International Speech Comp

Friday 21/2/2014 was the Benjamin International Speech Contest. A few members had other commitments, so turnout was relatively low. Geoff gave a fantastic speech on why people should get back into gardening ( ;) ) . Dom however won the day with his moving speech on why he joined Toastmasters, and how improved communication skills helped in broader family communications. Our special thanks to the judges who gave up their valuable lunchtime: Jim Arnold (Chief Judge) and Linda Merrin. Table topics was used as the filler during administration of the competition. New member Karina gave a good description of how to use an older style camera, while visitor Lili gave an interesting verbal description of links between the features of spider webs and the WWW. Other members present also contributed. Next meeting to be a standard meeting!

First meeting in new room at UC room 7A51

First meeting in our new room The new meeting room we have been assigned (7A51) is much larger than the Boardroom at Building 15, and at the moment this part of Building 7 is quiet during our meeting time. Most of us found the room before start time of 12.30, and once everyone was present there were 12 of us. We had three visitors: Ward Penman, as well as Karina and Linda. Ward explained the purpose of his visit. He is a Toastmasters Ambassador at present, one of several who are going to all clubs to outline a new program currently being devised. Its designers aim to deal with new (and old) challenges noted with the current first-stage program and its dual streams of ‘competent communication’ and ‘competent leadership’. So many Toastmasters now carry everything on their tablets and phones that the new program is being adapted for use on them too! However, non-tablet-savvy people will be able to use the printed manuals if they choose to. We also enjoyed two speeches by club members. Dominic tackled a controversial topic in a non-controversial way, through talking about reactions to the pros and cons of gay marriage as discussed within his own family. By distancing us, the audience, because we are not in his family, he was able to outline a range of personal, community and extreme responses that can crop up when this topic is raised, without generating any heated reactions in this room. The talk was well structured and fluent, used good presentation techniques (gestures, stance, vocal range, eye contact, etc.), and left us with something to think about. Sandy’s 7 minutes were devoted to a practice version of a longer speech she must give soon to an influential audience. Sandy was fortunate that Ward, an extremely experienced Toastmaster, was her evaluator. His comments will be very helpful as she prepares her actual presentation. There was time for just five table topics questions, posed this week by Carmen. They were all interesting questions. These were: Which is worse, failure or never trying?, Telling little white lies is OK?, Remember the the first time you ever used a computer?, Would you break the law to save a loved one?, and , what would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you? Such interesting topics make the meeting interesting. Next meeting, 21 February, will be our internal club contests, assuming we have more than one contestant for the two sections: International Speech, and Evaluation. See you there.

2+0+1+4 = 7, the number of the building we meet in this year

Happy new 2014, Toastmasters!

We are meeting this year in Building 7, level A, room 51, and we look forward to having many visitors and new members from among the university staff and students. 

The meetings are on Fridays, fortnightly from 24 January. So the next on is on 7 February, and at 12.30 - 1.30 as usual. 

At the first meeting on 24 January, although it was a few hours before the start of the Australia Day long weekend , most of our members were present. We welcomed two guests: Karina and John, both of whom have been or are members of other clubs. There were two speeches and a thought-provoking collection of table topics, with Dominic as Table Topics Master. Word of the day, appropriately enough, was 'goals' - and Peter didn't mean the soccer type. 

Keiko is working on the storytelling manual, which is one of the advanced series. She told us (as is often the case with her stories) a tear-inducing tale. It involved one person's good turn coming back in full measure or more, 25 years later. Keiko is a wonderful story teller. She speaks from the heart, wastes no words in painting a complete picture, and her pauses give amazing power to the story as a whole. 

Geoff then gave us a hilarious account of bureaucratic inconsistencies, with numerous examples, all different, of situations where you might expect, logically, the government officer to do one thing, but something quite different happened. There were nods of agreement around the table, between laughs, as we remembered similar occasions in our own lives. 

The table topics really made us stop to consider, before answering. One example: Do we want our kids to be totally obedient or do we want them to be independent thinkers? What a question! All the topics were like that, and everyone had a topic. 

Carmen evaluated the table topics - the first time she has been an evaluator - offering us valuable points for improvement.

This was a very happy meeting - which is normal for Benjamin - and we look forward to a great year. 

Contests: 

Benjamin's internal contest for International Speech and Evaluation will be at the meeting on Friday 21 February.  Everyone is welcome, whether club member or visitor. 

Our club will then be the host of the Area 17 contest, which will be on 15 March, a Saturday. The Area contest is between all six Belconnen clubs, and all our club members will be needed to help with the various jobs needed to run this level of contest.

Next meeting: Friday 7 February, 12.30 - 1.30, Building 7, room A51. 

Building 7 is at the top left of the map (see the 'Meetings of..' page), and room A51 is on the Ginninderra Drive side of the building, on the ground floor.