The Toastmasters’ fraternity in Jubail hosted a successful combined Division E&L Conference for District 79 at the Royal Commission Conference Hall at the weekend.

The two-day conference, “Together We Succeed,” took place under the leadership of division governors, Abdullah Al-Harbi and Periyanyaham.

Conference Chairman Aziz Ahmad Siddiqui and Vice Chairman Ahmed Al-Khalidi said it was an amazing experience to handle the large crowd of more than 300 Toastmasters and their families.

Participants included International Director Khalid Matlagaitu, District Gov. Joey Villanueva, Lt. Gov. Education and Training Abdullah Al-Sharief, District Chief Ambassador Syed Waheed Lateef and other division and area governors.

Mark Brown, the 1995 World Champion of Public Speaking, was flown in from Atlanta, Georgia, as a keynote speaker. He urged the leaders to “know what they don’t know” and “build relationships.”

The highlights of the event were four enthralling contests, each for the two divisions. The winners of the International Speech Contests were Abdul Rahim Massoud and Zahid Saraf, with second place going to Praveena Arvind and Vijay Kumar, and third place to Ali Al-Qahtani and Abdullah Khalili.

The winners of the Humorous Speech Contests were Abdul Rahim Massoud and Sudheer Sadanand, with second place going to Asif Ali Khan and Jagadeesan Kumar, and third place bagged by Sundari Venkatesan and Mussallam Al-Tamimi.

The winners of the Table Topics Speech Contests were Mark Villiana and Suresh Kumar, with S. Venkatesan and Jagadeesan Kumar in second, and Ali Al-Sanad and Victor Jabello in third.

The winners of the Evaluation Speech Contests were Vijay Kumar and Zahid Saraf, with second place going to Faisal M. Al-Ghamdi and Essam Al-Ahmad, and third place to Surendra Chari and Jagadeesan Kumar.

Gavel Club youth leaders Nitin Baalaji and Misbahuddin demonstrated their public speaking skills. All Toastmasters in Jubail who have earned the title, Distinguish Toastmasters, were felicitated on the occasion. A special award, ‘Legendary Leader,’ was presented to Syed Waheed Lateef.

The other officials in attendance included Contest Operations Committee Chairman Asif Ali Siddiqui; and Abdul Aziz Al-Sharekh and Safare Mohammed who acted as master of ceremonies on the first and second day respectively. Periyanyaham and Al-Harbi thanked the conference chair and his organizing committee for the successful conference.

The division governors expressed their gratitude to the sponsors of the event, the Royal Commission of Jubail and Yanbu, Sipchem, Farabi Petrochemical Company, Sahara Petrochemical, Al-Manar Arabia, Sofcon and Ralli Wolf.

The winners of each contest from this conference will now compete with the winners of the other division at the District 79 Annual Conference scheduled for April 23 to 25 in Jeddah.