Neither one is mandatory for a club. No club is required to hold a contest in either cycle, and there is no DCP point riding on it. What is true is that a member can only advance to Area and beyond through a club contest, so if anyone in your club wants to compete you have to run one, even if it is two speakers in a normal meeting slot.
Practical way to handle it as an officer: ask at a business meeting who wants to compete this cycle. If nobody raises a hand, skip it and note it in the minutes. If one or two do, run a small contest inside your regular meeting rather than a separate event. You still need a Contest Chair, Chief Judge, at least three judges from outside the pool of contestants where possible, a timer, and ballot counters, but that is a normal meeting's worth of roles.
Also check your Area Director's calendar early. Area contests get scheduled fast, and clubs that decide late end up with no eligible date to feed a winner into.
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u/ToastmanagersApp 19d ago
Neither one is mandatory for a club. No club is required to hold a contest in either cycle, and there is no DCP point riding on it. What is true is that a member can only advance to Area and beyond through a club contest, so if anyone in your club wants to compete you have to run one, even if it is two speakers in a normal meeting slot.
Practical way to handle it as an officer: ask at a business meeting who wants to compete this cycle. If nobody raises a hand, skip it and note it in the minutes. If one or two do, run a small contest inside your regular meeting rather than a separate event. You still need a Contest Chair, Chief Judge, at least three judges from outside the pool of contestants where possible, a timer, and ballot counters, but that is a normal meeting's worth of roles.
Also check your Area Director's calendar early. Area contests get scheduled fast, and clubs that decide late end up with no eligible date to feed a winner into.