Public speaking group teaches skills
Tall tales of hamsters, happy shoppers and upgraded fliers Hardyston Are you having a hard time deciding if some one is telling the truth or pulling your leg? The First of Sussex Toastmasters left no doubt of their sincerity when they held their Tall Tales Contest last week at the Sparta United Methodist Church. “The stories have to be highly exaggerated and improbable in nature,” said Lucy Kahn, chief judge for the event. The prepared speeches, between three and five minutes in length, covered a wide variety of subjects. Contestants speaking for less than two and one half minutes or longer than five minutes are disqualified. First-place winner was Brian Foley of Sparta, with a pure fantasy tale of a courteous, cheap and on-time airline flight that included no luggage fees and an upgrade to first class entitled Fantasy Flight. Second-place went to Elke Yetter of Hardyston, who described a Christmas Eve shopping trip in search for the latest, greatest multi-function cellular phone. Of course her children were well behaved, there was no line to see Santa and a new shipment of the wonder devices just arrived as she asked the store clerk if they had any more in stock. Truly a tall tale. The second half of the evening was a Table Topics competition. Speakers are brought into the room one at a time and asked a question. They have to speak for approximately two minutes in response to the question. This simulates the situation when the boss pops into your cubicle and wants a satisfactory explanation of a sudden business situation. In response to “tell us about your first love and what the attraction was,” Marc Wolfe of Byram grabbed first-place with a description of his childhood pet, Maria the hamster. Effective communication becomes more important as the frequency of business opportunities decrease in these tighter economic times.” Ann DeGrezia, Toastmasters Find out more Toastmasters is a worldwide organization helping people to be comfortable and competent in front of an audience. For information on the local chapter, First of Sussex Toastmasters, contact Elke at 973-670-3757.