Back on March 1st I blogged about being in my first Toastmasters International Speech Contest. The president of Capitol Club, Mike Thornton, won that club contest on February 16th. Then in March and April he won both the Area B1 contest and the Division B contest. On May 14th he competed in the District 15 contest in Ogden, Utah. Unfortunately Mike didn’t win the District contest.
District 15 includes all of Utah, southern Idaho, and some adjacent areas of Nevada (Elko), Oregon (Ontario), and Wyoming (Jackson). The District includes the medium-sized state capitol cities of Boise and Salt Lake City, which guarantees a mix of extremely competent speakers from business and government.
Roughly how many Toastmasters are in those parts of the organization? There are about 25 people in a club, four clubs in an area, 4 areas in a division, and 5 divisions in the district. The Table shown above displays what you get when you multiply those numbers.
Winning at the Division level meant that Mike was the best speaker out of about 400 people, or in the top 0.25%. That’s already pretty impressive! The District winner was the best out of about 2000 people, or the top 0.05%.
And the winner, Steven Gale, has competed at the District level more than once before breaking through to win this year.
ReplyDeleteDistrict 15 is/was the home to some pretty amazing competitors - including the late John Howard (5 time WCPS contestant) and Morgan McArthur (1994 World Champ), and Del Hargis 2001 WCPS Finalist - and some other guy who competed representing D15 in 2008.
Rich:
ReplyDeleteI remember that "other guy" from the 2008 District conference. You were almost as animated as the Energizer Bunny!