3_3 from the Contest Chair

Greetings:

Welcome to San Diego Japanese Speech Contest!

My name is Fumiko Tachibana. I have been the chair of the contest for many years now, and it is our great pride to be celebrating our twenty-second competition with you today.

Welcome to La Jolla and Thank you, our special guest and judge Vice Consul, Mr. Tanaka from Consulate-General of Japan for coming to our event from Los Angeles.

Let us appreciate some long-time supporters: Mr. Kocho, of San Diego Japan Marketing Services, Ms. Kazuko Coyne who has brought Mr. Nagasawa from Japan, the founder of Iwate-ken(dog) Project. He'd like to give today's contestants a small gift as a token of friendship at the award ceremony. Also Ms. Hideko Galaski, the chairperson of San Diego Japanese Business Association. Thanks to her and the group, the 22nd contest will offer an Audience Award. You have the ballot, and at the end of the last speaker, we will collect your vote. We also appreciate the dedicated judging team. MC will introduce them after my turn is over, Thank you goes to the teachers and all the volunteers who work very hard for this contest.

This Speech Contest is our pure joy and happiness as we look back upon 1996 when this contest started. The young students weren’t even yet born.

We volunteer to work annually but throughout the year trying to make things better in order to host a good contest. This is entirely done out of love for culture, language, and community. We are always inviting you to join our group.

We have prepared a nice travel mug to celebrate today as a small token of our appreciation for everyone’s hard work, whether we are contestants, volunteers or supporters. Thank you for your enthusiasm!!!

Today’s MC team consists of Zoe and Kaito. They served as MC last year, and they are back to help us out again! Thank you so much! We also appreciate all of you for the warm support for the participants.

Now most importantly, I’d like to extend my best wishes to the contestants. As I say every year, you are already winners by deciding to come here to make a speech, enjoy the time. THIS excitement is a LIFETIME treasure. Make the most of it as your efforts will always be rewarded. We make our own merits. Good luck and Nihongo Ganbatte-ne!

Fumiko Tachibana

Chair, San Diego Japanese Speech Contest

from the PPT 3/17/2019