JEDDAH, 6 March 2003 — Small in size, big in ideas.
That is how Joey Villanueva looked, at least, to his peers last Friday as he won the Table Topics and Speech Evaluation categories of the inter-club speech contest among five toastmasters clubs in Jeddah.
Villanueva’s double victory, plus the success of Dan Factoran in the Humorous Speech category, helped Tanglaw Toastmasters Club dominate the contest held at the Al-Hamra Sofitel Hotel. The only category that slipped the grasp of the club was the International Speech, won by Jose Poovathinkal of HOPE Toastmasters Club.
Villanueva, together with Factoran, and Poovathinkal will represent the Jeddah area in the division contest slated next month in Dammam.
More than 90 attended the contest, making it one of the most attended contests in the history of the area. With the quality of the contest and winners, Area Governor Ben Guerra could not contain his delight. “With the result (as far as the winners are concerned), I think we have a good chance in the division contest, I think we will be competitive,” he said.
Nori Guerra, current president of Tanglaw, said the contest was one for the record. “All contestants, especially ours, performed splendidly. Joey, as usual, was at his best element…,” she said.
Two other members of club were second placers. They were Nenita Palmero (Evaluation) and Zowfir Zaheed (Table Topics). The other second placers were K.P. Guna (Humorous) and Mohammad Shahir (International Speech), both of HOPE.
Second placers are on standby as replacements in case the winners could not make it to the division contest.
Apart from Tanglaw and HOPE, the other Toastmasters clubs in Jeddah are the all-Saudi ALJ, the club of the Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers (PSME), and PACE.
Toastmastering is one of the fast-expanding activity in the Gulf area and those in the Kingdom are the most numerous.
Members of a toastmasters clubs not only get to develop their communication and leadership skills but also learn to overcome stage fright.
