Chief Judge

   Spring is contest time when you are a member of Toastmasters International. Every spring clubs all around the world hold contests to decide who will represent them at the area, division and district levels. There are always two contests. This year it is humorous and international. Humorous is pretty obvious. International speech does not need to be humorous but can be. International speech contest is the only one where a winner can go on to compete with other winners from around the world. The ultimate winner is dubbed the World Champion of Public Speaking.
  Running a contest requires a lot of people to help out. There are very specific jobs that need to be done. Someone has to chair the contest. They are responsible for running the contest according to Toastmaster rules. There are timers, ballot counters, a sergeant at arms a toastmaster and of course contestants. At area contests there are people to run the registration table and provide or serve food or snacks.
   I've done most of the above roles in my many years in Small Town Toastmasters. There is one role that I've never tackled. I have never been a chief judge.
   One of the reasons why I've never been a chief judge is because there were people with much more experience around that could do the job a lot better. There's a lot of responsibility when one is the chief judge. The chief judge (CJ) is responsible for briefing and providing the proper forms to all the people who have duties in the contest itself. They are in charge of making sure that the timers, ballot counters and judges do their jobs correctly and according to Toastmaster rules. In all contests the is a tie breaking judge. This judge's ballot is counted only when a ties occurs. The CJ is the only one who knows who the tie breaking judge is. Another thing the CJ does is handle protests. A contestant or judge may lodge a protest if they feel that a contestant is ineligible or if the speech is not an original speech. The protest is resolved by the CJ, contest chair and judges.  Quite frankly part of me has always been a little scared that I would screw something up and negate the results of the entire contest. Not something I want to do.
   I had told Dana, the contest chair, that I was willing to do anything at our club contest except compete. I already knew that I would be unable to attend the area contest if I won and I also don't relish having to compete against professional speakers, something I've had to do before. Dana asked me if I would be chief judge. She said that it was her goal to get me out of my comfort zone at least three times per year. Normally I would have hemmed and hawed and tried to back out. I didn't. I told her I would. I asked her to send me some info so I could brush up on what I wanted to do. It came in my email the next few days. I reviewed it. This wasn't going to be as hard as I thought.
  The day of the contest arrived. I decided to dress up a little. If you look good, you feel good. I felt prepared and ready for my task. Dana made things very easy for me. She had all my forms printed out. All I had to do was distribute them when I briefed the various people. I had a team of two judges one experienced and the other novice. Not too hard at all.
   The only error I made was a small one. I forgot to grab the timer sheet when I left with the ballot counters. It was no problem to go back into the contest space and grab it.
    I actually enjoyed my role. it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. My experience with other contest roles was enough to make me feel comfortable. Having Dana for a contest chair didn't hurt either. I definitely would be willing to serve a chief judge again.