As you’ve probably seen this week Saturday 16 August was the end of the International Speech Contest which culminated in a new world champion of public speaking being crowned – LaShunda Rundles.
LaShunda is the first female winner since the mid-1980s. Her home Toastmasters District is District 50. In 2nd place was K. Loghandran with 3rd place going to another female speaker Katherine Morrison.
I’m going to keep this post short because there have already been a tonne of posts across the public speaking blogosphere. This is a great thing for female speakers as there should be more competing. It’s still quite male-dominated, which is kind of understandable because women weren’t allowed to be involved until the 1970s, but that’s still more than 30 years ago.
So hopefully LaShunda’s win will inspire female Toastmasters the world over and there’ll be even more female competitors in the International Speech Contest next year.
