How I did it: I think the speech said it all:


The Teddy Bear of the Year Award
16 April 2009

Mister Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen

Welcome to this award ceremony! The world is big place, and there are many problems, and many joys. We, the members of the Teddy Bear Club, believe that it is in our power to make problems smaller and joys larger. Therefore we encourage love and hugs, and with this award we would like to honour those bears who have given the extra hug.

According to lore, duties of a teddy bear are the following:

1. To hug and be hugged without reserve or favour.
   
2. To be a comforter and consoler to everybody he meets.
   
3. To share and be shared.
   
4. To facilitate communication among all creatures.

It is according to these criteria that the selection committee judge the nominees for the Teddy Bear of the Year award. This year the nominees included over fifty very deserving bears from all over the world, but we could select only one. The sifting process took some careful deliberation, but gradually one individual rose to our attention.

Snickerdoodle Macbear is still a young bear, but nevertless a remarkable one. He's just over two years old, but soon after his last stitch was stitched, he left his hometown in Kansas to travel the world. He did not do it for his ownbenefit, but only to bring joy to others. He has hugged people from Thailand, Italy, South Africa, and in twenty States in the USA. This is a shining example of hugging without reserve or favour.

Snicks is a great comforter. His stuffing is firm yet forgiving, and his fur can absorb copious amounts of tears.

Snickerdoodle has an excellent record of sharing. He could have stayed home in Kansas with his mother, or stayed in Italy for the pizza or in Milwaukee for the beer, but he has always moved on, ready to be shared with more and more people.

Mr Macbear is an excellent facilitator of communication. He doesn't say much himself, but he has the nack of getting people around him talking to each other. Few bears has generated so much conversation in so many languages.

The Teddy Bear Club is therefore are proud to award Snickerdoodle MacBear the Bear of the Year award.
The itself award is a simple one, a tag of ivory, inscribed with ebony ink, naming the award and the year it was awarded in.

Mr Macbear, will you come to the stage please?

Snickerdoodle Macbear, thank you for being all that a good Teddy Bear should be. On behalf of the Teddy Bear Club I present you with the Teddy Bear of the Year award for 2009.

Resources: All the lovely people who let me stay with them!

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Apr 17, 12:56AM PDT | 2 comments | 1 cheer