Fascinating Talks at 10 July Meeting

As is often the case, we had an over 80% attendance of members at our meeting, plus a very welcome visitor. We were all treated to two excellent speeches and a very fun Table Topics. 

First, our new Sergeant at Arms, Nicole opened the meeting. Then Ianon (our new VPE) pointed out that the latest Toastmaster Magazine had useful articles on Table Topics. She went further to give some advice on giving Table Topics speeches including  1) go with your gut! 2) pay attention to the question, and 3) if you can’t speak on the topic given, associate! Change topics.  With the annual contests in Table Topics and Humorous speeches just weeks away, this advice has very good timing!

The first outstanding speech came from Karina (our new VPPR), who was tackling project 2 in the Competent Communicator manual (a project about speech structure). Karina gave us three reasons why dance is an excellent activity which builds confidence, organisational and leadership skills, and (less surprisingly) physical fitness. Karina does Morris dancing as a hobby, we heard, and she has learnt confidence from dancing in front of audiences, and leadership from organising and managing dance events and displays. There was a bit of psychology in the speech too, when Karina outlined the left-brain/right-brain benefits. In her evaluation of the speech, Linda commended the good organisation and structure of the speech, and its intriguing insight into an activity few of us have taken on. Linda admitted she had never heard of this form of dance before, leading to the recommendation not to assume your audience’s knowledge.

Then we were treated to a narrative when Dominic (our new President) gave his first speech on the Advanced Communicator Bronze track. Dominic completed his CC in April, and is now working on the Speaking to Inform (advanced) manual.

Dominic took us all, metaphorically, up Mt Ainslie at 5:30 am on a foggy frosty Canberra morning without a torch, to illustrate the opportunities, challenges and pitfalls of having a Strategic Plan when you are running a business. We learnt how the goals of the plan guide your first steps, and how you can go far astray and fall if you lose sight of that plan and its goals in the fog. It’s lonely at 5:30 am on Mt Ainslie (a large well treed and shrubbed nature reserve reaching 840 m or so in altitude). It’s lonely also in your new business and you need to have that plan to hold on to and keep you on track. Then, once you have achieved the peak for the first time, you think it’s going to be easy, but that frosty track, though now a bit clearer in the dawn, is full of pitfalls if you don’t keep that plan as your guide. In evaluating this speech, Peter had only commendations – the first time in 4.5 years of hearing him evaluating speeches that I have not heard him have anything to recommend. 

Baran, our newest member, then took us back to films we might or might not have seen, and giving examples from Back to the Future, Star wars, and others posed us problems to answer in Table Topics. This was such fun, I am surprised we still managed to complete the meeting in about 1 hour. Nicole gave a brief general evaluation before closing the meeting.

The next gathering, on 24 July, will be a different style. It will be practice in Table Topics, which Ann calls a Table Topics Tornado. Everyone gets a topic, and there are two rounds, with a brief verbal evaluation and two written evaluations for each speaker.

Then on 8 August we have our club contest in Table Topics and Humorous Speech, to find our representative for the Area contest coming up very soon afterwards. 

Really, possibly the final post from me - new VPPR takes over from tomorrow

Hi all all, our new VPPR takes over from tomorrow.  I have handed over the keys, so expect some some changes from hereonin.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ROOM 9C18 IS ONLY BOOKED FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS.  WATCH THIS SITE FOR UPDATES!


The committee had its hand over today, where past committee position holders handed over to new committee position holders.  It seemed to run fairly smoothly to me, with a clear handover from officer to officer - much better than I have seen at other times.

Anyway, back to the main point of this post - last week's meeting.

Dom was SAA and Toastmaster, and did an admirable job.  Agenda check was pretty smooth.  I think Ianon stepped in to provide word of the day (leadership), which Peter managed to use many times in the meeting.

Anne did an advanced communicating on TV talk.  Geoff did his second last CC manual talk, and is thinking of ways to bring his learnings from that talk into his final CC manual talk.

Nicole came up with a great set of table topics:
 - asking Keiko, have you ever been to Melbourne, and if so, what did you think of it?  Keiko gave a great response based on her brief stop at the airport!
  - Linda responded to the question of if you could, would you go back to a happy or sad moment in your past and change it.
  - Peter described the sort of product he would like to buy in a market.
  - Dom gave a humorous assessment as to whether driving is dangerous.  Obviously it is the slow drivers who are the problem.
  -  Fortunately Iannon, rather than I, had to answer the last topic - What book has influenced you most, and why.  Her answer gave a lot of insight into Ianon, as well as a moving insight to her broader background.

Time I went to bed, so I'll skip the rest of the meeting.   signing out ....  :)

Final post for 2013/14

Actaually, the penultimate post.  What I woud really like to know is if these posts help!  Coud readers please, this time, post to indicate if they have read, so we know if it is worth contining the fortnightly blog!

Anyway, last weeks session went quite well.  We had two ice breakers - Baran and Lili - presented in different, engaging ways. Both talks were very interesting, and gave us insights to the speakers histories, motives in life and personalities. 

