| Attendees | Toastmaster | Judges | All Contestants | Evaluation Contestants | Timers | Sergeant at Arms | Ballot Counters |
| Using Z00M -- Everyone | ZOOM duties for staff | ZOOM duties for Contestants | Breakout Rooms |
 | View the Meeting Agenda --- The Order of Speaking--- Sound and lighting---Pin/Unpin--- Mute/Unmute--- Renaming---time---wrap up the briefing |  |
| Speakers come in all shapes and sizes. They will make you laugh, Surprise you, tell you things you never knew before. Be prepared for Variety of subject, but unity of skill and interest. - After watching these good speakers you might aspire to communicating as well as what your've seen. Join a local Toastmaters club and you might be competing yourself, in a year or two. - It could happen. | These speakers have gained experience in communicating, progressing through stages from frightened newbies to competence. Then they prepared themselves for this contest by creating the best speach they can. - Pay attention. Most of the speaker began their time in Toastmasters with poorly organized talks, lots of Ums and Ahhs. They have improved. So can you. Join Toastmasters and find out how far you can go. |
Things to watch for:
| Let us know what you thought about the contest. |  |
Instructions for all Contestants
In the Contest Chair Room
Download your speaker qualification form
This form must be filled out and submitted before the meeting to allow you to speak at the contest.
Deadline: the Contest chair must receive the form by end of day before the contest.
Email to Ellen Imo at ellen.m.ino@gmail.com
In the main room, the Contest Chair welcomes the Contestants and directs the Speech Contestants into a private room for their briefing and instructions -- and to ask questions.
If we were meeting in person, the Contest Chair would call the contestants together and do a briefing. In this virtual setting we will be going into a virtual break out room called “Contest Chair.”
Each contestant, look at the bottom of your Zoom box for an invitation to go into the break out room. The Presiding Officer will remain in the main room to instruct contestants, who arrive after we've gone into the break out room, on what to do.
You must inform the Chief Judge if you will be using a power point or other electronic aid. There are special instructions you need to hear afterthe the other contestants leave the room. The instructions are detailed and long.
In the Contest Chair Break out Room you will recieve instructions in the following:
We must ensure that all contestants have the Zoom basics and get briefed on the rules.
At the bottom of your screen, Zoom places a control panel or dashboard with important functions. It will not be visible unless you move the curor arrow into that area. Move your cursor to show the dashboard.
Select the ^ next to the microphone at the bottom of yout screen and follow directions to test your microphone and speaker.
Practice test speaker and microphone, and become comfortable with mute and unmute microphones.
At the bottom of the Zoom screen you will see the microphone icon. It is a simple toggle switch to mute and unmute.
Roll Call at the beginning of our private meeting.
As I call your name, please unmute your microphone. Say, “present.” Tell me which contest or contests you are competing in. Then mute your microphone again. If I have mispronounced your name,Please make sure that I get the correction. Now is the time for corrections.
For contestants who arrive late to the briefing they will be asked if they waive their right to contestant briefing. Disqualification for being late will occur when the contest begins. “Contest begins” is defined as when I am introduced and take control of the meeting in the main ('Stage') room.
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Second, we are going to practice pin and unpin. When you 'pin' a person on the gallary -- the bunch of small pictures of participants onyour screen, they will be removed from the gallary and placed in a large window by themselves.Visually select someone you want to pin. In the upper right hand corner of the video box of that person, click on the dots. Select pin. To Unpin, you use the dots again and select unpin.
Please take the time right now to practice pinning various people.
I am going to give you all one full minute to practice pin and unpin. Please note that you want to get fast at it.
While you are practicing, I will explain why you need to get fast.
The Timer with the Lights will have a title “TL [name]”. As you are competing, You will want to pin the TL so that you can easily see green, yellow and red as your speech goes on. Before the Toastmaster introduces you, he or she will suggest that you pin TL. The Toastmaster will also recommend the Judges pin you, the contestant.
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Next we need to rename yourselves. In the upper right hand corner of YOUR video box, click on the dots. Select rename. A dialog box will open. Please use the following format.
