DAMMAM — Cutting across the color, cultural, regional and language barriers and binding the entire Saudi Arabia in a quest for excellence and show of camaraderie is the Saudi Arabian Toastmasters Annual Conference (SATAC). SATAC 2016, a three-day mega event, starting on Thursday at Sheraton Dammam, is going to be a myriad of workshops, contests, meetings, networking opportunities, election of new leaders and many more exciting activities. Dammam is abuzz with Toastmasters converging from all nook and corner of Saudi Arabia and hectic preparations are on to welcome around 1,400 delegates. Various committees with days of planning are rushing in to put final touches and making sure that the conference goes on smoothly as planned. The agenda for the first day include Youth Leaders showcase and qualifying contests and District Excom Meeting. The second day is packed with colorful events like formal inauguration followed by the breathtaking banner parade, a few more thrilling contests and inspiring workshops. The highlight of the day will be the District Council Meeting where the new leaders will be elected for the term from July 2016 to June 2017. The final day will contain all the drama with culminations and results. The array includes final contests, stimulating keynote addresses by champions of public speaking, the installation ceremony of new Excom and the nail biting announcement of results celebrating the success. The contests, an integral part of the celebration, are in four categories: Evaluation Speech, Table Topic Speech, Humorous Speech and International Speech. The contestants are the ones who have qualified from their clubs, areas and divisions contests. They are the best representations vying for the top positions. The winner of the International Speech Contest proceeds to participate in Toastmasters International 2016 Convention, to be held on Aug. 17-20 in Washington. The spotlight of this convention last year was on Saudi Arabia as the prestigious title of the World Champion of Public Speaking title was won by Saudi national Mohammed Qahtani. Expectations are high even this year. The workshops, another major attraction of the conference, are going to be simultaneously in English and Arabic. Resource persons Teresa Dukes, Yousef Abugosh andOmar Mohammed Al-Husseini are going to deal with topics like leadership styles, managing change and developing habits in English. Mashoor F. Al-Shareef, Wael A. Al-Bassam and Saleh A. Al Ghamdi will deal with skills like inference, interviews and presentation. The crème de la crème of the conference for many is going to be the keynote addresses by Mohammed A. Al-Qahtani, World Champion of Public Speaking 2015, and Mark Hunter, World Champion of Public Speaking 2009. Toastmasters is a journey of self development in communication and leadership skills having a history of more than 100 years. What began as a series of speaking clubs organized by Ralph C. Smedley in Illinois, United States, is today a world leader in communication and leadership development with more than 332,000 memberships worldwide. Members improve their speaking and leadership skills by attending one of the 15,400 clubs in 135 countries that make up the global network of meeting locations. Saudi Arabia, which is called District 79 in Toastmasters terminology, boasts of having more than 250 clubs. — SG
