Seriously!

Friday 18 November turned out different from the way the VPE had expected, because many members were unable to be there (this is a university and it's still exam time and assessments are due). Therefore the idea of everyone practising their evaluation skills was something we dropped, but instead we had another three speeches (like last meeting), seriously!

Robyn will be speaking at a conference soon, so her speech was a shorter version of her conference paper. She presented a critical commentary on the reporting coming from a prominent Australian think tank. Robyn, a social scientist herself, gave credible reasons, well explained in the talk, to show why she doubts the thoroughess of this think tank's 'research' in one particular area of its fields of interest, and why she thinks public statements about its research are misleading. My take-home message from Robyn's speech was that it could be sensible to look carefully at the group's findings in other research areas, to see if they appear well-founded.

Jim, a long-time Toastmaster and former scientist himself, evaluated Robyn, focusing, as we do in Toastmasters, on both the good points and the points for improvement, the content and the speech structure. The VPE had invited Jim to do this because he has long experience of presenting conference papers, and knows the different requirements there compared to a Toastmasters speech. (Nevertheless, the ultimate aim in both arenas is to convey a message clearly.)

Ann was up next, 'speaking to inform' (that's the title of one of our Toastmaster communication manuals). Ann prefers to bring humour into her speeches, but the challenge for the particular project in this manual was to present a report in a professional manner, conveying a clear message, and then to answer questions from the audience. To meet that requirement yet keep the subject light-hearted or amusing, Ann's report was a description of two pieces of research published (several years ago) in the Annals of Improbable Research. One tested the proposition that the landscape of Kansas (in USA) is 'as flat as a pancake', and the other tested the idiom 'you can't compare apples and oranges'. The Annals (AIR is its acronym!) are associated with the famous international science awards called the Ignobel Prizes, so you can see this serious speech had a tongue-in-cheek element to it. Ann's take-home message was serious (of course!): think about comparisons; don't just accept them at face value. The audience asked several penetrating questions, making Ann glad she had prepared carefully for this particular project!

Claudia, a relatively new member of the club, gave a thorough evaluation, with useful points for improvement (e.g. speak a bit more slowly), and plenty of encouragment. We enjoy Claudia's evaluations, and other speaking, partly because of her warmth and positive outlook.

Finally, Lee who is a very experienced speaker, gave a (properly serious) educational talk about 'motivating people'. 'Educationals' are presented to help club members consider aspects of leadership or management, and Toastmasters International makes materials available for members to use as a basis for the educational speech (really a form of training). Interestingly, we all agreed afterwards that although we had gained a little from the TI materials Lee had brought along, we gained a great deal more from Lee's speech once she walked away from the TI notes and spoke from her own experience. There is a lesson here for trainers, I feel. Namely, don't be shy to put yourself into a training speech if you want your audience to learn from it.

Yuyu, another relatively new member, doing her first evaluation of a speech, was assigned to evaluate Lee. Yuyu is always extremely thorough in what she does, and not only was it a well-considered and balanced evaluation, she also introduced an element all her own - telling us what she had personally learned from the speech. That is something I think we could adopt more generally as a desirable feature of a speech evaluation.

Although there was not time for everone to stand up and give some feedback on the speeches, there was time for Table Topics, which Amy (one of our newest members) ran for us.

Amy gave four topics and chose as speakers those people who had not already had substantial opportunities to speak at the meeting. Amy presented this section in a measured and professional way. She has always had good confidence when 'out front', and experience is now adding to that, giving her more authority when she is speaking. Congratulations!

The next meeting is on 2 December, and it will be the last one for the year. At present, four speakers have asked to be given a spot for a speech. This could be a 'speech-fest' indeed!

Continuous club - just part-time bloggers!

Since our last blog, the club has continued to hold its fortnightly meetings. They are all fun, and every one is different! We have gained three new members, and had a number of interesting visitors. But those meetings are 'water under the bridge' for this blog.

