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. 

 

November 22nd - last general meeting for 2013

Never mind the number - feel the quality! That adaptation is based on the title of a comedy on TV I think, and my version captures the spirit of the club's last meeting for this calendar year.

We may have been few, but the two speeches had considerable merit, and members came up with some excellent improvisations in Table Topics. The word of the day was 'lightning', which was relatively easy to incorporate into our speaking roles.

With the meeting proceeding at a good pace (though not lightning fast, which would have been too quick), we were able to spend a useful amount of time on club business at the end of the meeting. The next executive meeting is in early December and we members needed to have a chance to put in our thoughts on the topics that will be discussed.

Sandy gave her third or fourth speech, Project 4: Get to the Point, in the Competent Communication manual. Sandy certainly 'got to the point' as she presented a practice run-through of a speech she will be giving for work reasons in a few weeks time. The 'point' of her speech was to introduce the charity she runs, and how it sets about achieving its overarching purpose, and Sandy used her 5 - 7 minutes (actually Sandy spoke for six and a half minutes) to give us, her audience, an informative overview. Evaluating the speech later in the meeting, Peter noted many strong points and made one valuable recommendation.

Ann's speech was the first in the Competent Communication manual, the Icebreaker. Ann has done these 10 projects before and is redoing the manual now to revisit the techniques that the manual teaches. Noting that spring and the opening of a new Parliament both lead to a large amount of ice-breaking, she attempted to introduce the Canberra she knows, rather than herself. Ann's Canberra is noted for its people's volunteering spirit, its bushland, and the way its citizens show initiative in so many ways, from opening small businesses to government leadership on carbon neutrality and other issues.

Watch this blog space for announcement of the first meeting for 2014, which will be either the 31st January or the 24th (probably the 31st), and may be in a new room at the university.

Best wishes for a restful seasonal break and new year.

Report on Benjamin Toastmasters meeting 1011, 8 November 2013. A low turnout required Iaonon to rejig the agenda. Despite the low turnout the meeting was successful. Geoff provided word of the day - "support", at little notice. Speaker 1 was Keiko, doing project 4 from the Advanced Communication Manual - The Touching Story. Keiko gave a very moving story about some old school friends. It certainly brought a tear to my eyes, and the evaluator Dominic was also clearly moved. Keko's use of pauses was particularly effective. Ianon took on the role of TableTopics Master. Each speaker drew a coin at random, and had to describe what happened to them in the year of coinage. Geoff gave a rather rambling history of his year 2008. Dominic got to speak of the year he finished uni and was let loose on the world. Linda focussed on her photography in 2011, Keiko spoke of a positive change in her work, and Ainon got the happiest year of all - the year she retired. This class of topic actually turned out to be challenging for many speakers, as we couldn't all remember significant happenings from random years in the past. We already have a number of apologies for the next meeting, so everyone available should try and attend. Ann, would you be able to do the blog next time please? Regards, VPPR.

Summary of meeting held Friday 25 October 2013 Ianon was Toastmaster, again kicking off late because of late arrivals. She made a few small changes to the agenda, including substituting word of the day with a Tonic by Keiko. The Tonic was “everybody is lucky”, a way of looking at even bad events with an optimistic viewpoint. Dominic repeated his award winning humorous speech on “driving lesson lessons” – on the joys of teaching a child to drive, breaking the challenge into categories of movement, sound and ethics. Geoff then did the persuasive speech from the competent communicator manual, setting out to persuade the audience that climate change is good. Ann looked in shock at this heretical proposition. Geoff was not game to survey the audience to find if he successfully argued the case. This speech used some visual cues, and made reference to a current media issue – bush fire hazard, and personal experiences of Meryl. Sandy followed with a speech on Pandora’s Box – a discussion of early childhood trauma. This was a very interesting overview of the psychological impacts of early childhood trauma. This speech made effective use of the whiteboard and a prop – Pandora’s Box, with a symbol of hope. Time allowed only a short Table Topics session, with speeches from four of the ten people present. Both guests, Meryl and Mark, participated. Leona was the TT master, using picture cards as the topics. The first, given by Ianon, was on a basket of shells. Ianon spoke of her visit to a beach upon her arrival in Austrarlia, and how there does not seem to be as many shells on the beach these days. Ann spoke of her plans for Christmas, and pointed out how Christmas is not a time of celebration for everyone in Australia. Meryl spoke on what she packs in her suitcase – too much in short! And Mark finished with a talk on cars – which turned out to be a natural topic for him. Evaluations were constructive, with Leona giving the general evaluation. Meryl gave a rather creative um/ah report, declaring Geoff to the winner, with a count of 9 or 10. This is somewhat worse than Geoff’s recent efforts, but a solid improvement on his first speech, which was around 50!

Synopsis of the Benjamin Toastmasters meeting held Friday 11 October, 2013. The meeting got off to a late start due to late arrivals of members. As the agenda was particularly tight this week this meant the excellant Toastmaster, Geoff, had to run the meeting extremely tightly. Sarina was busy, firstly introducing word of the day 'slugabed", then doing the icebreaker, and also doing the um/ah count. Slugabed is a real word, at least according to the google search. Many speakers did get to use it, albeit pronouncing it "slugabug". The icebreaker was very well presented, and we certainly got to know more of Sarina. Ann was the first speaker up, doing a press conference project from the advanced communication manual.The topic was soil carbon management, but from a soil condition, rather than climate change perspective. The talk elicited some interesting questions, which needed to be guillotined to allow the meeting to finish on time. Following Serina's icebreaer SAndy ran an interesting Table Topics. Unfortunaltey not all members could participated due to the time constraint. Topics were: Views on zoos; One good reason for being late; Why is it good to be a slugabed; and Why Sunday os the best day.The evaluators gave good, useful feedback, with the general evaluator, oor (prospective?) mentor Linda reminding evaluators to have regard to speech objectives when evaluating speeches. Dont forget the Humorous Speech Competition this coming Saturday. Geoff;)