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The contest was presented by The Colombo Toastmasters Club, in association with The Lyceum International School and The Inner Wheel Club of Kandy, for the Lyceum Challenge Trophy, and was held at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, Colombo. The Chief Guest, for the evening was Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Chief Executive Officer, Dialog Telecom Ltd., and the welcome address was delivered by CTM Chrishanthi Emmanuel, President, Colombo Toastmasters Club. The preliminaries were held on November 11, 2005, in Kandy and on January 8, 2006 in Colombo. The semi-finals were held on January 15, 2006, in Colombo. There were 250 participants in the preliminary round, and when it came to the semi-finals the number was reduced to a mere 30. The finals had seven participants. They were, Salman Gadich (16), Anishka Cadiraman (15) of Lyceum International School, Binu Jayawardena (17) of Stafford International School, Barana Waidyatileke (17) of Trinity College, Kandy, Kavitha Gunasekera (17) also of Lyceum International School, Craig Ferdinands (17), a private candidate and Nilupuli Guneratne (16) from Mahamaya College, Kandy. The prepared speech was for the duration of four to six minutes on any topic of the contestant’s choice, while the impromptu speech was for the duration of two to three minutes. The topics were chosen by the contestants, and were given by the judges. The contestants were given a minimum preparation time of 20 minutes. The speeches in order of presentation were, ‘Square root of life’, ‘Food of love or tool of hate’, ‘Our deepest fear’, ‘Dad’s fear’, Great exploration’, ‘Grab it while you can’ and ‘World hunger’. There were 13 topics for the impromptu speeches, and the seven contestants, in the same order, chose the following: ‘Forgiveness is sweeter than revenge’, ‘Better to have loved and lost’, ‘If I win this speech contest’, which was also chosen by contestants number four and six, and ‘I am young enough to change the world’. The
choir of Lyceum International School gave a performance, followed
by the Chief Guest’s address. Then, Mohan Lal Grero delivered
the vote of thanks. The first runner-up was Kavitha Gunasekera, and she was given a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 and a certificate. The winner was Craig Ferdinands, who received a cash prize of Rs. 100,000 a certificate, the trophy and a replica of the trophy. The judges for the event were Yosuf Jeevunjee, Maheshi Premasinghe, Dilrukshi Fonseka, Mohammed Adamally and Yukthi Gunasekera. The master of ceremonies was Toastmaster Andrew Ruki Fernando. The time keeper and the scorer respectively were Toastmaster Suni Weewewa and Toastmaster Hussain Moosajee. “I have taken part twice before,” said Craig Ferdinands, winner of the contest for 2006. Incidentally, the contest has been in existence for the last three years. So this being the third contest means that he has taken part from the inception of the contest. “I didn’t even get into the semi-finals the first time and the second time, I came third,” he said. So he has steadily progressed, as he was the champion this year. His prepared speech was ‘Grab it while you can’, which he chose because he likes more imaginative topics, and thus considered this one the best. It was about regrets and appreciation. One of his distinct trademarks is that he always starts with a story. The story he opened with on Saturday night was about how his tennis ball was taken away from him, and how he regretted it. With regard to the help he has needed and has received, he cited taking part in the Festival of Speech and Drama. In school they get a lot of training as well. He practised his speech with ‘Sir’ Nihal and his very close friend, Minesh. The chirpy and talkative first runner up Kavitha Gunasekera said, “to be honest I started practising properly around two to three days before the contest!” They did however have training sessions in school. Her prepared talk ‘The great exploration’ was about “how everyone in life is searching for something and how you keep on looking and even if you don’t find what you are looking for, you learn something along the way.” She chose this topic because although everyone would have thought she would talk about conquering, it was about searching. She chose ‘I am young enough’ as her topic for the impromptu session making the point that your age does not limit you! Nihal Jayasinghe, the Effective Speech teacher in school and Odile Melder, her Speech and Drama teacher have helped her a lot. Apart from them her family have been really supportive of her, “especially because they always listen to me yapping.” Speaking to one of the finalists, Anishka Cadiraman, he said that he had been working on his speech for around a month. “We were given 20 minutes to prepare for the impromptu speech, and we were given lots of topics and were allowed to select one,” he said. For the semi-finals he chose the topic, ‘Television – social hazard’. For the finals, his impromptu speech was ‘Love when it is lust is not love’. The reason he chose this was because he thought it would be one topic which the audience would want to listen to. Going back to the prepared speech, he chose something to do with music. “I do music as a hobby so I have the knowledge for it,” he said. So his prepared speech was ‘Food of love or tool of hate’. It
was all in all a successful event and the young speakers did carry
away a lot in terms of experience and knowledge at the end of the
contest. |
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