Last Benjamin TM meeting before club speech competition

Last Friday saw the last BenjaminToastmasters meeting before the club competion, to be held Friday August 2 in Building 15 at UC.  The two competions will be Table Topics and the Humorous Speech Contest.

Friday's meeting saw a full agenda with two speakers and a new guest - Iwona.  The new club mission was presented, then the word of the day, "changeable", introduced.  The first speech was from Carmen, introduced by Leona.  Carmen spoke from the CC manual, giving a very persuasive argument that applying for jobs requires applying self-marketing skills.  The next speech was from an advanced communication manual - 'Communicating on Television', and involved Ann playing the role as host of a TV interview program.  She was assisted by Geoff who played the role of interviewee.  Ann asked Geoff a number of non-rehearsed questions on the chosen topic - Road Safety, which Geoff then answered for the benefit of the audience.  While Ann was the only participant assessed in this speech, Geoff also found it to be a useful exercise.

Ann was the Table Topics master, providing a broad range of topics.  The guest Iwona rose to the challenge, speaking on whether children should be allowed to play in the rain.  Other topics were:  Should children be told off for using laptops on public transport; are there too many roadworks in Canberra, should smoking be allowed in mental helath institutions, is it OK to burn trees; and is it OK to be forced to change offices at work.

A new member to begin the club’s new year

Today we welcomed Sandy into the club. Sandy has visited three meetings and decided she can improve her speaking skills by joining us – even though she already speaks well. Terrific!

Also, today, Geoff brought Ashis as a visitor to the meeting. Ashis also is already a confident speaker, and he appeared to enjoy the opportunity to answer a Table Topics question and join in generally.

Leona gave us ‘Don’t Panic’ as the Word(s) of the Day, and set us all laughing with her few-word précis of the book ‘Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy’ in which that is apparently a recurring phrase.

‘Don’t panic’ was a very appropriate choice for today’s meeting because the agenda was sent a bit cockeyed by two members having to be absent unexpectedly, so there was no first speech. Several of us found opportunities to include ‘Don’t panic’ in our Table Topics answers or in speaking while filling our roles for the meeting.

Sandy creatively gave us a sequence of Table Topics leading from one to the next, which amply filled in the missing time. She challenged us to reveal our thoughts on such topics as: ‘White lies – good or bad?’, ‘Do we have too many public holidays?’, ‘The most enjoyable feasting meal you have had’, ‘Some useful energy-saving tips’, ‘What makes your holidays enjoyable?’, ‘Tell us your image of the future’, ‘How do you picture Utopia?’ and ‘Give us a thoroughly good news bulletin’.

Everyone responded with interesting and sometimes amusing tales, and everyone fitted their answer within a 2-minute timeslot. This is important practice for Table Topics contests, where you are disqualified if your answer is too short (less than 1 minute) or too long (more than 2.5 minutes).

And some of the tales? Dominic related how his mother in Northern  Ireland, living alone, and having frugal habits that included boiling her breakfast egg in a soup tin to save water and power, would produce wonderfully enjoyable feasts for an influx of eight family adults at Christmas, where the turkey would often be too big for the oven!
Ashis outlined a range of things he enjoys about holidays, depending on how much time is available. A key feature seemed to be absence of all e-devices! Is that possible these days?
Geoff told us the future holds 2000 years of dark ages, after humans have used up all the Earth’s resources, but he gave us hope for the time beyond that when humans would gradually flourish once again.
Leona came out strongly against white lies.
Ianon thinks Australia has enough public holidays, and told us that Malaysia has even more! In a second Table Topic, Ianon later described a Utopia where everyone respects everyone else’s views and property, and there is peace. :-)

Speech 2 this week was from a manual leading towards an Advanced Bronze award. The manual is called ‘Communicating on Television’. For today, Ann and Dominic simulated a 7-minute chat show. Dominic introduced Ann as ‘Robin Hood, who speaks for more trees’. You can guess the topic of Ann’s chat. Dominic, as interviewer, questioned her on optimum tree size in Canberra’s increasingly dense housing areas, and asked why grow more trees when we can’t burn wood? In his evaluation, Geoff said he thought Ann would have been convincing in a real chat show. However, I think she would definitely ‘panic’ in a real studio without the friendly club members as ‘studio audience’!

The meeting finished on time, with all business completed. Next meeting is on 19 July. 

Benjamin Toastmasters club @ UC, 21 June 2013

The club has a new meeting room, at Building 15, near to Ginninderra Drive (see map at the end of this post and in the Meetings page at right), and will meet here till December, at least, and during 2014 as well if possible.

We are very pleased to have had a second visit from guest Sandy, at this meeting. Sandy happily mastered the timing device, as well as taking part in Table Topics. We do hope she will join.

At this, the last meeting for 2012–13, seven members were present: Leona (President), Ianon (VPE), Geoff (VPPR), Peter H (Treasurer and VPM ), Dominic (Sergeant at Arms), Carmen and Ann. Poignantly, it was (member) Yuyu’s last day in Canberra before moving north with her family. She phoned in and we were able to say a brief, remote, goodbye to her and to wish her well. Yuyu joined the club in 2010 and since then she has given 10 speeches, of increasing excellence, gaining her the award ‘Competent Communicator’ and the right to put ‘CC’ after her name.

At today’s meeting, Geoff’s speech gave a thought-provoking rundown on the fluids one needs to keep an eye on, in one’s car. Most of us would only have thought to be checking the radiator fluid or coolant, and the oil level and, perhaps, that the battery cells were wet. In fact, most of us don’t check those nowadays in modern cars. Geoff, alarmingly, pointed out that there are 8 fluids at least one needs to be watching in a car, even a modern one. He outlined where to find these fluids (mostly under the bonnet). We now know we should also be feeling the tyres, gently, as if they were horses’ fetlocks, to check on the pattern of wear on the outside edges. This is all quite apart from the chore of keeping a car clean and shiny (for fuel economy). It was an enlightening speech with no jargon and plenty of quiet authority, and no ‘ums’ or ‘ahs’.

Next, Leona’s speech outlined for us the structure and higher echelons of the Toastmasters organisation in Australia. Beyond clubs there is ‘Area’, which is a name for a group of clubs in the same part of town or country. Benjamin@UC is in Area 17, Belconnen. Sets of adjacent Areas are grouped into a ‘Division’, which represents all the clubs in a region. We are in Monaro Division, obviously in the Monaro part of NSW. Divisions together form a District. There are 10 Divisions in our District 70 (which covers much of NSW including ACT), and there are four Districts for Australia and NZ. Each level of Toastmasters has volunteer officers to represent it. Clubs have executive committees; Area has an Area Governor; Division has a Division Governor; District has a whole team of people. There is so much to know about how Toastmasters operates as an organisation, and it will take another speech to finish the story.

Carmen then proposed some very curly and challenging Table Topics for us, e.g.: ‘If you were trying to persuade an overseas student to study in Canberra, what would you say?’; ‘Tell us how you would manage if you arrived late at the airport, just in time for your plane, and found you had forgotten your ticket’; ‘What do you think is the worst place in Australia? Now tell us what would be good about living there!’; and more in that vein. These were great fun to tackle, and good practice for the Table Topics club contest that is coming up in August.

The evaluations of speeches, Table Topics and the meeting as a whole, produced both approval and points for improvement, as is usual.

Finally, the committee of 2012-13 metaphorically handed over the reins of the club to the new committee for 2013-14. 

If I could propose a ‘toast’ it would be: ‘Here’s to another excellent year coming up!’

*Benjamin has continued to meet fortnightly between June 2012 and June 2013, but without blogs.