A very interesting and varied hour

Members were nearly out-numbered by guests last week — what a wonderful position to be in!

All guests took part in Table Topics, tackling the tricky questions thrown at us by Ann. For instance, Robyn tried to get her head around unconditional love, Ianon had to think about suicidal flute players, Peter L (Peter the Third) talked of urban infill (and he cut back to single numbers in the Um-Ah count — woohoo!). Yuyu and Nicky talked of supermarkets and choice, Niki (Niki the First) talked of public transport, Tom spoke about speed limits and finally Claudia grappled with the necessity of Sudokos.

Our newest guests showed great spirit in getting up and giving Table Topics a go, and they did brilliantly. I want to specially mention Niki the First who, having been at a couple of previous meetings, now has much more confidence. We got to hear her deep voice, see her (surely) award-winning smile, and listen to a well-crafted impromptu speech lasting 1.32 minutes. I think she must have been secretly planning this during those weeks where she said she wasn’t quite ready to have a go. A great start!

Julio gave an incredibly confident Ice-breaker speech (the first in the Toastmaster’s manual) taking us from his hometown in Chile, through failed health and psychological exams (hard to believe given how fit and smart he seems to be!), all the way to taking up his doctoral studies in Canberra.
Ianon evaluated Julio’s speech and said what we all had felt — Julio is a confident and highly competent public speaker already!

Peter the First (Peter H) gave us the ‘Project 10’ speech from the manual, the fifth time he has done this project, titled 'Hobbies'. Despite Peter’s admission that he was a private man but as deep as the deep blue sea, we heard that Peter is an avid cyclist, having done very very well in his earlier years. He suggested he is a bit more conservative these days with his bike choice and terrain. This Distinguished Toastmaster entertained us and reminded us of the value of a hobby — for our bodies, our souls and our overall health. Yuyu later gave a warm and thoughtful evaluation of Peter’s speech.

Claudia played the Toastmaster role with her usual style and aplomb. One of our newest guests took up the Um-Ah counting role with good grace, and it was just as well given the appalling job done by someone (who I wonder?) last week. Counts of Ums and Ahs are very valuable to speakers.

All in all, a great meeting and we hope to see all our guests back next time.

Welcome too, to our newest member Dat, who though unable to be at Friday’s meeting arrived later and joined the club.

Robyn

22 April 2012

Small can be great!

Our fortnightly meetings at UC were out of kilter because of the previous Good Friday, so we were a small but talkative group last Friday, 13 April.

Peter H brought his speech skills to the fore with a combined President’s report/ impromptu speech/ Project 7 speech about Toastmasters, concluding that “If we get out of Toastmasters what he has got out of Toastmasters, we will never get out of Toastmasters”… It took the rest of us a minute to get it, but we were with him – great sentiment Peter!

Yuyu gave her Speech (Manual Project 6 – Vocal Variety) about Migrants, which Robyn evaluated. Yuyu has a wonderfully relaxed presentation stance – her body is relaxed as are her hands when she speaks. Her vocal variety was excellent – with wonderful imagery, a wide vocabulary range and changes in her style of speech – from formal to conversational. Her speech had a theme of ‘bravery’ running through it and, as always, Yuyu brought together not only a range of sources that she researched for her speech but we got to know her personal take on the issues she raised. Yuyu’s progress in her speeches is a model to which the rest of the Benjamin Toastmasters should aspire.

Peter H also spoke about the change in the executive which is coming up in May – all roles are up for grabs – so make sure you put your nominations in (even for yourself).
The positions are:
President
Vice President – Membership
Vice President – Education
Vice President – Public Relations
Treasurer
Secretary
Sergeant at Arms
and … surely there room also for a Social Organiser!

One of our newer members, Peter I, conducted a high class Table Topics session, with speakers  champing at the bit to have a go at his topics. Ann had her topic served on a platter – droughts and flooding rains – her knowledge in this area was on display for all to enjoy; Yuyu enlightened us on why her nose would never make her rich; Robyn tried to convince us that, until education privileges all groups and classes, perhaps Universities should lower their entrance scores; and Peter H told us his thoughts on whether Anzac Day is the real Australia day. Peter I, as TT master, was not allowed any leeway in having to give an impromptu speech. He was asked by Ann to give a candidate’s speech for an executive position! He chose Sergeant at Arms, and his speech was short but to the point. I have a feeling the job has his name written all over it!

Despite the ums and ahs not being counted (who was in charge of that I wonder?!) the meeting went without a hitch and was a special one because of the intimacy afforded by such a small group.

That said, we look forward to a full complement next week as we get back onto our normal fortnightly schedule.

Robyn, 14 April 2012

Unruly? Certainly not!

A group that should be measured by its quality, rather than its quantity, met on Friday March 23 for the club's 29th meeting at UC. We were not an unruly lot - despite the number of times we heard the word mentioned during the meeting. That was thanks to our Grammarian Claudia. As always, Claudia wrapped 'us in her arms', as Keiko described it, with her calm, measured and highly personable style. Claudia also stepped in and did a fine job of timing.

