This past Sunday, I had the pleasure and honour to compete at the 2021 District 86 International Speech Contest with 12 other phenomenal speakers. We made history by being the first to compete online for our district. And my fellow contestants DID NOT disappoint the audience at all!<\/p>\n
I want to take this opportunity to thank Sharon Adams, Paul Cheema, Loretta Marshall, Justin Antony, Alejandro Vivar, Fadhwa Yusuf, Zehra Raza, Spencer Higgins, Merav Richter, Alexandre Matte, Neil Dunsmore and Brian Brennan for raising the bar and stepping your game up and showing why this district is by far one of the best in Toastmasters International. I learned so much from all of you. Your messages were crystal clear.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I learned that our world still has work to do! We need to get to a point where we treat each human being as valuable equals.<\/p>\n
I learned that without hope there is nothing. That we must believe in ourselves and what we are capable of doing. Hope is the key!<\/p>\n
That being sceptical doesn\u2019t make you a bad person. It just gives you the opportunity to see things from different perspectives and that is helpful in our world today.<\/p>\n
That a mother\u2019s love is eternal and doesn\u2019t start and stop when you are a child but continues throughout your life. No matter how old you are they will always want to grab you, squeeze you and love you.<\/p>\n
But I also learned that it\u2019s not about just being a father\u2026 It\u2019s about being a DAD! To understand the difference and to do whatever it takes to allow your children to see your faults, your triumphs, and your lessons learned to help them grow.<\/p>\n
To never look within the small room of your mind that only sees the impossibilities when complications arise, but to open yourself to possibilities and always dream of better opportunities.<\/p>\n
That we all have cheerleaders in our lives! If we are lucky to find them, hold onto them and learn from them and watch them help us rise.<\/p>\n
That it\u2019s OK to be different\u2026 Even if it means listening to \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic and sounding like Kermit the frog. Because being different makes you special and being special makes you unique in this world and no one can take that away from you.<\/p>\n
That even the smallest wish can come true. Sometimes it just takes a penny for your thoughts! And I wishing well to believe in. All you need to do is ask and act!<\/p>\n
That striving for perfection and the perfect moment sometimes just means being present and looking around you and seeing what\u2019s beautiful right in front of you.<\/p>\n
Understanding that there will always be people that will come in and out of our lives along our journey. You never know how they will touch you and leave a lasting impression on your walk of life!<\/p>\n
And finally when all is said and done and our lives go back to some type of normalcy I hope we will get together and instead of a negative pandemic we will start a new pandemic\u2026HUGS FOR EVERYONE!!!!!<\/p>\n
Thank you for making this historical event MEMORABLE! I am truly humbled and honoured to be representing you and District 86 at this year\u2018s World Championships of Public Speaking!<\/p>\n
Oh and I cannot forget about our illustrious contest chair who made it easy for all of us to go out there and shine by keeping us loose and ready to share our messages. We know him as Mike Proudlock\u2026 The world will know him as\u2026 Bond, Mike Bond!!!<\/p>\n
Best Regards,
\nRoger Caesar, DTM
\n2021 District 86 International Speech Champion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This past Sunday, I had the pleasure and honour to compete at the 2021 District 86 International Speech Contest with 12 other phenomenal speakers. We made history by being the first to compete online for our district. And my fellow contestants DID NOT disappoint the audience at all! I want to take this opportunity to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":5881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[354,348],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contests","category-district-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Roger-Caesar.jpg?fit=200%2C242&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5883,"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions\/5883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelabizshopping.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}