If you are only competing in the International Speech Contest, please type “CS”, two dashes space and then your name. Example: CS -- Dustin Hoffman is a speech contestant.
If you are only competing in the Evaluation Contest, please type “CE”, two dashes. and then your name. Example: CE -- Krutchmeier Schilldorff is only in the Evaluation contest.
If
you are competing in BOTH contests, please type “CB” space and then
your name.
Example: CB -- Ethyl is in
both contents and wishes to be called Ethyl.
The naming protocol is crucial because during the contest, for instance evaluation, you will be told:
- "Everyone: Mute your microphone."
- Zoom Master, please signal for the next contestant.
- [contestant is present in main room.]
- Judges, please look for CE ____ and pin the contestant now.
- Contestant at this time, please find TL _____and pin TL ____.
- [wait one full second for pinning]
- For the evaluations -- Toastmaster now states "contestant’s name [pause] contestant's name"
- For the International Speech contest -- Toastmaster now states: contestant’s name [pause] contestant's name, [pause] Speech title [pause] Speech title [Pause] contestant's name.
- After the contestant is done with evaluation, One minute of silence will be held for the judges.
- ZOOM MASTER tells SaA in the room that the next contestant is up.
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Time begins with the first communication with the audience whether it is verbal or non-verbal. Timers have been told not to start timing while you are pinning the Timer with the lights. We hope that the pause the Toastmaster gives for pinning and before introducing the contestant will be enough time for all contestants to get the pinning done.
While we don’t want to unduly influence any contestant's performance, we are encouraging each contestant to consider beginning their performance with verbal communication rather than non-verbal.
Speaking Area, Sound and Lighting
The lighting where you choose to speak is your control. The Zoom Master cannot help, fix or correct it in Zoom. We suggest you take the time to adjust the lights in the room in which you are sitting. Remember that Zoom takes five seconds to adjust to lights being turned on. Beware of lights from windows washing out your image. It would be a good idea if you were to open a private Zoom meeting well before the contest to adjust your lighting.
Audio is also your control. If you have a headphone with a microphone we encourage you to use them. If a radio or TV is on in another room while you are speaking, it will affect how prople hear you.
The District Trio & District Chief Judge along with our Division Director Patrick Locke set the speaking area as the room you are in with your computer.
By International rules, contestants may NOT electronically cause the camera to zoom in or zoom out. Nor may the contestant manually Zoom in and Zoom out by moving extremely close to the camera [demonstrate it] and zooming out by walking very very far from the camera [demonstrate it].
With that said, all contestants may choose to sit or stand. You may move around your stage.
We encourage you to use headphones with a microphone attached. Judges are being told to ignore the headphones and potentially the cord that tethers you to your computer. Let us take the time to try out the mics.
If you go off camera, it will not violate the speaking area rule but rather each contestant should think about how it will affect your score with the judges. Did it enhance or detract?
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I suggest that you all take the next five minutes to pin yourself and see what the video captures as far as “stage” is concerned.
While we will discuss other issues, you may check out what the video feed looks like as you move around your stage,
Feel free to ask questions.
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Judges will be afforded one minute of silence between contestants. After the International Speech contest, we take a short break as the judges and ballot counter go into break rooms.
The break between contests is a good time for Evaluation Contestants to pin themselves and practice with the video camera. Also it is a good time to ensure that Evaluation Contestants put their cell phone, ipads, pads, smart watches, etc outside of the room.
Draw for order.
[Before meeting, the Contest Chair makes six pieces of paper and numbers the top, 1 through 6. He/She shuffles the stack, And places them blank side up. He/She now numbers the blank side 1 through 6. ]
Speech and Evaluation Contestants will be put in random order as follows:
The Contest Chair asks each contestant in their group to choose a number from the cards which are face down. "Please select a card by telling me a number. [Chair calls people one at a time. Turns over the card and writes down the speaking order number next to the name. Keep going until all six are placed.]
The speaking order for the International Speech Contest is _____.
Now let's go ahead and get the speaking order for the Evaluation Contest. [Chair does the same process.]
The speaking order for the Evaluation contest is ____.
That continues until the last speaker has chosen a card and the order for that contest is recorded.