughts were jumbled and lacked structure, which added to my nervousness. Overall, I feel like I have grown through this process and pushed myself to ramp up my skills under pressure. In the beginning, I was very conscious of competing and was comparing myself to others. At the end, I was comparing my performance to my previous performance, not to rate it, but to find ways to become even better so I can support and uplift speakers even more in the future. I have a whole year to practice now, so will look for opportunities to practice and try again next year.
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 01:54:28 +0000
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