We had two winners, Lena Koronenko and Alex Sheremet! According to the rules local winners went to Fifth Annual All Ukrainian Speech Contest to take part, and we won 2nd place! Within 14 participants, our Lena Koronenko won as a second best Toastmaster speaker in Ukraine!
Our warmest congratulations to Lena who brought such an honor to Lemberg Toastmasters club as a 2nd place winner in All Ukrainian Speech Contest. That means that Lemberg Toastmasters have a real potential, and we are proud of having such a professional member in our club.
The Fifth Annual All Ukrainian Speech Contest was organized by Toastmasters clubs in Ukraine and took place in the premises of Master-Klass Cultural Centre in Kyiv on April 25th, 2010. More than 120 people have attended the event and witnessed 14 articulate and very creative speeches delivered by representatives of 7 Toastmasters Clubs.
The winners of the contest were:
First place – Evgenia Poluektova, American Chamber of Commerce Toastmasters Club, Kyiv
Second place – Olena Koronenko, Lemberg Toastmasters Club, Lviv
Third place – Tatiana Lukinyuk, American Chamber of Commerce Toastmasters Club, Kyiv
On the picture: (from left to right)Olena Koronenko, Evgenia Poluektova, Tatiana Lukinyuk.
There were 3 people from our club who took part in the contest:
Lena Koronenko (contestant), Alex Sheremet(contestant) and Yaroslav Kisylychka (judge). I (Olena Derzhko) was lucky to talk to each of them and to get their impressions after visiting such event.
OD: Lena, what did you like the most in the contest?
OK: It is a great opportunity for each speaker to try him/herself in doing your best when competing to be the best public speaker. Such opportunity is of course challenging, but gives you lots of feedbacks: those are learning what it takes to be the winner, practice it and just a pleasure when you perform on a stage when the audience counts more than 100 people, and those are not your friends or relatives. It is all much more serious.
OD: Lena, were you scared to perform? Events of such importance do not happen so often?
OK: No, I wasn’t scared. The main thing, I was prepared and when you are prepared, you have nothing to be scared of.
OD: What are the benefits of participating in such contests for a Toastmaster club member?
OK: It is beneficial for any Toastmaster because you get a chance to speak in front of a large audience, from a big stage, which is it is another experience comparing to speaking in front of your well-known audience of your local members. Plus, you gain completely new skills when you speak among the best speakers, and get to be evaluated by unbiased jury with a really objective opinion about you. And also it is a great chance to meet different Toastmasters, to extend your networking. I consider All Ukrainian Speech Contest as a very great entertaining, even if you don’t go as a speaker-participant.
On the picture: Alex Sheremet delivering his speech
OD: Alex, what are the advantages of taking part in such events like Annual All Ukrainian Speech Contest?
A.Sh.:First of all, there you will see the best prepared speeches, what they should look like. It means fresh ideas and approaches to communicate with people, not just theory, but the best practices. You see what works, and what does not. Also, you meet many new people, and making personal contacts is always good for business and hobby.
The Toastmasters community consists of active people, who are professionals in certain area. It is surprising, how quickly my contact list grows with people I know personally, who can help me in my projects, or suggest being a part of theirs.
And last, but not least, participating in a speech contest is an unmatched experience, it is always exciting, it is a good benchmark of what you really can as an author and speaker.
On the picture: Yaroslav Kisylychka, judge at the contest)
OD: Yaroslav, you participated in Annual All Ukrainian Speech Contest as a judge. Tell us your impressions, what did you like about your role?
Y.K. As a judge I liked to evaluate every separate speaker according to 5 important skills, that a good speaker should have. It is not that hard to evaluate speaker objectively, still it requires some experience of evaluator, and exactly the first 6 speeches allow you to gain the mentioned experience and all the rest is just to polish the things you have learned.
