The Apex Toastmasters Podcast
A podcast about Toastmasters, public speaking, and what makes a successful club hosted by George J. Caspar, DTM.
The Apex Toastmasters Podcast
E9: Inside The Apex Toastmasters Speech Contest
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Johnathan Buckner, Don Dickinson DTM, Ashley Seiman and George Caspar DTM break down how our club planned, staffed, and ran the International Speech Contest, from recruiting nervous first-timers to solving hybrid hurdles. Along the way we share why live energy matters, how interviews can shine, and how creativity on stage can still fit the rules.
• roles of contest chair, contest master, and chief judge
• recruiting eligible speakers and volunteers early
• mapping eligibility with VP Education
• practical use of the rulebook and training
• day-of checklists, briefings, and timing flow
• hybrid facilitation versus in-person engagement
• post-event community building with snacks
• DIY trophies and club tradition
• value of contestant interviews
• why contests accelerate growth and focus
• encouraging creativity within the rules
Apex Toastmasters is a President's distinguished club founded in 1996 and located in Apex, North Carolina, USA.
We meet every Thursday night at 7:00 pm at the Apex Baptist Church and online. See club website for details.
Apex Toastmasters Club Website: https://www.apextoastmasters.org/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=apex%20toastmasters
If you enjoyed what you heard, please take a moment to like, share, rate, or review this podcast.
Apex Toastmasters is a President's distinguished club founded in 1996 and located in Apex, North Carolina, USA.
We meet every Thursday night at 7:00 pm at the Apex Baptist Church and online. See club website for details.
Apex Toastmasters Club Website: https://www.apextoastmasters.org/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=apex%20toastmasters
If you enjoyed what you heard, please take a moment to like, share, rate, or review this podcast.
Welcome to the Apex Toastmasters podcast. I am your host, George Casper at ETL. This episode was recorded on Sunday, January 25th, 2026. In this episode, I spoke with three members of Apex Toastmasters who participated in different roles in the Apex Club Level International Speech Contest for 2026. The winner of this contest proceeds to the area level contest and potentially onward to the international level. Speech contests are a Toastmasters tradition. Each year, thousands of Toastmasters compete in the international table topics, humors, evaluation, and tall tale contests. They are one of the great aspects to the Toastmasters experience that I thought would make a great and interesting episode. Let's go to the conversation. We are here today to discuss the speech contest that Apex Toastmasters just held on January 22nd, 2026. It was the international speech contest. Today we have Jonathan Buckner, who was the contest master, Don Dickinson, who is the chief judge, Ashley Seaman, who is current president of Apex Toastmasters, and a former contest master. George Casper, I was a contestant in this contest. Each of us has been a contest master at some point in the past. What I'd like to do in this episode is discuss our experiences of being contest masters, organizing and presenting, what it takes to make a speech contest successful and why it's a worthy undertaking. The first thing I would like to do is have each of us introduce ourselves. Jonathan, can you go first?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, George, and thank you so much for putting this on and hosting me. My name is Jonathan Buckner. I recently became a level three Toastmaster. I've built the club for about two years and have been progressing steadily over that time. But yeah, I served as the club level contest chair and had an absolute blast doing it.
SPEAKER_03:Don, can you go next, please? Sure. This is Don Dickinson, DTM. I've been Board of Toastmasters since 2008 and happy to assist Jonathan with the contest. And I'm quite happy that Jonathan did all the heavy lifting. So as chief judge, I had a pretty easy role in this process.
SPEAKER_01:Ashley, can you go next?
SPEAKER_00:Hi everyone, I'm Ashley Seaman. I am the current president of Apex Toastmasters for the 25-26th year. This year I had the opportunity to volunteer to support our Apex Toastmasters Club Contest in the timer role. And last year, as George mentioned, I was the contest master for both our club contest and our area contest.
