Thankfully, the spring Area contests are complete with a bit less difficulty than last time around. The contests for four Areas (20, 21, 22, 23) took place in a combined event on Saturday, March 9. This time we executed the Table Topics and International Speech contests, which are a bit more efficient to run than the fall contests (Evaluation and Humorous Speech). Hence, timing was less problematic. Nevertheless, there were some delays with ballot counting and awards that caused us to finish 20-30 minutes over.
My neighboring Area Director took on most of the heavy lifting as the Contest Chair this time around. He did an excellent job preparing, recruiting, and communicating. Meanwhile, I was able to focus mostly on recruiting. Once again, my clubs cooperated and brought numerous volunteers to the event, which we all greatly appreciate. It's worth restating an observation that I made earlier in the year. That is, having an engaged team makes all the difference in making these events either an insurmountable burden or realistic challenge to overcome. This time, we had more people participating at a high level and the contest preparations went smoothly.
On a side note, there was an odd case that occurred during the competition. A contest functionary made an error that disrupted a contestant's speech. As both an attentive and resolution-minded individual, I quickly sprang into action to confer with the Chief Judge on a course of action. Then, I facilitated passing this message to the Contest Master, functionaries, and contestants. Thus, within a few seconds, the incident was resolved and the contest could proceed. Remember what I've always said: an Area Director needs to be prepared for anything.