In our most recent meeting, on 4 November, there were ten members present, and we also welcomed three visitors. One, our Area Governor, Jenny, comes often to lend her experience. Two other visitors on 4 November, Katie and Jenny, are friends of one of our newest members, Amy, and they came to give her moral support in giving her first speech from the Competent Communicator manual.

First speeches are called 'icebreakers', and this day we had three 'cool' people (groan - sorry!) breaking the ice: Amy, Lyndal and Ele all presented their speeches successfully.

Amy spoke about 'Middle Child Syndrome' and she made it a funny talk and had a strong opening.
Lyndal introduced us to 'My Summer'. Our imaginations were turned on by her use of facial expression. It was a good speech with smooth transitions between the topics.
Finally, Ele told us about 'Horse riding'. She captured our attention by using props and also by asking us questions, but didn't allow those to interrupt her logical flow.

All three presented their speeches without notes. This is quite a trend at the moment, started in the previous (late October) meeting by Pin who gave her icebreaker speech smoothly and humorously, without notes and also, she told me, without even having written it down first!

It is much more common for first speeches to be given with notes. Our four new members, above, may have had some previous experience in presenting a speech, perhaps through their studies. However, they all had to deal with their nerves, which (I know from experience) can seem to be paralysing! - and they managed to overcome them and carry on. Well done!

The other focus of this meeting was evaluation. There is a contest coming up, but even so, with so many new members it's important that we give everyone practice in evaluation.

Being able to evaluate well is really a very valuable skill to have - not only in Toastmasters, where we aim to commend as well as giving points for improvement - but also in life. So often in leadership roles, or in the workplace generally, or at home, we need to be able to give evaluations in a way that is constructive, not hurtful.

Our icebreaker speeches on 4 November were evaluated by experienced members. In particular, we and the speakers appreciated Claudia’s motivational evaluation.

Then we had 'Evaluation by everyone'. This was a new venture, which Jenny conducted as a group evaluation-practice session for us, and it was very useful. Jenny did a grand job of co-ordinating it all, with a professional manner. Most of the group participated in the exercise, and appeared to gain benefits from it.

'Table topics' topics were delivered by Carmen, taking her first turn in this challenging role. Our guest, Katie was one of those who took part, speaking very well (as she did last time she visited the club).

Robyn (our newest member) performed the Toastmaster role for the meeting, to a high standard.  She managed and ran the meeting smoothly, and created a warm environment through her remarks to the speakers.

Overall it was greatly successful meeting.

We are looking forward to 18 November, when there should be three more speeches including another icebreaker, and we will probably try another group evaluation session, to build up those skills.

Come along and join in!

Acknowledgement: Keiko provided the notes for this post.

No ice here, even if the weather's cold with hail, outside

Today, two of the club's recently joined members gave their first speeches - their 'ice-breakers' in the Toastmasters lingo. For us at the meeting, these were insights into the backgrounds of two young women about whom we knew little before, except that both had blossoming leadership skills.

More than that, though, these ice-breakers were instructive in their approaches to introducing oneself to a group.

Claudia, who has already taken on club-meeting roles as Table Topics Master (last meeting) and Toastmaster (end of July), challenged us to not 'stereotype' people before we know them. To reinforce that message, Claudia gave us all a short test to show us how much we might have already stereotyped her. Peter won easily, with 7 points out of a possible 18 (and received a small reward!) which goes to show that the rest of us had guessed even more wrongly.

For example, many of us were sure Claudia was the eldest of her siblings - her natural presence makes that 'obvious' - but we were wrong. And only one of us thought her work would be in 'caring', whereas in fact she arguably does much more than 'merely' care - her actual work is in helping people rebuild their lives.

Amazingly both women have travelled to many countries already. This was one of several similarities between Claudia and Bernice, our other ice-breaking speaker.

Not everyone has asked themselves 'Who am I?'. Bernice tackled the challenge of answering the question for herself by researching 'myself' as a word; then not finding that to be much help she asked two good friends what three things they would like to know most about her.

What a practical way to be sure your speech will interest your audience! This is a technique many communicators could do well to use!!