SPEAKER_01:Jonathan, I think I'd first like to start out with your general experience and impression of what it was like to be a contest chair, contest master.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So it was a great experience overall. It did come with certain levels of challenge, but we've got a fantastic club. We've got a lot of people who volunteered and very eager to make this a fantastic event, which really Don said I did a lot of the heavy lifting, but I think a lot of that was through the volunteers and the clubs and the support. And then, of course, from Don himself, given the perspective and the guidance and support there. As far as challenges, this was a challenge for me, having fairly recently transitioned out of the military and learning the way we plan and organize things in the military. You can't do in the civilian world because you know there's a lot of challenges in terms of distance and timing and schedules and things like that. But for me, it was a great exercise in collaboration and delegation and also in mentorship. And, you know, having ideas, getting feedback on those ideas, and then having the freedom to execute, I think, was what really stood out to me as one of the best experiences.
SPEAKER_01:Now, there's a contest chair and a contest master, and they're usually the same person.
SPEAKER_03:Well, the contest chair obviously is the one that's the point person for the entire process and responsible for all the details. Contest master is just the toastmaster for the contest, if you would. And they don't have to be the same. More often than not, they can be, but I was contest master for a district competition once and had was came in only just to be the contest master and was not involved in any other capacity. So they don't have to be the same person by any means, but more often they are, especially at the club level.
SPEAKER_01:When I was contest master, it was my experience that getting people to participate was one of the most difficult parts. And the way I tried to make that happen at first was to send out emails and quickly found that nobody really responded to emails. And so I really had to reach out and contact people on an individual level via text, and that was more effective. Jonathan, what was your experience as far as recruitment went?
SPEAKER_02:Very, very similar, actually. And I remember you had told me at our social event that to be prepared, that you send out an email with a lot of people, you might get one or two responses saying, Hey, I'd like to volunteer. But I did end up for some of the roles that we needed people emailing directly and just saying, Hey, I think it'd be fantastic for this role. I'd love for you, love for you to be a part of this event. And everyone that I reached out to was very responsive and supportive. And overwhelmingly, the response was yes, absolutely, whatever I can do, I'd love to be there and help out. So that that was very helpful. I'm glad you gave me that perspective.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna go a step back and say, how how and when do we get started planning the club contest? Because I think that has a lot to do with some of the challenges that we face. So typically the club contests are held early in the year, which is often right after a busy holiday season. We tend to find out about the club contests later in the fall. So around September or October, we will get a message from our district leadership with the dates and the materials from Toastmasters International. And then as a leadership team, we have to seek a contest chair or contest master. So this year we did that pretty late in the fall, probably in November. I don't remember when we first reached out to Jonathan and Don, but but that does make it challenging because we're competing with lots of other things that are going on in people's lives right at the end of the year. So I think my advice would be get started as early as you can. We could even begin recruiting now for our next year's contest chair and master and chief judge, because as soon as that information goes out and as soon as your club can decide on your contest date, you would want to give yourself as much time as you can to start recruiting those volunteers. So I think as a leadership team, we probably got a later start this year than we would have hoped to. And thank big thank you to Jonathan and Don for stepping up into those leadership roles and and for doing all of that active recruitment during the busy holiday season.
SPEAKER_01:Don, do you have anything to add?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'll take the perspective as a contestant. When the announcement first goes out, I think there's a lot of people, certainly myself, who wonder if they want to participate in some form or fashion. And the decision to participate or not participate, I mean, it's different for everyone, but I think one of the challenges we have is we have a lot of people in our club who are maybe either new to Toastmasters or they came to Toastmasters to overcome a fear of speaking. And the idea of entering a contest can seem overwhelming to them, although it is an excellent way to accelerate your progression as a public speaker. And as the time leads up leading up to the contest moves forward, I think there's a lot of questions people are asking, should I or shouldn't I? Apex Toastmasters has some great speakers, and I know some people are intimidated by that. And sometimes the decision to participate or not is not a simple one for a lot of people. And I think a lot of people just kind of wait to see how things are falling into place, who's competing, who isn't. And of course, that makes it difficult for the organizers. I'm not working, the volunteers are pretty straightforward. Once you get going, last minute, there's plenty of people that'll step up. But again, that's the encouragement we would have. And I know there's plenty of people who have stepped up and taken that challenge on with no expectations that they were going to do well, but they knew that it would help them and their Toastmasters journey. So I always applaud them. But sometimes there's a little bit of a nudge that's required.