On Friday 4 May, we welcomed two invited guests and four visitors - Niki, Nicky, Amber and Dom!
One invited guest was Mike Phoenix, from Woden Lunchtime club. (Mike is actually standing for election as Governor of the Toastmasters Monaro Division for 2012-13, though he didn't mention that at the meeting.) Mike's speech was called 'It's not rocket science', and it was on the theme that a happy club is a strong club or vice versa.
Mike is a very advanced Toastmaster, and he demonstrated good technique, involving us all in his speech by asking our expectations of happiness in a club. We agreed that we feel happy because we are able to give prepared and impromptu speeches often, in Benjamin Club.
Continuing, Mike gave alarming, though anonymous and, I hope, fictional, examples of clubs where members are restricted from giving speeches, and can take 6 - 10 years to work through the Competent Communicator manual! In some clubs, he told us, the members do not listen to the evaluations of their speeches, and don't show noticeable improvement in their presentation technique. Happily he was able to contrast those examples by mentioning a Toastmaster he knows of who has completed the 10 manual speeches in 6 months, demonstrating improvement all the way because he listened carefully to his evaluations and applied the points for improvement. So, clearly, fast progress is achievable if a person is keen. Phew!
Peter Herbert (currently our club President) was the other main speaker for the meeting. This time he took us into the world of industry and particularly electricity, and the dangers of not keeping up with modern safety rules but instead thinking to oneself, "But we've always done it this way". Death or injury lie on that path, we were told. Peter's point was that for best practice (in anything) you need to use the right tool for the job (e.g. the correct size spanner, not multigrips) and with the right method.
Before the speeches, Peter Ibbott had given us a Word of the Day. His word was 'incongruous', and it turned out to be a great choice, with many of us managing to include that word or its opposite when we had a chance to speak. Peter had clearly read the CL manual and not only knew what was expected but did everything, filling nearly the allotted 2 minutes. Well done!
Friday's meeting was unusual because we needed to hold the elections of club officers for 2012-13 in the middle of it. These elections happen only once a year, fortunately, because they (probably always) take longer than you hope. Not all the nominees accepted nomination on Friday, and as a result two positions remain unfilled for now.
Newly elected for 2012-13 were: Ianon as the Vice President (VP) Education; Robyn as the VP Public Relations; Peter Herbert as VP Membership; and Peter Ibbott as the Sergeant at Arms. Yuyu will continue as Treasurer. President and Secretary are yet to be decided. The new officers take on these roles on 1 July.
We squeezed in a short Table Topics segment, with Yuyu giving interesting questions to our newest members Dat and Peter Ibbott, and three of our visitors. Yuyu used two general themes: what is good about the club and where could there be improvements?; and is it 'better' to choose a job with high pay (including fly in fly out conditions) or one with a stable home life and/or interesting subject matter? We are so pleased when visitors and new members are willing to stand up and speak on these and other impromptu topics. Impromptu speaking for 1-2 minutes is not easy, and they all managed well.
Evaluations followed. Area Governor Jenny, our other invited guest, evaluated Peter's speech, comprehensively showing us his strengths, and including some points for improvement. Claudia similarly found plenty to commend in Mike's speech, and something to recommend. Both those men are Distinguished Toastmasters, and it is good for the rest of us to see that even after years of experience a speaker can be offered points to focus on for an even better speech next time.
Mike then evaluated the Table Topics questions and speeches, giving helpful summaries to all the speakers in that segment.
Finally, new member Julio did a good job as he earnestly tackled the evaluation of the whole meeting; that is, all the parts that had not yet been evaluated. Again, this is not easy. Then he called on Dat to report on the times taken by each person for each contribution, and Ann to report the counts of everyone's use of "Um" and "Ah" - which showed that while newer speakers used those words relatively often, the experienced speakers used them not at all!
All in all, another happy, if long, meeting. We look forward to the next one on 18 May.
