JEDDAH, 17 April 2005 — An educator based in Riyadh bagged three trophies to win the most number of individual awards in the recently concluded speech competition of Toastmasters Division “G” in Jeddah.
Bernardita Tiamzon, principal of Riyadh International School (RIS) and a contestant for Area 5, won the title in the Speech Evaluation contest to prevent a sweep by Jeddah-based Area 11, which won three of four titles at stake.
Tiamzon also won second places in International Speech and Table Topics, impressing other contestants and officials from 10 Toastmasters clubs comprising Division G’s three area groupings during the competition held on April 9 at the Al-Hamra Sofitel Hotel in Jeddah.
“ATM-Silver Bernardita is really an impressive toastmaster. She’s a consistent winner,” said Florante Supapo, president of the PICPA Toastmasters Club of Riyadh, to which Tiamzon belongs. “Last year, she was also the International Speech winner at the division level.”
ATM stands for advanced toastmaster, one of the highest ranks bestowed on members of the Toastmasters International, the California-based movement whose aim is “to make effective communication a worldwide reality by learning the arts of speaking, listening and thinking.”
Tiamzon’s first-place win entitled her to represent Division G in the District 79 Annual Conference 2005 to be held in Amman on May 12 and 13, said Division Governor Abdul Rouf Al-Mukhthar.
Also competing for the division in the Amman event are Henry Cabansag, a mechanical engineer and section head of projects in Saudia Catering, who won in the International Speech category with his entry “A Father’s Story”; Mohamed Fawzi, a finance officer who took the Humorous Speech title with his entry “The Public Convenience is an Inconvenience”; and Marah Fuentes, a group supervisor at Saudi Arabian Airlines, who won the title in Table Topics.
Table Topics, in which contestants are made to give an impromptu two-to-three-minute discourse on a given topic, is considered the toughest of the four contests.
Area 11 also won two second place prizes, courtesy of Aiman Al-Harby, a math teacher, in Humorous Speech, and Sameer Hamadeh, senior GM for research & development at ALJ, in Speech Evaluation. Umar Abdulsalam, a manager at Bagedo Co., took the third place in Table Topics to give Area 11 its sixth trophy.
Area 24, the third group under Division “G,” got third place in both Humorous Speech and International Speech through Naveed Kadri and Meyyapan.
Governor Al-Mukthar said the contest, the first for the newly organized Division G, was made possible with big help from Abdul Latif Jameel Co. Ltd.
He said division contestants will be pitted against champions in other groupings from Riyadh, the Eastern Province, as well as from Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
Division G is one of the latest additions to the fast-growing 81-year-old Toastmasters movement, which now has 200,000 members in more than 10,000 clubs in 90 countries.
Area 24, one of the division’s three areas, is composed of Jeddah Toastmasters Club, Hope Toastmasters Club and PSME-WRSA Toastmasters Club and currently headed by Gov. Jose Poovathinkal.
Area 11, headed by Gov. Mustafa Ay, is composed of Yanbu-based Sharm Toastmasters Club and the Jeddah-based Abdul Latif Jameel Talkmasters Club, Pace Toastmasters Club, and Tanglaw Toastmasters Club.
Four of the Division G winners — Henry Cabansag, Marah Fuentes, Aiman Al-Harby, and Umar Abdulsalam — are from Tanglaw, Jeddah’s oldest club.
Sameer Hamadeh belongs to Abdul Latif Jameel, Mohamed Fawzi is from PACE, while Naveed Kadri and Meyyapan are from HOPE.
Area 5, headed by Zaheer Uddin Ahmad, is made up of Himalayan Toastmasters Club, NAJD Toastmasters Club and PICPA Toastmasters Club of Riyadh.
