District 60 Toastmasters Spring Conference

I am away this weekend at the District 60 Toastmasters Spring Conference. What an event! The schedule was packed to the point of hectic so I had to pick and choose what to do and see.

Of course, I attended both contests. As you may have already read on my site at http://www.speakersandtrainers.net the International Speech Contest was fantastic. James Ng from Brampton won with his speech "25 and some months" an original, inspiring and instructive look on how to not grow old but not die young.

Today though was even better! At the Sunday brunch we had the pleasure of meeting last year's World Champion of Public Speaking: Vikas Jhingran. Now, I had heard prior to this that sometimes when the world champion comes to a Toastmaster's conference they can be convinced to deliver their winning speech from World's.

Vikas was confronted by a very enthusiastic audience this morning. When given the choice of his regional or world speech, we asked for both... and he not only delivered, he explained how he developed the speeches and what made them International contest level speeches from an engineered standpoint.

In addition when time came for questions, he was asked to perform the speech that won him through district (it takes three unique speeches to win all the way to world level). We were thrilled when he complied.

All this in addition to his keynote on how to rise to the top in speaking. What an inspiring morning.... my first time hearing a world champion in person and the high point of a great conference.