As a result we now know some highlights of Bernice's childhood, naughtinesses, achievements, wishes for the future and activities outside work. Canberra seems an ideal abode for her - midway between sea and snow. Her expertise both on skis and surfboards has given her opportunities to practise those sports at some of the most highly regarded slopes and waves in the world! Wow!!

And in another uncanny similarity between these two speakers, both have great love for the food prepared by cooks of Italian descent in their families.

Family matters were among the varied and sophisticated topics Yuyu had prepared for the Table Topics part of the meeting. This was Yuyu's first time as Table Topics Master. She managed well, and in the process demonstrated something of the differences between the people who attend a Toastmasters club - by which I mean that topics that are natural parts of the lives of some members are a closed book to others! So the high-finance question would have suited Peter, but instead he dealt admirably with a question about the lifting of young children - something he seemed less familiar with. Pin responded calmly to the question about dangerous dogs by positing that love is a good way to cope with them - which is something to think about further, I suggest. And, answering another of Yuyu's five or six Table Topics challenges for impromptu speaking, Carmen gave a creditable first response - to a topic about university rankings. Well done!

Welcome, Carmen, as our newest club member!

Though our meetings are short, they give quick and safe opportunities for trying out new skills. I've mentioned Yuyu, and Pin also took on a role for the first time, counting ums and ahs. Not hard, you'd think, but you have to decide how to report about a person who says um or ah frequently in just a few minutes: do you give your complete count and embarrass the person? Pin reported complete counts, but though high-ish for some speakers they were not offputtingly so. The objective of this role, in our club at least, is only to draw a speaker's attention to the fact that they use 'um'/'ah'/'you-know'/'er' frequently, and could do it less.

Ele gave us 'integrity' as her Word of the Day. It was a word that several people were able to include in their speaking, using it in the proper grammatical way, which is the aim of the Word of the Day in our club. Robyn, our guest last meeting, attended again and took on what for her was a first role in our club - General Evaluator. As you'd expect from a person involved in teaching work, she spoke with confidence, not only making recommendations but drawing our attention to the good aspects of our various roles, particularly Keiko's clever achievement as Toastmaster for the meeting.

Keiko's achievement for us was to bring the meeting to a close exactly on time. It's rare for everyone to exactly occupy their allotted times during the hour - some speak briefly and others at length. But Keiko showed excellent judgment in announcing variations to the times available for each remaining section. That is a great skill to have and one that many conference and workshop convenors need, in my experience!!

Each meeting demonstrates something. This one demonstrated skills, as I've shown above. To return to the 'ice-breakers', speech project no.1 is not only an opportunity - perhaps your first - to speak in front of an audience. It also is a chance 'to discover speaking skills you already have and skills that need some attention' (quoted from the Competent Communicator manual). Both today's ice-breaker speakers demonstrated that they already can prepare an interesting talk with good structure. Both had their nerves apparently well under control, and both received highly commendatory individual evaluations from Lee and Peter, as well as points to focus on for the next speech.

I'm looking forward to next meeting, 23 September, and also the contest on 24 September at which Lee will represent our club in Humorous speech and in Table Topics. See you there!

About people, not bread

People are fascinating, aren't they! So many shades of personality, so many objectives, styles and motivations.

Lee said to me yesterday, " I go along to [Toastmasters meetings] to enjoy the people and to learn". That's a lovely motivation, I think. Although in Benjamin Toastmasters we only see each other for about 1 hour each fortnight, we really do get a glimpse of each others' different lives, interests, philosophies, and backgrounds through the stories told.

For example, in Keiko's 'Tonic' that I mentioned in the previous post, she expressed her personal philosophy:
"I would like people to know the true value of the friends that they meet during their life. Unfortunately, we often judge people with their costume (outlook, job titles, parents, academic achievements, assets, nationality, religions and etc.) that they wear.

"I would like people to know their own value and believe in their capacities and potentials. Because people can’t satisfy their parents'/partner's/teachers'/friends'/children’s expectations, it doesn’t mean that people are incapable.