Anne gave a great a series of TableTopics questions.  She gave each speaker a different question, and asked how they would respond, and act to the situation.  This was a great set of questions.  I even enjoyed the question I received.

Regards,
outgoing DPPR

Blog for last Thursday's meeting

Last fortnights meeting was held on a Thursday as 1/2 the club had a meeting at the usual Toastmaster's time.  The meeting was held in room 9C18, which was a better room than we have been having.

Fortunately future Friday meetings will also now be held in room 9C18(ie building 9 level c room 18).

The meeting got off to a slightly late start.  Peter gavve the Mission Statement from memory.  It would be a good idea to put the Mission Statement back on the agenda to help those Toastmasters who memorised it.  Karina quickly rejigged the agenda to allow for speaker one's absence.  Ianon gave an inspiration of the day rather than a word of the day - no one can whistle a syphony, it takes a whole orchestra to play one.  That is how we run the Toastmasters club.

Keiko gave a very engaging, animated speech on effective evaluation.  Nicole did her second speech from the CC manual.  The improvement in her speaking since she started with Benjamin was obvious.  She gave an interesting, and moving, speech on the differences between Chinese students in China and international students in Australia.

Baran came up with great Table Topics:
Nicole spoke on the difference between the education system in China and Australia.
Karina spoke on how she manages stress.
Ann spoke on whether she believed that if kids watch TV all day they have less vocabulary than if they don't.  She argued, contrary to the context behind the question, that TV can in fact improve vocabulary.
Peter spoke on what should be done to reduce the number of homeless in Canberra.
Geoff spoke on what he thought would be a better system of government than our current system.
Dominic gave an open-ended philosophical response to the question of he he wanted people to believe in something, what would it be?
Dominic then gave an excellent appraisal of Keiko's speech.  Ann gave an excellent appraisal of Nicole's speech, focusing on the educational content and presentation style.
When giving the questions Baran also gave some context as a preamble to the question.
Peter gave a generic tabletopics evaluation, addressing eye content for all speakers, then moving around, body language and finally the speech structure.

Next meeting will Friday 13 June at 12:30, room 9c18.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alert: change of day and room for last meeting in May

We are having our meeting on Thursday 29 May, instead of Friday 30 May, as a once only change. 

And Karina has managed to make a once-off booking for us in room 9C18.

Building 9, level C, room 18,
12.30 - 1.30 Thursday 29 May. 

We look forward to seeing everyone then. 

Table Topics: a fortnightly chance to exercise imagination!

Lili organised the Table Topics at our 16 May meeting, last week. She took a highly original approach which worked successfully, allowing for plenty of imagination, humour and good feelings. Lili asked us all to write a secret on a slip of paper. Then she collected the papers up into a box and passed them back out to us, making sure we didn’t get our own.

‘I nearly drowned when I was young!’, was one secret. ‘I always wanted to be a pilot!’ was another. And what about ‘I found a gold nugget!’? There were 8 of our (now 12) members at the meeting, and almost all the secrets were equally intriguing.

To respond to these topics, the speaker first had to guess which of us had written the secret, and explain the reason for the guess, and then to elaborate on their own secret (after it had been spoken about). The guessing and reasoning were very humorous, and often quite stilted. In contrast, as soon as speakers began to explain their own secrets they became fluent and passionate. What a great way to run Table Topics, giving us all a really different experience from normal. Congratulations Lili.

Our President, Ianon, also welcomed Lili as one of our new members, with a short speech.

The rest of the meeting followed a more usual course. Peter offered 'Leadership’ as our Word of the Day. Then Ann had a go at presenting an organised speech (project 2 in the Competent Communicator manual) about ‘Running a display’. She suggested three objectives: (i) know what outcome you aim to achieve via the display (e.g. greater awareness of the organisation?, or more people registering for an upcoming event?, or…); (ii) present a simple clear message that will achieve that outcome; (iii) aim for minimum effort (e.g. only a few small handouts, and a banner fronted by a knowledgeable rep., rather than piles of books, things for sale, etc.). Having just three main points helped Ann to keep the speech organised!

Next meeting, 30 May. 

Yet another icebreaker! 2 May 2014

We had one of our usual well-attended and exemplary meetings on 2 May, with only one member absent. We welcomed guest Baran, who has also visited the club previously. Nicole gave her first speech, her ‘icebreaker’, which was well prepared and told us about her life in Australia so far. She has lived in several cities and found them all different. She appeared remarkably relaxed, speaking without notes for most of the time!  Dominic’s evaluation was very positive, including one recommendation. Karina then offered a set of challenging Table Topics, which gave impromptu speaking opportunities to everyone who was not otherwise speaking at the meeting. Topics included: Your favourite animal?, Do you like uncertainty?, Is formal education better than informal?  Geoff gave the table topics evaluation, including an evaluation of his own topic.   

The meeting on May 2 included election of the club’s office bearers for 2014-15 and the distribution of the annual-general-meeting reports for 2013-14. Linda, our new member who is also currently President of the ANU’s ‘University Club’, conducted the election. There being no competing nominations, no voting was required. The new officers will be listed on the club details page nearer their start date of 1 July.

Next meeting is on Friday 16 May.