Leadership and Debate (meeting 1029)

A busy time of year for many, we were low on numbers but still managed to have a lot of fun.  Keiko dreamt up an inspiring agenda for this meeting.  We had Keiko, Peter, Karina, Lili and Nicole and welcomed back Jacky.  Also we welcomed new speaker, Nick.

Lili started us off on Table Topics.  She asked Nicole what she would like to be if she were an object, and Nicole’s answer was a white board because of all of the information and knowledge shared on them.  Lili asked Peter what he thought of the budget, to which he provided a very diplomatic answer without strongly aligning to one opinion or another, a speech enviable of some of the cleverer politicians.  She asked Nick what past challenge has made him stronger, to which he related a very personal story.  It was great to start to get to know him so soon, even before the Ice Breaker speech!  Jacky shared how much he liked Canberra even though he has only been here 3 months and finally, Karina told of how she would tell her 10-year-old self to be confident of her abilities and know she was in charge of her future and not a victim of her circumstances.

Karina then shared some of her learnings and thoughts arising from recent Leadership training, a session that was intended to be interactive but time did not allow this.  She reminded people of what a good thing we have in Toastmasters, which is essentially a very effective low budget professional development course, and how to keep our Club successful we need to ensure our leadership strategies not only draw in new members but keep the experienced ones.  She summarised the 10 goals of the Distinguished Club Program and suggested we establish a mentoring program, introduce some tangible rewards and explain our program more clearly to new members.  Finally she encouraged more people to attend Leadership Training in the future as it is a very valuable course.  Feedback would be welcomed in coming weeks, and we may set aside some time to discuss some of the ideas raised.

For the final part of the meeting, Keiko demonstrated how much fun tangible rewards are, when she lead a debate session.  Sets of two speakers at a time were called forward and given a topic for debate and then randomly selected to support either positive or negative.  We heard why money gives you happiness with Nicole on the positive and Peter on the negative.  We heard why TV is a bad influence with Nick on the positive and Karina on the negative.  And why it is good if you don’t have to eat food with Jacky on the positive and Lili on the negative.  The winners could choose from a range of treats with labels most of us couldn’t read. J

A challenging session for those of us who had to argue a position we didn’t believe, and an excellent exercise in quick thinking, speech structure and conviction of delivery.

The next meeting is on Friday 5^th September and the room will continue to be Building 9 Room C18 until further notice.

Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contests on 8 August (meeting 1028)

This was a meeting with a difference. All current members had the opportunity to speak in a competitive environment (friendly of course) in front of judges from other clubs. The judges were Nicola, Jim and John Burge (Area 17 Governor). We also welcomed a guest, Jacky and new member, Esther.

Before and after the contests, Keiko, in her usual inspirational manner, encouraged participation by our guest and new member who were not in the contests. We were able to get to know a little more about the new people by asking them questions of our choosing.

The contests began with our single entrant to the Humorous Speech competition, Dominic, who told us why marriage and communication was not so much a laugh but a scream! He told us why men are like horses and women are like snakes, and why when the children grow up we are left without much to say to each other. He left us with the lasting words of advice “say nothing and keep saying it!”

Next we had the Table Topics contest in which Peter asked us to speak on “common sense is the basis of true happiness”. This proved to be a challenging topic for many of us, and being involved in the contest, I did not hear many of the contestants speak. However I did have the pleasure to hear Geoff speak. He was well spoken and relaxed, his speech had a clear structure and a couple of examples. By the end we were convinced of the truth of this statement, and he went on to win the contest.

The next meeting is on Friday 22nd and we are back to our usual format (agenda will be out soon). Following our promotional UC market day stall this week, we hope to see a few new faces. :-)

Table Topics Tornado on 25 July (meeting 1027)

With some excellent advice from Ianon on Table Topics last meeting, and the Table Topics Contest on this week, it was the perfect time to have a Table Topics Tornado!  Everyone gets not one, but two opportunities to participate, and there were visible improvements between the first and second rounds.

Table Topics Tornado is a game where each person gets chosen at random to speak for approximately two minutes on the topics of the Table Topics Master’s choosing.  Then each person gets to evaluate the person who speaks after them, so it is not only a great opportunity to practice speaking, but a great opportunity to practice evaluation.  In the second round, a second Table Topics Master choses speakers in a different random order, and then the speakers evaluate the same person they evaluated in round one.

Peter was Table Topics Master in the first round, with a range of interesting questions including “Is something funny a way of being serious?”, “Do things go wrong at the last moment?”, “Is a cough something you cannot help, or something other people do to torment you?”, “What is the language of friendship?” and “Does money talk and is the secret to hold it long enough to hear what it is saying?”.

Keiko was the second Table Topics Master who put each of the speakers in a situation they needed to describe a reaction to.  These included “When you opened the door, what happened?”, “Mirror, mirror on the wall…”, “Mum, Mum!” (tug on the leg), “Money. You open your wallet and you have a lot”, you receive an award for “Best Australian”, “You have an invitation to meet Tony Abbott at Parliament House” and “Here is your new bike!”.

It was a pleasure to hear the more experienced members speaking – Ann with her grand gestures, Peter with his captivating tone and pace variation, Dominic with his insightful observations and detail and Keiko with her passion.  But, best of all was seeing the newer speakers performing so well.  Lili spoke confidently on both of her topics, but Nicole wins most improved showing us a glimpse of her future as a highly engaging speaker.  Also, guest (and soon to be member), Esther amazed us all with her natural speaking talent.  I (Karina)  had a great opportunity to speak about my children – twice!

Thank you to Ann for organising the Table Topics Tornado and Peter and Keiko for making it so fun.  Also thank you to Nicole our new Sargent at Arms and Dominic, our new President.

Our next gathering is this Friday 8^th August and it will be our Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contests.  Almost everyone in the club are contestants, so we would welcome any audience who would like to come and see what it’s all about.

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.

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