by Gabriella Vukman
With the finals coming up in May, Marlene Sinclair will be representing the Yarra Ranges in public speaking at the District 73 toastmasters Conference 2024.
Competing in the humorous and the impromptu categories, and in the 73rd division, Ms Sinclair will be travelling to the Port Melbourne Town Hall to compete in May.
Nurse, Mother and avid public speaker Marline Sinclair said, “I’ve been a Toastmaster for 32 years.”
“I am so thrilled to represent the Ranges community. This club is amazing and the community is amazing.
“In preparation for May, I am making sure that my speech is up and running and be as well read as possible for the impromptu speech because you never know what topic you are going to get. It could be anything,” Ms Sinclair said.
The Toastmasters district 73 includes Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania and the finals have eight contestants in each contest of which Ms Sinclair is one.
“My two favourite topics are the impromptu, where they give you a topic on the spot and you have to speak to that one, and humour, so I won those at the regionals,” Ms Sinclair said.
“If you win at your club you go into the area competition and if you win at the area, you go into the division and if you win there you go into the district final.”
“We’ve just had the semi final and I won in the humour and impromptu sections,” Ms Sinclair said.
Learning public speaking has been a journey for Marlene.
“It has been absolutely amazing.”
Marlene said, “I was running a hospital in Sunshine and sometimes I would introduce international specialists to the doctors in the community on the stage and I’d go red and I thought ‘there is a way that I can be doing this better.”
“When I first started, it took me ages to get up and speak off the cuff. I was terrified for my first speech. I was shaking, I didn’t look at anybody, and it was absolutely terrible.”
‘By the third speech I was starting to really get into it and now I coach and I run a lot of MC things for rotary as well,” Marlene said.
