Urdu Toastmasters Club organized its contest at Al Khayam Restaurant in Dammam recently and contests were held in all four customary categories —International speeches, Table Topics, Humorous Speeches and Evaluation Speeches. Members of other Toastmasters clubs in the region and guests had a wonderful evening as speaker after speaker regaled them with their oratory skills and inspirational stories. Toastmaster Syed Mansour Shah was adjudged the first place winner in three categories of speeches, namely, International, Evaluation and Table Topics, while Toastmaster Mohammed Anasuddin won first prize in the Humorous Speech Category and got third prize in all other three categories. Toastmaster Safi Hyder Jannaty was adjudged second place winner in all of the four categories. All the three winners will compete now with the winners of other three clubs under Area 25 at the Area Level Annual Speech Contest to be held on Feb. 5, 2016. Toastmaster Mohammed Hanif Siddiqi won third prize in the Humorous Speech category. The Master of Ceremony was a senior Toastmaster, Faizur Rehman, who was assisted by renowned poet and Toastmaster Shiraz Mahdi Syed and distinguished Toastmaster Mohammed Asif Akhter, who both ably anchored the entire event. Another experienced Toastmaster, Naseem Shehri was the chief judge of the contest and was assisted by a panel of 7 judges drawn from various toastmasters clubs in the region. The event was attended by Area 25 Director, Toastmaster Prakash Palakkadavath, DTM Dr. Shaikh Shakil Anjum and several other dignitaries. TM Palakkadavath congratulated the members of the Urdu club for putting up a magnificent show. He also congratulated the club for achieving the status of President's Distinguished Club, third time in a row and being one of the three clubs in the entire Saudi Arabia to have achieved this distinction within the first six months of the calendar year. In his presidential address, Toastmaster Ziaur Rahman Siddiqui welcomed the guests and inspired the contestants. He briefly highlighted the achievements of the club and informed the audience about the monthly special meeting started by the club to let the poets of the Eastern Province present their works to the Urdu loving people. Urdu Toastmasters Club in the Eastern Province is the first Urdu language club in the world and following it, several other clubs have been founded in the Kingdom and other places. It has helped many such clubs by providing Urdu language material, which it has developed. Toastmasters International is an organization which provides a platform to enhance public speaking skills in a friendly atmosphere. There are more than 292,000 members and over 14,350 toastmasters clubs in 122 countries. After being declared a separate District, the popularity of Toastmasters is growing in Saudi Arabia.