Keiko managed to be all things to all toastmasters, because several people could not make it to the meeting - and of course all things were done with great style. Her evaluation of the Table Topic speakers was not to be missed, with all of us laughing at her ability to deliver critique and praise with the very same words! With Keiko as Toastmaster we all had confidence all things would be accomplished by all people on time.

Our Area Governor Jenny Power gave us some fabulous tips on how NOT to use the lectern when we speak - both practical and humorous, Jenny's advice was well received. Jenny also, um, gave the, er, y'know, counting for all of our ums and ahs.

Robyn delivered a speech about the delights of family history in disguise as a speech from the Manual (Project 2). Everyone at the meeting evaluated the speech, offering fine recommendations to improve Robyn's next attempt.

Then Yuyu delivered an extraordinary range of things to talk about throughout 'Table Topics'. The questions she posed wove local news with problems of parenthood and decisions about careers. Yuyu's topics are always well thought through, and delivered with a winning smile, that makes it difficult not to get up and talk. Yuyu also smiled her way through reminding us about payment of our fees in club business!

Of most interest to those who were at the meeting was the willingness of two new guests to take part in Table Topics. Did I say 'new'? - they both seemed like old hands. Dat argued that it was very sensible to allow students to live on a boat at the local Lake so that they could concentrate on their studies and ensure that they could make more money in the future. Speaking with insight and confidence, Dat had us all convinced. Peter (yes another one!) also spoke with confidence and constructed a speech whose length put the rest of us to shame. I hope Dat will join our Club and we also hope that we will see 'Peter the third' at future meetings.

No one could have said that our meeting was 'unruly' - it was lots of fun as always.

Written by Robyn.

We practise evaluating each other's speeches

On Friday 9^th March Benjamin Toastmasters had its Evaluation Contest.

There were two contestants, both quite new members, so congratulations to them for entering. The quickest way to develop in Toastmasters is to enter into anything you can and do as many roles as you can fit in. Yuyu and Robyn are both active members and it shows. They are improving all the time.

For the contest we invite a target speaker for the contestants to evaluate, and this was Ken. He gave an amazing Icebreaker (his first speech with Toastmasters) about growing up, breaking free from his parents, and getting his first job. You would never know it was his first speech because he looked confident, had great eye contact, had amazing vocal variety, and engaged the audience for the whole 4-6 minutes. Well done Ken!

The first entrant in the contest to evaluate Ken was Yuyu who acknowledged some of Ken’s good points, made a recommendation, and summed up with more good points. I think she is a confident speaker and her evaluation showed that she listened closely to Ken’s speech and is gearing up to improve her skills across the board. Yuyu isn’t frightened to try things and she engages with the audience, which makes her a pleasure to listen to.

Robyn was the second and final contestant. Robyn amazed me with the structure of her evaluation. Like Yuyu she made commendations, a recommendation, and some more commendations. Her recommendation was about Ken’s pacing - that the effect of this is that it can tire the audience because of the amount of information they are taking in. Slowing the pace would help. Robyn did a fantastic job of bringing this to Ken’s attention in a positive way, which is what evaluating is all about. I think it was the structure and detail of Robyn’s evaluation that made her the winner of this contest. So congratulations to Robyn, who, to her surprise, will be representing Benjamin Toastmasters on Saturday 31 March in the Area 17 contest!

Well done Yuyu and Robyn, both entering their first Toastmaster contest.

Ianon was toastmaster on the day and she organised the whole meeting. Thanks Ianon. It was a tough role and she did a successful job making sure all tasks were filled by improvising on the spot - which is a Toastmaster thing: jump in and help out whenever necessary.

Claudia jumped in and took on the role of Table topics master at the last minute and selected some of us to do an impromptu speech for 1-2 minutes. It is entertaining and a challenge. I talked about ‘Cats or dogs: which is best?’, and I decided cats AND dogs are equal as I’m an animal lover but then summarised that I am a dog person after all.

We had two brand new guests, Dat and Neil, who seemed to enjoy the meeting, and our Area 17 Governor Jenny was also there. She told us she is almost a Distinguished Toastmaster - a wonderful achievement. Well done Jenny!

Thanks to the judges on the day (their identities are a secret!).

Good luck Robyn - I think you will find entering the Area 17 contest a wonderful experience.

(Thanks to Lee Dean for writing this post.)

Your body - a not-so-silent partner in public speaking

'Your body speaks' is the title of the fifth project in the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual. At the club meeting, on 24 February, Yuyu gave her speech to complete this fifth project, and in doing so she gave the project title a whole new meaning - at least for me.
 
The instructions for Project 5 tell you how to use body movement to reinforce your message when speaking in public. I thought the title of the project referred to letting your body move, to help the speech along.
 
