JEDDAH, 13 February 2007 — Tanglaw Toastmasters Club of Jeddah, the oldest TM club in the Western Region, is fielding a team of veterans to slug it out with contestants from four other clubs in the Area 11 Toastmasters competition on Friday.
To represent Tanglaw are Umar Abdulsalam in the International Speech and Table Topics contests, Dan Factoran in Humorous Speech, and Benchito Guerra in Speech Evaluation.
Tanglaw President Myla Abenes said Abdulsalam, Factoran and Guerra earned the right to represent Tanglaw during the club’s recent contests.
The second placers, who will be on standby as alternates, are Aiman Al Harby (Humorous Speech and International Speech contests), Ben Guerra (Table Topics) and Noriza Guerra (Evaluation).
Tanglaw’s team will be pitted against contestants from four other clubs belonging to Area 11 under Gov. Elmer Fuentes.
These are the Nesma Holdings TM Club of Jeddah, Nesma TM Club of Riyadh, Al Sharm TM Club of Yanbu, and Yanbu Refinery TM Club.
The two Yanbu clubs are under the stewardship of Area 11 Assistant Gov. Abdullah Filimban.
Fuentes said the winners in the Feb. 16 contest, which will be held at the Al Hamra Sofitel Hotel, will represent Area 11 in the Division G conference on March 9.
Division G, currently headed by Gov. Joey Villanueva, is made up of three Areas, the others being Area 37 under Gov. Mohammed Rashid Ali, and Area 24 under Gov. Mohammed Jameel Sayeed.
Area 37 is composed of the Abdul Latif Jamil (ALJ) Toastmasters Club, HOPE Toastmasters Club, and the IIEE-WR (Integrated Institute of Electrical Engineers – Western Region) Toastmasters Club.
Area 24 comprises PACE Toastmasters Club, Jeddah Toastmasters Club, and PSME-WRSA (Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers – Western Region) Club.
Villanueva said the winners of the March 9 contest will represent Division G in the much tougher District Conference in Doha, Qatar, in May, with champions from other divisions in the Kingdom, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan participating.
Villanueva urged professionals in other cities of the Western region, be they Saudis or expatriates, to join the growing Toastmasters movement by organizing their own clubs.
Founded in 1924 in California, the Toastmasters movement aims “to afford practice and training in the art of public speaking and in presiding over meetings, and to promote sociability and good fellowship among its members.”
Toastmasters International, which now has over 10,500 clubs and more than 200,000 members in 90 countries.