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna say one thing I know that our club has done in the past, and Don and I had discussed this, but due to time constraints and kind of the way we wanted the competition to run, we decided not to this year. But I know in the past they've allowed people to compete that weren't necessarily eligible to progress. Because I know I had done that one year, and it was good because for me, I was new enough to Toastmasters that I hadn't I was ineligible, but to have that opportunity to kind of get my feet wet and speak amongst the other higher level, more qualified speakers, I think was a really great experience that wasn't feasible for us this competition, but for future competitions, that might be something that the contest chair and chief judge want to consider as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I was actually gonna weigh in on that, thinking about having the contest master chair work directly with the VP of education to identify who is eligible for our international speech contest, you have to have completed level one and level two of a path. And for some of our club members, as you mentioned, that's just not where they're at in their path. And having an early decision about whether or not we're going to allow people to compete who are eligible to move on to the next round, that would certainly be important. But even so, just mapping out everyone's current progression in the planning for the speech contest, I think would be really helpful because you could do a targeted outreach that to people to say, Hey, did you know you're eligible? You've completed level one, level two, we'd really like you to participate. Or maybe you're not eligible to participate, but we'd really like you to take on one of these volunteer roles and and kind of go through the entire roster and try to encourage some of those people who aren't typical participants. I've I've been in Apex Host Semesters now. It's my second year, but I my one of my first meetings as a visitor was attending the speech contest three years ago. And looking back now, I believe we've had at least two or three people regularly compete in the speech contest. So we may have an additional new person come in every year, but I'd love to see some more diversity in terms of participation. I was really excited to see one member in particular this year who was like, I'm just gonna go for it and I've never done this before, but I'm eligible and I wanna and I wanna participate. And that was really exciting to see because we do see those experienced speakers stepping up. And I think for some new members, it can be a bit intimidating. One of the things that I found really helpful last year was there was an orientation in the fall for contest chairs, and there was kind of a tutorial that you had to walk through. This rule book is detailed and there's lots of notes on how to run a contest. And I'm curious, was that offered this year?
SPEAKER_02:There was a training. I was actually on a flight during that time. But you know, for me, the first thing I did was I got a copy of the rule book, sit down and read it. We did have that issue with the evaluation contest where we ended up having one person that wanted to compete, but they didn't want to compete if they're the only one. Once we had spoken to that person, like, oh, well, if it's just gonna be me, then that's okay. I would love to serve as a volunteer. So it actually worked out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because it wasn't as simple as either an on or off or an evaluation contest. You also had to arrange a speaker for that person to evaluate. So so there are a number of different factors to consider when planning. And these last minute or late in the game changes sometimes can be difficult to manage. So you got, I think you guys did a really nice job kind of managing all of those details and coming to the best conclusion where everyone felt like they had an opportunity.
SPEAKER_01:Jonathan, what was your experience in actually conducting the contest in in real time?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, day of was a blast. You know, there'd been a lot of work getting up to that point, but you know, day of, we had a smooth system in place, and people showed up on time, and we were able to give them the briefs that they needed and the instructions. When I showed up, I was having a great time during the contest. It's it was funny. It's a little more when I give speeches, I like to have fun with it and be creative. So it was a stretch for me to not have as much of a creative component to being in front of the club and speaking. But we still found other ways to kind of incorporate creativity and have some fun. Yeah, day of Dawn and I had worked really hard. Ashley had sent me her notes from the year prior. So we knew what we were getting into. Uh we had a solid plan and we executed very well.
SPEAKER_01:Did you run into any surprises?
SPEAKER_02:The biggest surprise, I think, was finding an online facilitator. So that was a situation where we had I had emailed the club a few times. I had reached out to someone specifically, but they weren't able to attend. So what we did was took one of our timers, and he sat, Ashley was one of our timers, and then Chandra was another timer, and they just sat side by side, and Chandra ran the desktop, and then they both kind of monitored the time, did it that way. But that was really the only thing that was I was a little nervous about, but we were able to flex and be effective.