"There’s nothing wrong with learning and developing skills at our own pace. All positive effort should be recognised, encouraged and supported for development."

Toastmasters club members aim to be inclusive, like that, and to support rather than focus on participants' need to improve as we learn and gain self-confidence.

So it was, yesterday. Overall, the meeting was like a feast of evaluations.

Robyn's practice of her speech for the national 3-minute thesis contest was auspicious in its promise for a good run in Perth next month. She was rewarded with evaluations from almost everyone present - a rich collection of appraisals and suggestions.

Lee as Toastmaster for the day gave us all numerous openings to give feedback on all aspects of the meeting. Experienced Toastmasters give evaluations that demonstrate the inclusiveness and support that each club aims to show. Less experienced Toastmasters can still be experienced at evaluation in other walks of life and that was revealed yesterday as well.

Ideally, points for improvement should only be the sparse filling in a sandwich of commendations on the good/promising parts of a person's speech or role played. It's a good ideal to aim for, everywhere, I think.

'Auspicious', by the way, was the Word of the Day, from Yuyu. In my opinion, it is auspicious for the club that Yuyu has joined us. From her we see into a life in China as well as in Australia, and some of the yearnings and joys she has.

Claudia's choice of topics to stimulate impromptu 'Table Topics' speeches brought out that Ianon hates sand and snakes but loves the hidden cafes in Melbourne; David is anxious that the world will be ruined in 200 years time; and that highlights of Jenny's film memories are the colours and emotions in 'On Golden Pond' and 'Same Time Next Year'.

Do you see what I mean about the fascinating people we meet at our club? I hope our newest member, Pin, enjoys the people in the club as much as we do. Welcome Pin!

Opportunities!

Since the club's last blog post, new opportunities have come up - because we are a Toastmasters club meeting at University of Canberra. Tremendous!

Here's one example. Tomorrow at our meeting, Robyn is scheduled to practise her 3-minute thesis talk. You might ask where the opportunity is in that. Well, our paths crossed on campus last week, 'out of the blue'. Robyn had 'joined in' at our meetings early this year, accepting invitations to speak impromptu during Table Topics. Then she joined a Toastmasters club newly opened where she lives (outside Canberra). When University of Canberra ran a 3-minute thesis competition a few weeks back for its postgraduate students, Robyn had a go - and came first out of 10 contestants.

As a result, she will represent UC at the national competition in Perth next month.

Our Toastmasters meeting will not only give her another practice session, with a different audience, it will also give her feedback and constructive evaluation. In fact, we've invited some very experienced and high-quality evaluators from other Toastmasters clubs to come to the meeting to make sure Robyn gets the best feedback possible.   Here's a link to a short video about the UC contest and Robyn's win:
http://www.canberra.edu.au/monitor/2011/aug/15-3mt .

There's more. With Robyn being a 'target' speaker tomorrow, we will all be able to give her a short evaluation - even those of us who are not experienced or comfortable in this role.

It will be an opportunity for all of us to practise something that few of us would do very often, but which is essential for leadership in all sections of life (parenting, teaching, business, volunteering, etc.). Evaluation is a central part of Toastmasters. It's the flipside of speaking - the feedback that shows you how you appeared to your audience, just minutes after you have given your presentation.
I have a purpose, of course. There will be an evaluation contest within Toastmasters clubs later this year or early next year, and so this meeting tomorrow will begin our members' preparation for that contest.

Opportunities appeared over the last 10 days when the club was invited to take part in an orientation for new staff members at UC. It was really welcoming to our club, newly on campus, to be asked to be present, and we are grateful for this chance to attract new potential members.

New staff are not all lecturers. Many are part of the general administration, library and research areas of university life. All of the 20 or so people who showed interest in our Toastmasters club on campus are interested in the opportunities that open up when you have that skill of being a confident speaker - one who can say something coherent, even logical and interesting, at a few seconds notice, and particularly in a prepared speech. I hope all 20 visit the club tomorrow. We plan to invite everyone to take a speaking part in some way.

