Cyclone Gabrielle and Consequences

Our planned first meeting of the year was postponed due to the potential impact of Cyclone Gabrielle. A great early call by President Roslynn so that members could stay home and focus on preparing for a night of high winds, steady rain and potential flooding….which, sadly, all eventuated.

Two educational sessions were planned for the meeting as our next meeting, 27^th February, is our much anticipated Contest evening.  To assist members, here is some of the material that would have been presented.

Evaluation Contest

This contest has a 5 – 7 minute speech delivered by a guest speaker with all contestants evaluating the same speech. The mechanics of how this happens is as follows :

First, we draw for speaking (evaluation) order

(by full agreement of all contestants, our newer members may go first, so that they can hear the more experienced evaluations)

The guest speaker delivers a 5 – 7 minute speech, with contestants taking notes.  At the conclusion of the speech, contestants move to the ‘silence’ room, where they have 5 minutes to conclude their notetaking; which must be on the official Evaluation form. These and any other notes, are collected with the official Evaluation form returned when it is your time to speak.

At the end of 5 minutes, pens down, notes collected, and the first evaluator is called to deliver their 2 – 3 minute evaluation from the official Evaluation form. Subsequent evaluators follow.

The timing is as follows

Green light, at 2 minutes

Amber light at 2 minutes and 30 seconds

Red light at 3 minutes, and stays on until the conclusion of the evaluation.

Contestants will be disqualified if they speak for less than 1 minute and 30 seconds, or more that 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

So if you see the red light come on, wrap up with a quick summary/conclusion.

So how can I prepare for the contest?

In the link below there is the following pdf bundle

- the Judging sheet, which highlights how the judges will score you

- look at the Criteria sheet of some aspects that you can comment on e.g. vocal variety, gestures, and use the CRC (Commend, Recommend, then Commend) formula

- look at the sample “cheatsheet’ to get an idea of a structure to your evaluation

- the official Evaluation sheet

Evaluation Contest information – click here