SPEAKER_03:Apex has a pretty rich history in terms of having great contests. There's no question that when COVID hit, we started doing a lot of things online, including a speech contest. Things changed quite a bit during that period. I'm glad to report, as far as I can see, things are pretty much back to normal because we are having contests in person. There is a provision for doing online contests, but I have never found an online contest to be nearly as engaging. I'm looking forward to seeing the area contest because that's maybe the first one that I've attended live now in a number of years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's the live component, especially in the contest, is really important.
SPEAKER_02:For me, I've witnessed probably three contests now, including the one that was at the regional conference last spring. And it's hard to imagine having the same level of enthusiasm and engagement if it's done electronically. I think part of the value of Toastmasters is to be able to enter a room and kind of command that room with your speeches and engage with the audience. And for me, that's my favorite part when I'm public speaking, is the interaction that you're allowed to have with the audience. That I think would be very challenging to get that same level of engagement electronically.
SPEAKER_00:I'm glad we had the virtual option. I believe we did have at least one or two people from our club who chose to attend as audience members virtually. So I'm glad that that we do still offer that as uh at least a hybrid setting for for the contest, particularly for audience members. But I do agree that having the speakers in person is is a much more engaging experience.
SPEAKER_03:In the world that we live in today, post-COVID virtual communications is just part of the standard operating procedure. And it has brought some interesting opportunities into Toastmasters to be able to provide greater access to a variety of people. But I still think we're in that transition period of resetting to what each club is most comfortable with. And so we're still keeping that hybrid component available, but without question, the in-person meetings are always more engaging, much more energizing. And for a speech contest, I mean, I that is an essential part of it. And I would hope that they would not have any virtual speech contests unless it is an absolute necessity.
SPEAKER_00:One of the things that I wanted to commend John and Jonathan on was the inclusion of snacks after the event this year. I actually we wrestled with that last year and decided against it, and then this year we decided to have some snacks after the event. And I was just really struck by how many people hung around and just socialized for a good half hour after the event. And I think that was in part due to the food being available, but also I I saw a lot of people just commanding the speakers and and just connecting with one another in a really meaningful way. So thank you for thinking about that and for creating that opportunity for our club. I'd recommend that for others who are considering um posting an event like this in the future.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that was, of course, Jonathan. Again, he he did all the heavy lifting. I'll just say that again. I handle some some simple logistics of it. But so, Jonathan, thanks for that extra thousand calories that uh you provided for me. Again, the in-person um uh event is important, but it was the uh the after thing and the speakers and the contestants, for instance, uh intermediately talking. Uh, and because you know that's um actually you've been in a contest like that, and the pressure of being in a contest, even at the club level, that's a nice release and for people to be able to engage and talk. And I I agree that was a nice addition that kept the experience going and prolonged it, and I think it made it definitely more enjoyable.
SPEAKER_02:So, a funny thing about that, that was our biggest expense was snacks, because before I was aware of what the budget was, there was a few things that needed to be done. For example, prizes, we decided to do the trophies, which is a whole nother story. I'm excited to talk about if we get to it. But I think I agree with you, Ashley, that having those snacks helped us, it helped kind of solidify the sense of community and support. This was an opportunity for us to celebrate each other and our talents. And I do think the community aspect of it really kind of shown through at the end with seeing people sit around and talk and congratulate each other and really enjoy each other's company.
SPEAKER_01:Snacks were the norm, actually, when I first joined Toastmasters. I'm not sure why we got away from that. Maybe it was COVID. It probably was COVID.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, COVID upset everything on some of our very traditional stuff, and that's why I'm glad we're bit by bit getting back to what I remember as Apex contests and other events as well.
SPEAKER_01:John, do you want to talk about your trophy experience?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I am so excited you asked. Thank you. All right, so this is one of those things that I got really excited about. But Don and I had we were having conversations early on that, you know, what's something fun we could do that'd be a little bit different, kind of shake things up. And we both had kind of had the idea of trophies and kind of what we thought that might want to look like. Don had a fantastic idea of something like sort of a Stanley Cup where something that comes back every year, you know, you win and then you bring it back the next year, and maybe we'll engrave your name on it or something like that. I did some research and to have a trophy for a contest that has the Toastmasters logo or the word Toastmasters on it, you have to buy it from the Toastmasters website, which would have been a heavier lift logistically. But what we had ended up doing was I jumped on Facebook Marketplace and I found a big box of trophies that someone was just giving away. It was their kids' trophies, and it was like Boy Scout Pinewood Derby trophies and like Iwana's church camp trophies and things like that. But then I spent probably two, two and a half hours breaking them apart and rebuilding them.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I liked it because it added another dimension for the contestants, kind of gave you more visual recognition, and it's much more entertaining and and fun. And I think that's the the important thing is making this a fun, enjoyable experience rather than you know this level of formality that it was.