Ann
(VPE 2011-12)
One invited guest was Mike Phoenix, from Woden Lunchtime club. (Mike is actually standing for election as Governor of the Toastmasters Monaro Division for 2012-13, though he didn't mention that at the meeting.) Mike's speech was called 'It's not rocket science', and it was on the theme that a happy club is a strong club or vice versa.
Mike is a very advanced Toastmaster, and he demonstrated good technique, involving us all in his speech by asking our expectations of happiness in a club. We agreed that we feel happy because we are able to give prepared and impromptu speeches often, in Benjamin Club.
Continuing, Mike gave alarming, though anonymous and, I hope, fictional, examples of clubs where members are restricted from giving speeches, and can take 6 - 10 years to work through the Competent Communicator manual! In some clubs, he told us, the members do not listen to the evaluations of their speeches, and don't show noticeable improvement in their presentation technique. Happily he was able to contrast those examples by mentioning a Toastmaster he knows of who has completed the 10 manual speeches in 6 months, demonstrating improvement all the way because he listened carefully to his evaluations and applied the points for improvement. So, clearly, fast progress is achievable if a person is keen. Phew!
Peter Herbert (currently our club President) was the other main speaker for the meeting. This time he took us into the world of industry and particularly electricity, and the dangers of not keeping up with modern safety rules but instead thinking to oneself, "But we've always done it this way". Death or injury lie on that path, we were told. Peter's point was that for best practice (in anything) you need to use the right tool for the job (e.g. the correct size spanner, not multigrips) and with the right method.
Before the speeches, Peter Ibbott had given us a Word of the Day. His word was 'incongruous', and it turned out to be a great choice, with many of us managing to include that word or its opposite when we had a chance to speak. Peter had clearly read the CL manual and not only knew what was expected but did everything, filling nearly the allotted 2 minutes. Well done!
Friday's meeting was unusual because we needed to hold the elections of club officers for 2012-13 in the middle of it. These elections happen only once a year, fortunately, because they (probably always) take longer than you hope. Not all the nominees accepted nomination on Friday, and as a result two positions remain unfilled for now.
Newly elected for 2012-13 were: Ianon as the Vice President (VP) Education; Robyn as the VP Public Relations; Peter Herbert as VP Membership; and Peter Ibbott as the Sergeant at Arms. Yuyu will continue as Treasurer. President and Secretary are yet to be decided. The new officers take on these roles on 1 July.
We squeezed in a short Table Topics segment, with Yuyu giving interesting questions to our newest members Dat and Peter Ibbott, and three of our visitors. Yuyu used two general themes: what is good about the club and where could there be improvements?; and is it 'better' to choose a job with high pay (including fly in fly out conditions) or one with a stable home life and/or interesting subject matter? We are so pleased when visitors and new members are willing to stand up and speak on these and other impromptu topics. Impromptu speaking for 1-2 minutes is not easy, and they all managed well.
Evaluations followed. Area Governor Jenny, our other invited guest, evaluated Peter's speech, comprehensively showing us his strengths, and including some points for improvement. Claudia similarly found plenty to commend in Mike's speech, and something to recommend. Both those men are Distinguished Toastmasters, and it is good for the rest of us to see that even after years of experience a speaker can be offered points to focus on for an even better speech next time.
Mike then evaluated the Table Topics questions and speeches, giving helpful summaries to all the speakers in that segment.
Finally, new member Julio did a good job as he earnestly tackled the evaluation of the whole meeting; that is, all the parts that had not yet been evaluated. Again, this is not easy. Then he called on Dat to report on the times taken by each person for each contribution, and Ann to report the counts of everyone's use of "Um" and "Ah" - which showed that while newer speakers used those words relatively often, the experienced speakers used them not at all!
All in all, another happy, if long, meeting. We look forward to the next one on 18 May.
Ann
(VPE 2011-12)
No comments:
Post a Comment