Finally, last meeting on 12 August, former club president Keiko spoke for a few minutes as a 'Tonic'. Her topic was 'A good friend'. Keiko asked several of us how we define a good friend, and as you can imagine there were several different answers. Keiko then wove these together with her own experience of good friends from her very interesting life both in Australia and formerly in Japan. As always, Keiko held our attention, not only with her delivery style (use of body language, eye contact, vocal variety) but also with her words and her message. She gave us all an opportunity to reflect on the qualities that allow us and others to be a 'good friend'.  Thanks Keiko.

An interesting and rewarding lunchtime

It's 29 July today in Canberra, and we have just had our third Benjamin Toastmasters club meeting for this month. The next meeting is in 2 weeks time, on 12 August, 12.30 to 1.30 as usual.

Today's meeting was rewarding, happy, interesting and amusing, as is often the case.

Rewards came first in the shape of Claudia who was, for her first time, being the 'toastmaster' for the meeting. The toastmaster introduces everyone and thanks them after their turn, and keeps the whole meeting running to time. In other types of gathering, that role might be called the session chair or convenor.

Timeliness is particularly important for a 1 hour meeting at lunchtime. However, it's also important that everyone who wants to join in can do so and 'have a go', and Claudia managed those requirements admirably.

Happiness was brought by our several welcome visitors today. Irina, a published author, is already a Toastmaster in Weston Creek club. Jenny is a Toastmaster in several Canberra clubs, and she is also our Area Governor for Area 17 (Belconnen) for 2011-12. Our three other visitors today - Tim, Tracy and Emmaline - were paying their first visit to a Toastmasters club, and we hope they will attend again and perhaps join.

It was also rewarding that Tim and Emmaline accepted roles in the meeting: that of Listener, and Um-Ah counter. Both came out to the front when their turn came to report, and acquitted themselves well. It turned out that few ums and ahs had been used today during the parts of the meeting, and that was an improvement.

Ele gave us 'facilitate' as the Word of the Day. It was used 5 times during today's proceedings, as she later reported. The challenge with 'word of the day' is for everyone to use it, correctly, during their speaking at the meeting - clearly not a goal that many of us achieved, given 10 different people having roles!

Interesting is really too mild a word to use for the two speeches. First Yuyu spoke for 6-7 minutes on 'Parenting methods', beginning and ending with Tiger Mum and exploring the benefits or otherwise of laid-back parenting versus pushy parenting. It seems our destinies depend less on how we were brought up and more on our genes. A fascinating talk, very clearly and logically structured, with illustrations innovatively displayed. As Peter said in his evaluation (feedback) of the speech, 'Great work!'.

Then, Ianon told us about her research project into communication about diabetes. She had randomly chosen and interviewed people from five different groups, especially from other countries, and her findings - that 50% of people in these groups did not know the risk factors and symptoms of Type II diabetes - was illuminating. Ianon's speech was from one of the Advanced Communicator manuals, and it specified a question & answer session to follow the speech. Those few (2-3) minutes showed that actually very few of today's club participants knew much about diabetes either! Luckily, Ianon expertly filled in our knowledge gaps, as Lee acknowledged in her evaluation of Ianon's presentation!  Thanks Ianon.

Next Lee, as Table Topics master, offered us a 'Dear Marge' session, and her challenges - how not to own a dog; how to afford a holiday with no money; how to go about speed-dating - were amusingly and joyfully met, impromptu, by Ele, Irina and Ann. What a pity the program didn't allow for a few more of those topics today.

In club business, we welcomed our new members: Claudia and Ele. In total the club now has 14 members.
And the club as a whole was not unhappy - at least no-one said they were! - that the membership dues have been reduced, from now until March next year at least.

Renewals (every 6 months: March, September) are now $40 (full rate), $37.50 (if you already belong to a TM club), $35 if you are a fulltime student, or a retiree. New members pay those rates adjusted pro-rata for the number of months left before renewal date, and new members also pay $30 (full rate) or $20 (concession) as a joining fee to cover the cost of training manuals. Membership is not only to our club but also to Toastmasters International as a whole, based in USA.