SPEAKER_00:I also liked how they got progressively bigger, yeah, and bigger and bigger, and the one that that our winner got was quite large.
SPEAKER_01:Do you really think Toastmasters International would come after us if we constructed a trophy that used the word Toastmasters on it?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if anyone would really care that much, but it was fun to see. Okay, how can I get around this?
SPEAKER_01:So, what do you all think about the contestant interview portion? That's always been a portion that I found quite honestly to be extremely awkward. And I did a in my high performance leadership project, which was a component of to get a DTM in the legacy program, they probably have some equivalent to that in pathways. But anyway, there was a project, and the project I did was I I re-crafted the contest agenda to sort of eliminate those awkward moments that I found in in the contest. One of them was we there were two points at which they paused the contest to collect ballots, and so my idea was to consolidate them into one moment and then take a break where we could have that get together portion, you know, the snacks and stuff, while the while the ballot counters were counting the ballot, and then we'd reconvene when they finished counting. You know, under the normal agenda, that's when the contestant interviews are supposed to happen. And what happens more often than not is they have to drag out that process in order to give the the ballot counters enough time to and it just I I always found that awkward. Is that your experience? Any of you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the interview process this year. I had written four questions for each contestant, two kind of serious ones based off their profile, and then two just kind of silly ones. But it almost had like first date vibes of just sit here and talk politely while we're both kind of nervous and unsure what's going to happen. I think it is a fun portion to kind of relax and kind of everyone takes a deep breath, then all the heavy liftings over. And next is just the celebration aspect of it. So I think the interview part is important, but it also gives you an area to kind of be creative and shake things up a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I might be alone in my perception of this period of the contest.
SPEAKER_00:I don't find it awkward. I think our contestants were a big, you know, took a big sigh of relief and were really natural in their responses to those questions. And I always find it interesting, just like table topics. You learn a little bit more about your members during that type of an exchange. So I was engaged and thought it was interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Speeches, they're of course very good, but it's very structured. You can kind of usually feel the tension in the room. The interviews process, as you said, it's first it's an extension of the Toastmaster's experience. You're speaking off the top of your head, you're trying to figure out some things, and it can be a lot of fun. Now, I missed it at this time with this contest because I was back overseeing the ballot counting. I I know that when I was a contest master, man, we had a lot of fun with it. And the reason that you got to do it is that anyone that advances to the area and beyond, they're gonna have to do that. And you want to get that full experience at the club level so that when you move on, it's not even more intimidating, which it could very well be. Say, when I won't go beyond the club level, I don't know these people who are competing if they're not my club. And I really like a chance to get to know somebody a little bit about somebody. There's a question, I think it's an integral part of the contest, and it's one that we should always embrace. Of course, the challenge is if we'd had two contests, then you're right. That does become a lengthier process. And I've seen them take the break between the two contests, not so much as a time to truly socialize. It's really more time for everyone to take a break, give everyone a chance to kind of kind of regroup with the second contest coming up. Everyone always comes back anyway.
SPEAKER_01:The speech contest, I think, is really a unique experience in Toastmasters. It I look forward to it. I enjoy how it raises the stakes in terms of public speaking, injects a little bit more energy into it. I think there's a lot of great benefit to uh putting oneself in that position. I I'd like to hear from each one of you. What do you think is the unique benefit of this of a speech competition?
SPEAKER_02:I think kind of the added benefit of doing a speech contest is it pushes you even more outside of your comfort zone. Competition hits different than just a regular club meeting, which is good for growth.
