3 Minute competition! first prize on people's choice!

Monday and Tuesday afternoon I went with Mike, another PhD student who is my office, to theatre 3 to practice our 3 minute speeches. The first time we practiced was never good, the second time better and the third time was good! But when we practiced more it became worse... Sometimes we started to add things that we had never said before :-) so time to stop after three practices. We decided to make a sign after 1min, 2min and 2min45.

Wednesday I practiced 2 times in the office with Mike in the morning... I made a huge mistake the first time... Normally I would start with... "Goeiemiddag allemaal, mijn naam is jessie en mijn onderwerp is... Oh sorry, this should be in English right?" and I said in my first practice: " "Goeiemiddag allemaal, mijn naam is jessie en mijn onderwerp is... Oh sorry, you don't understand English... "
Oops! Happily this didn't happen on the competition.

At 11am we took some pictures with the whole group at Bond.

Then we went to the theatre. The PhD students were sitting on the first row in the order of the speeches, I was the 7th.

By the time the competition started the theatre was more than full! At least 130 people. They could all vote for people's choice. And the 3 jury members chose a winner, 2nd and 3rd too. Philippe and his brother, and Laureen and Denis came to support me. Also Popi was there!

This was my Bio that was read before I presented:

Jessie Brouwers graduated in 2009 at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium with a Masters in Physical Education and Movement Sciences (specialising in sports management) with the highest distinction. Since graduating, Jessie worked for six months as a researcher in the sports management department at Free University and in January 2010 she was offered a scholarship to conduct a PhD at Bond University, Queensland, Australia. Jessie has played tennis since she was six and she started coaching seven years ago. Jessie’s passion for tennis also leads her current PhD interest in elite development in tennis and sport policies of different nations.  

My presentation went so well!!! No mistakes. Everything was clear! I had 2min30. The audience was laughing when I made the little jokes.  At the end the people gave me a warm applause! After the 13 presentation we had free drinks and Pizza! A lot of people that I did't know came to me to say that they enjoyed my presentation. Philippe saw that a lot of people ticked my name for the people's choice!

After half an hour we could go inside again for the results. No first, second or third prize from the jury... (achteraf hoorde ik dat ik vierde was!). Then the prizes for public choice...! First, Jessie Brouwers! I was so happy! I won a hotel voucher of 250$! I am sure I am going to enjoy this! 

This was such a great experience! I presented in a way I had never presented before! And the people loved it! It was a great practice for my confirmation which is the first of September!

Here is in words the presentation I did:

Goeiemiddag allemaal, welkom. Oops sorry.. Have to speak English. Lets start over again. My name is Jessie and my topic is about tennis success and elite sport policy.

Most of you will know Kim Clijsters Roger Federer or maybe Aussie, Sam stosur. Right?
The question is: What made these players so successful, and why are some nations more successful than others? And what I am interested in is;  what is the role of national policies in elite sport success?

At the end of 2009, Australia had more than twice as many top 1000 tennis players in the world.Why is Australia more successful in the top 1000 compared to Belgium? I decided to fly over from Belgium to find out myself.

Of course, population and wealth play an important role in tennis success of nations. It is normal that a big and wealthy country with a high population size is more successful compared to small and poor countries, However, nations cannot influence these factors easily.

I decided to focus on what nations CAN change, namely sport policy. This includes areas such  as funding for sport, facilities, coaches, availability of competition, support for athletes, and many many other factors.

I want to analyse the relationship between all these factors and elite sport success in tennis in order to optimise the role of sport policies in determining elite success in tennis.

The problem is; we don’t know these factors in detail yet, so I have to identify them.
Therefore, I will interview “users of elite sport policy” such as elite tennis players, high performance directors, coaches and club leaders. The main question we will ask these people will be: what factors determine international tennis success of a country? And Why?

Once we know the factors that lead to international tennis success, we will analyse how they are implemented in Belgium and Australia. I will make an in depth analysis of the Belgian and Australian sport policy. This will reveal strengths and weaknesses of both countries. By comparing the policies, countries will know how to invest their recourses in a more appropriate way in order to be more successful!

The most important outcome of this research is the knowledge and the instruments for countries to measure their sport policy and to compare them against other competitors. The aim is to use this knowledge and instruments in the future to benchmark sport policies of nations in order to improve policies.  This was my research.

Game set and match, thank you