Get ready to laugh in the face of online meetings!

District 31 Toastmasters is pleased to announce the return of the Humorous Speech Contest advancing to the district level in 2021, at CLCON, District 31’s Communication and Leadership Conference. Speakers from across Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island will deliver humorous speeches for a chance to win the coveted title of District 31 Humorous Speech champion.

In addition, District 31 will also conduct area, division, and district level contests in the International Speech Contest. Our District’s winner will earn a chance to compete for a spot against the very best in the World Championship of Public Speaking.

Unfortunately, we once again won’t be seeing you in person for our contests. Toastmasters International has required all districts to run all contests at the area, division, and district levels virtually through June 30, 2021. Therefore, all District 31 contests will take place via Zoom videoconferencing.

In order to compete, a contestant must be a paid member in good standing of a club in good standing at each level of the competition. Contestants in the International Speech contest must have additionally earned awards for completion of Level 1 and Level 2 in the Pathways educational program (members who joined prior to May 2018 may also qualify if they have completed at least 6 speeches in the Competent Communicator manual).

The club must submit a notification of contest winner for each category of contest to the club’s Area Director by February 14, 2021. If a club does not hold a contest in one or both of the categories, it may still nominate a member to compete in that contest at the area level.

For an overview of the Spring contest timeline and deadlines for holding contests at each level, please visit our Speech Contests page.

To learn more about Toastmasters speech contests, visit toastmasters.org/leadership-central/speech-contests and review the 2020-2021 Speech Contest Rulebook.

District 31 Toastmasters will run a live webinar on Wednesday September 30 at 7:00pm on how to Conduct Quality Speech Contests. Please register in advance to attend live. This webinar is open to all Toastmasters members, and will also be made available as a recording.

I look forward to laughing with you all once again this Spring. Please reach out if you have any questions about contests — I want to see all of our District’s clubs represented in the area contests beginning in February!

Trevor Crippen, DTM
Program Quality Director
District 31 Toastmasters