SPEAKER_00:What's a good thing about the contest, in addition to all the other things that we've already shared, is I I think it gives us an opportunity for our club to shine. You know, we're able to put put our great speakers on display, and then they get to advance to that next level of competition and compete too against other clubs. And I've again been here for three years and seen that next level club, and I'm always so proud to see our our club represented well at that next level and even further as our speakers advance.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think the the true value of having a contest is it really puts the focus on your speaking skills, and competition always sharpens your focus and your attention to something. In fact, I I had given a speech at my The Toastmasters Club recently, and and it was a good speech, and someone actually said, Well, you brought a contest level speech, and I hadn't thought about it like that. And I thought, well, shouldn't you always be approaching your speeches like that? Well, not everyone does, and depending on what project you're working on. You know, if you're working specifically on something like body language and movement, for instance, you're going to do a speech that's for that purpose. The reason I like the different speech contests, yeah, and it's not just the international and uh the evaluation, it's also a humorous and table topics that are traditionally done in the fall. And I hope that we can start doing those kind of things as well, because uh it gives the people to shine in the area that they really are best suited for the public speaking. And by the way, there's two of the big benefits there. One is for newer members, you get to see someone really working on a speech. And we had some good speeches this time. And how do you become a better speaker if you don't see it? You know, it's like watching someone perform, say uh on a particular musical instrument. Until you see someone perform, you don't know what's truly capable of what you might be uh shooting for. And then the second reason it's good is it's also a very good PR event to get visitors in. It is, I consider it much better than an open house to have to have people in. This gives people a chance to come in and really see some good, some really good speeches going on. So there's nothing but really good positives that come from this, not only from the contestants, but also from our members and from the club itself.
SPEAKER_01:Is there anything that anyone else wanted to cover in this conversation that we haven't covered so far?
SPEAKER_03:Well, actually, actually, I'm gonna bring up something here, just in closing, George, since you were our winner for a speech contest and you did something quite out of the ordinary, which was to, along with a speech, perform a song, there was a question about well, gosh, is should that be considered a speech? And I want to say yes, because the point of public speaking is being able to communicate and engage with people. I thought it was extremely effective, not to mention the fact it was very humorous, which of course I think a lot of people agreed with. I think it's time for a little bit of innovation in the speeches. And George, as you provided that in this particular contest, it was something that was just very singular, stood out, uh, although there's some that raised the question, is this a legit kind of speech? And I would say absolutely yes. In fact, I would like to see more creativity, whether it's in the contest or not. I'd like to see more creative and unique things being done uh in the club level around public speaking. And I think that maybe we we've got a little too constrained there about making people feel like it has to look and sound a certain way.
SPEAKER_01:Was that a conversation going on amongst the judges while you were counting the ballots?
SPEAKER_03:No, I think it came up after the fact. I just say, hey, there's nothing in the rule book that says you can't do that. And so it made me think, well, you're right, there's nothing in the rule book that says you can't do that. So I I don't see a problem with it at all. I I think it's just so was so unique and different that there's some people who go, well, gee, how does this fit in at a higher level? And I'm thinking, I think it would stand out. It would be the thing that someone would remember from a speech contest. I've I've heard a variety of speeches and they're all good, but guess what? They're they're forgotten pretty quickly, right? No one's going to forget your speech, George, when you when you get to the next level. And definitely from the club meeting. And it's obvious. I mean, the judges in this case, and I know that everyone in that room, I watched as you were doing that. You know, how do you connect with people? Well, there's there's no set way of doing it. There's some people very good at doing that with words and ideas. George, you brought something unique, and I think it uh expanded the dynamics of a speech contest, and I'm glad that you did that. And I hope to see more truly different, innovative types of approaches, not only in just regular speeches, but in the contests as well today.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you, Don. I appreciate that. And thank you all for participating in this conversation. I really appreciate you taking some time out on this weekend, especially after that TLI yesterday. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, George. Apex Toastmasters is the president's distinguished club founded in 1996 and located in Apex, North Carolina. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the host and guest, and do not reflect the views or opinions of Toastmasters in general or Apex Toastmasters in specific. If you enjoyed what you heard, please take a moment to like, share, rate, or review this podcast. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you in the next podcast.