As you’ve probably noticed yourself as a member of an audience, a talk is often much more gripping if the speaker moves around while speaking. I don’t mean when the speaker just makes repetitive hand movements (though that is better than nothing). I mean that when a speaker lets his or her body illustrate his or her talk, the result is a much more confident – and usually more interesting and involving - ‘performance’.
 
On 24 February, Yuyu showed that the title could have more meaning than I had been reading into it.

Yuyu explained to us that soon after she had just given her very first speech at Toastmasters, she had to give a presentation at a workshop for her discipline at university.
She had been extremely nervous and had stood motionless behind the lectern during her workshop presentation. Afterwards, noone in her audience had asked her any questions in question time. (Questions put to an academic after a presentation in a workshop are like a stamp of approval – you want to have some!) It was as if her presentation hadn’t been heard.
 
Since then, Yuyu has given a number of talks at Toastmasters and gained considerably more confidence in speaking.
 
She told us that she had just recently given another presentation at a workshop or conference for her discipline. This time, Yuyu said, with her Toastmasters experience ‘under her belt’ she had moved around during her presentation, reinforcing her points with her body language and making direct eye contact with interested members of the audience as she spoke. Her body demonstrated that she was now a confident speaker.
 
And – hey presto! – this time the senior professors present used the question time after her presentation to raise some interesting points for discussion and sought further information from her – a stamp of approval indeed!
 
I suddenly saw, as Yuyu meant us to, that in this case Yuyu’s body had indeed 'spoken' for her in her two workshop presentations. When she was very nervous, her body had told her audience that fact – and they had respected that situation and not challenged her with questions. Now, several months later, they had seen from her body language that she has confidence. Her audience could now feel free to respond to Yuyu’s professional presentation at the workshop. They knew subconsciously that they could raise points for discussion and ask for more information, and she would not be terrified when they did.
 
What a testimony to the value of taking regular opportunities, such as at club meetings, to come out to the front and speak to the group!
Practice makes perfect, and evidently – in Toastmasters at least – practice builds confidence, and your body will tell everyone so!

A great start to 2012

Benjamin Toastmasters Club met on 10 February, with a pleasant and relatively relaxed first proper meeting for the year. (A few of us had been at the very first meeting on 20 January, but it had been in a different room and most people had been on holidays.)

We welcomed three first-time visitors: Peter, Niki and Julio, who joined in during the inclusive segments on the program.

Lyndal took on the role of Toastmaster for the first time, and managed well even though she had had no time to check in the manual to see what the role entails. It's a job that is good exercise, because the Toastmaster stands up and sits down throughout the meeting, standing up to go to the front and thank the person who has just finished speaking and introduce each next section before sitting down again.

We all (nearly all) learnt something about Toastmastering because, to help Lyndal, Keiko and Peter explained that there should always be someone at the front of the room in the speaker's position. That is, the Toastmaster (and Table topics master too in that segment) should wait until the next invited speaker has come to the lectern area, then shake hands (if that is the club's normal practice) before sitting down. Similarly, when the person ends his or her speech , he or she should stay at the front until the Toastmaster (or, again, Table topics master) has come to the front again, before leaving that spot.

Carmen gave her icebreaker speech, and used it to take us to Machu Pichu in Peru, her home country. She painted a word picture for us of this ancient archaeological site - a fascinating and mystical place, where the massive stone structures are beyond modern comprehension. Carmen spoke with assurance and enthusiasm, hardly needing her notes, making good eye contact and using body-language. A very good beginning.
Bernice then gave the evaluation of Carmen's speech, finding many aspects to commend and making one recommendation. Recommendations in our club are preferably given as the filling of a sandwich of commendations, even though most people find recommendations to be of more value in personal development.

As an aside, I have been astounded at the speed with which our new members during 2011-12 have moved from being very very nervous and quiet to being confident and willing to come out to the front and take on various roles with increasing ease and fluency. The Toastmasters program clearly 'works'.

Back to Friday 10 Feb: Robyn was kind enough to give us a run-down on what is involved in starting a postgraduate degree at University of Canberra. Yes, we know that is not really relevant for Toastmasters, but Robyn did it as target practice, so to speak. She was the target (or at least, her speech was the target), and then, with Keiko coordinating, each of us in turn gave a short evaluation of Robyn's speech. We gave commendations (easy peasy) and, with a struggle, found one recommendation each to give her. Robyn herself, on the other hand, gave a warm evaluation of Carmen's speech.

There was time for a few Table topics, which gave our visitors and Toastmaster and Timer and Sergeant at Arms a second chance to speak up at the meeting.

Peter reminded us all, in his Club Business segment, that Toastmaster training is on 18 February and we need to register online beforehand, via the District 70 website or email the club contacts for the link.

Finally, Keiko gave an overall evaluation of the meeting, with her usual supportive but direct comments, and a reminder that we had started late. Even though the meeting kept to within a length of 1 hour, it is not good to start late because everyone is on lunch hour and has to get back promptly to work.

Next meeting is on 24 February, and we hope to see this week's visitors, all our members, and any new visitors who would like to attend and see what our club is like. Everyone is welcome.

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!