Two weeks ago, I decided after work to attend the North 44 Area Contest at the Lincolnshire Village Hall.  It was the first Area Contest outside of those of my clubs I attended since Spring 2007.  There were primarily a couple of reasons I attended, one was I planned to head back to the curling club to watch a men’s league final that took place later that evening, the other was to find out what others think about the “tea party” that took place during the Nominating Committee meeting.

I had a chance to talk with a couple of people about the politics taking place in District 30, one is an Area Governor from a different North Division area, the other is a long-time member of both District 30 and 54 who was competing in Table Topics representing one of her District 30 clubs.  Did not get much new information, so went into the contest room, which was actually where the Lincolnshire Village Board have their meetings.

Every time I attended a contest or an Area or Division which I did not belong to, I come in expecting to take a role, likely a contest judge.  Most contests are not well attended and any help contest chairs can get is very valuable.  But I did not expect the Area Governor, who was also the Contest Chair, to tell me this – “I got something for you to do.  Can you be Toastmaster for the contest?”  The person originally assigned the role ended up competing in the Table Topics contest as he was his club’s alternate and their original representative is unable to compete.

I’ve been a last-minute Target Speaker twice.  I’ve been a last-minute Chief Judge a few times.  This is the first time I’ve ever been a last-minute Contest Toastmaster!  And though I’ve attended over 100 Area Contests, I’ve only been the Toastmaster 4 other times.  The odd part about being asked to do this was that I only met the Area Governor once at last Fall’s North Division Contest and I did not think he knew much about me at all.

So I was fully in contest mode, just like the previous times I was Contest Toastmaster.  The Chief Judge handled the contestant briefings as well as judges briefings, so all I need was the speaking orders for both contests.  Also prior to the International Speech Contest, I verified the speech titles with the respective contestants – at the Northwest 4 Area Contest last month, one of the contestants gave a different speech from his club contest but did not notify the Toastmaster, who had the club contest speech title in the contestant’s paperwork.

The contest started with Table Topics.  My biggest challenge for that portion was making sure I say this lengthy question without butchering, something I still have a problem with when reading out something loud:

You are dreaming you are flying on the wing of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. When you woke up with a jolt, you realize that you are truly on the wing of the 787 Dreamliner cruising on the runway ready to lift off. What is your reaction and what would you do?

The contest started a little late and with 5 Table Topics contestants, my biggest mistake in the Toastmaster role was to take a long time with the contestant interviews, asking one or two more questions for each contestant than I should have.  At least when I first came up I did not talk about the history of the Table Topics Contest in District 30, which only was implemented in 2000, something I did the only other time I was a Toastmaster for a Spring Area Contest (the others were in the Fall).

So when the International Speech Contest started, I got rid of another thing I did at the previous contest which I was Toastmaster – explain the difference between the International Speech Contest and the other contests, though this time explain the new route to World Champion of Public Speaking as Regional Conferences no longer exist.  As we’re still behind schedule, for the contestant interviews I had all 4 contestants come up together and ask the same questions to each of them.

The Chief Judge and ballot counters did not return with the results after the interviews were done, so I asked for an announcement for the District Conference, which the District Governor made.  Oddly enough, all of District 30 Top 3 were at this contest with the LGET showing up near the end for whatever reason and the LGM serving as a timer, probably the first time I ever seen all Top 3 District 30 officers at a single Area Contest.  Also 3 of the 6 Division Governors were there so I also had each of them promote their Division Contests – in addition to the North Division Governor, the Central South Division Governor was there apparently to promote her candidacy for LGM, plus the Northwest Division Governor who was promoting a big “speech-a-thon” taking place in that division the following Saturday.

And I was done, bringing the Contest Chair back up to finish, though the Chief Judge and ballot counters still haven’t return until a couple of minutes later.  We did finish a few minutes past the planned adjournment, but everyone seemed pleased with the way the contest went and the North 44 Area has some top notch representatives for the North Division Contest on the 29th.

Recently I’ve been reading Linchpin by Seth Godin.  A “linchpin” is someone who is indispensable to an organization, someone who cannot be easily replaced.  There are times in which I did not want to be a linchpin because that means other members not only look up to me for guidance, they expect me to do most if not all of the work while they seem to do nothing but watch.  It’s opposite of what we want to see in Toastmasters in which those who were there before pass the baton to those who are new, letting them grow to be the new Toastmaster leaders.  But once in a while it may be a good thing to be a linchpin, especially if someone I don’t know well thinks highly to the point where he or she trusts me to do something critical the last-minute.