Toastmasters District 74

Ryan Ebedes, after winning Toastmasters Southern Africa’s Public Speaking Contest

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A wildlife photographer is this year's Southern African representative in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking.

Ryan Ebedes, a Johannesburg resident, and member of Transformers Toastmasters, will be travelling to the US in August to represent the country and the continent in the 2010 contest.

The Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking is an annual competition where members from around the globe compete in prepared speech contests, progressing from club level, to area, division, district (Southern Africa), semi-finals, and the Final.  Speakers are judged on their speech content, vocal variety, body language and audience rapport. Having been an avid birder and wildlife enthusiast from a young age, Ryan turned to his passion to develop his 2010 speech.  He chose to focus on one bird, the Sociable Weaver, and then spent months researching the species.

"The more you study a subject the more fascinating it becomes.  Last year we travelled to Kimberley to spend time with Dr Rita Covas who completed a doctorate on this species.  Although we'd seen Sociable Weavers many times before, it was an eye-opener to see the processes Rita follows to study the birds."

Ryan began his Toastmasters journey in November 2005, when his wife Glenice (then girlfriend) invited him to a meeting. I could immediately see the benefit of the Toastmasters programme, and joined a few weeks later.

Perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve learned through Toastmasters, and in taking part in the contests, is to aim to provide maximum value with every speech. Each one is an opportunity to share something special, so if you can get the audience to walk out saying: “That was worth it”, then you’ve won already.

The Sociable Weaver story has always been an inspirational one for me, and it’s one that has far more to it than just the 7 minutes the contest allows for.

Perhaps that’s another key to success – choose a topic and message that would be worthy of a 45 minute keynote presentation, and then condense it into 7 minutes.

Ryan and Glenice are the creators of www.ebedes.co.za, a wildlife photography portal providing images and hints and tips to others.  He used some of their images in the contest.

" In January, we travelled to the Kalahari to gather additional photographic material for our portfolio, and were fortunate to capture close-up photographs of a CapeCobra raiding a Sociable Weaver nest – something we had been hoping to see. It’s been said that our role as speakers is to make the audience uncomfortable once in a while, so adding this image to the mix was a real plus. I know of at least one Sergeant-at-arms who was taken aback by that snake!”

The final phase of the contest will host 81 speakers from around world.

“Competition will be tight. Once again though, the goal will be to provide maximum value in the allotted time.  There is nothing quite as thrilling as being able to represent the country, and in this case, showcase our wildlife internationally, and I will be making the most of the opportunity."

The 2010 Toastmasters International Convention, which includes the World Championship of Public Speaking, takes place from the 11th to the 14th of August, at the JW Marriott Resort in Palm Desert, California.

Details from the event can be followed on the TI Convention website:

http://www.toastmasters.org/2010Convention.aspx

and the TI Convention twitter page:

http://twitter.com/TIConvention

Toastmasters clubs provide a welcoming and helpful environment to perfect one's presenting skills, and the modules they provide take members through various elements of speaking, along with providing structured and valuable feedback to help learn and grow.

For more information, visit the Toastmasters Southern African website at www.toastmasters74.org.