For more detail on our club, please email benjamin-toastmasters@hotmail.com, or ann.milligan@gmail.com.

You're welcome to attend a meeting: 12 August, 26 August, 9 September, 23 September, 12.30 - 1.30, University of Canberra Building 20 Room A2.

Website: http://benjamin.freetoasthost.ws

July 2011 - club meetings

This is a new blog to talk about what we do in Benjamin Toastmasters Club, which meets on alternate Fridays at lunchtime at University of Canberra.

Like all Toastmasters clubs, our club aims to help our members build up our self-confidence and leadership skills, which results from our standing up and speaking in front of our small friendly group.

There are three meetings this month, July 2011: two are already over, and the third one is on 29 July.

The first meeting was on 1 July, and it was a 'Table Topics Tornado'. That is our name for a meeting in which everyone speaks for 1 - 2 minutes on a topic they have just been given, out of the blue.

Our meetings are only 1 hour long (12.30 - 1.30) so there was only time for 2 rounds of topics for everyone. Two 'ringmasters' had each prepared a list of topics, one for each round, and they read them out one at a time and nominated one person in the group to stand up and talk about each one. In Toastmasters, as you will know if you know Toastmasters, everything receives feedback or 'evaluation' within the same meeting. And so it is in our Table Topics Tornados. Everyone not only stands up and speaks about the 'Table Topic' they've just been given, they also, at the end of that round, stand up and give brief verbal feedback about a speaker's delivery and speech content. In this case each person evaluated the person who spoke next after them in the round.

Evaluation / feedback in Toastmasters focuses mainly on the points a speaker has done well, and only makes one (or perhaps two, for experienced speakers) recommendation, sandwiched between commendations. The idea is to be supportive and helpful, not damning.

At our second July meeting this last Friday, 15 July, we held our club contests for Humorous Speech and Table Topics. Here, eligible contestants (members) who have nominated previously, present a humorous speech they have prepared and practised, and/or they respond impromptu to a Table Topic they have not heard before.

Humorous speeches are allowed 5-7 minutes each, and they are judged formally by a panel, for their speech's characteristics such as its structure, ideas, interest and effectiveness (surprise, humour), and manner of delivery.

For the Table Topics contest, contestants wait out of earshot for their turn. When they enter the room, they are told the topic for the contest - the same one that is given to all the contestants. That puts the judging on an even footing - so contestants are only being compared for their inventiveness and manner of delivery for their short 1-2 minute speech on that one topic.

Our contest was judged by our Area Governor and two club members, and we had three contestants, all of whom did very well. None was disqualified for speaking for too little or too long a time. I'm sure the judges had a difficult task, but they were helped by having standard Toastmasters scoring sheets to use, tailored to each type of contest.

Lee won both Humorous Speech and Table Topics in our club contests. Lee is now invited to represent our club at the Area contests (both Humorous and Table Topics) on 24 September. At the Area contests, Lee will compete against the winners of the club contests being held over the next few weeks in the five other clubs in our Belconnen area.

Our third July meeting is on 29 July and it will be a normal Toastmasters meeting. There are likely to be two speeches, each about 5-7 minutes in length, a Table Topics session, and a Word of the Day, a tonic or a reading from the Toastmasters magazine, a small amount of club business, and verbal evaluations of all the aspects of the meeting. The speeches will aim to meet the requirements set out for particular 'projects' in the Toastmasters training manuals, and they will also receive written evaluation as prescribed in those manuals.

Everyone is welcome to Benjamin Toastmasters Club meetings. It's helpful if we know to expect you , so please email us at benjamin-toastmasters@hotmail.com before 28 July.

Meetings are in building 20, University of Canberra, in room A2, at 12.30 to 1.30.
Here is a link to the campus map: http://www.canberra.edu.au/university/maps.
After 29 July, the next meeting is a fortnight later, 12 August.