What’s Next?

Tuesday, January 24, 2007
11 attendees (1 Guest)

The end of the past calendar year brought forth milestones. Two club members completed the Communications and Leadership Program booklet. CONGRATULATIONS! Consisting of ten projects or presentations, these exercises stress different aspects of effective communication such as vocal variety, gesture and organization.

Once completed you’ll (and your boss if desired) receive a letter of congratulations and a certificate noting the occasion with your new title (Competent Communicator). Sergeant at Arms Kathy Hendry and I (Joe Simpson, Vice President of Public Relations) completed the journey in December so now a question begs to be answered – what’s next?

In addition to the items mentioned above, Kathy and I had to select two free manuals from a list ranging from Special Occasion Speeches to Humor to Interpretive Reading. Personally, I didn’t know what these selections would be used for and today’s meeting answered my questions.

Kathy delivered the first speech from the Interpretive Reading manual. Each manual ordered has five projects in a specific area. The goal for this presentation was to convey the author’s meaning, using all those skills we worked on in the Competent Communicator speeches, like vocal variety, body language, audience involvement (eye-contact).

Her presentation was an excerpt from Heirs, a story by Amos Oz. This speech about a conversation between a lawyer and client was to be ten minutes in length and stresses vocal projection. One of Kathy’s interests is to read to groups of children and this workbook would give her an opportunity to strengthen skills such as pitch and vocal variety.

The evaluation was different from our standard process, consisting of a group not individual review. Some suggestions from the group were to differentiate the narrator’s voice from the subjects and strengthen the gestures in conjunction with cues in text transcript.

Also, congratulations are in order for new member Richard Perez on the delivery of his first speech in the Communications and Leadership Program – the Icebreaker. As we all know this speech is often the most nerve-racking one to deliver but like riding a bike, once you’ve got it the process only becomes more comfortable and second nature. Good job, Richard!

Finally, a warm welcome back goes out to Bertha Bruner (Vice President of Education), this week’s Toastmaster. As mentioned by member Paul Burke, Bertha’s warm and calming delivery is something we can all incorporate into our toolboxes and was definitely missed. Bertha took time off to welcome her first grandchild, Kiya Marie, who arrived on December 15^th.

Time to Rhyme

Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Attendance 9

During the course of my membership in Toastmasters, I've witnessed and commented on a number of occurances in our meetings for your review. As with life, when you think you've seen everything, life shows you something new.

This week I saw something different -- and I liked it. One of our many talented new members, Paul Burke gave his audience a twist on a prepared presentation. Delivering project four, Paul shared his pain as a The Ohio State University alumnus in the form of a poem.

Although I enjoyed the pain (as a University of Michigan fan), the idea of delivering the content of a speech by rhyming for such a lenghty period of time (5 to 7 minutes) was clever indeed. Tying it together with his trademark sense of humor and good vocal variety, Paul showed the way to attempt something different successfully.

Gene Hargreaves (Treasurer) served up thought-provoking Table Topics as our nation celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr's holiday by posing questions on our views of race (Jaceri White won Best Table Topic).

The Perfect Speech?

Tuesday, January 9, 2007
10 attendees

A few years back, a popular novel made its way to the big screen. Entitled The Perfect Storm, it was the story of an ill-fated crew of a fishing boat in the North Atlantic. The focal point of the story was the convergence of dissimilar elements (time of year, day, navigation decisions, etc) that came together at that moment in time to create a devastating sum far greater than its parts separately.

Tuesday, Toastmasters were treated to this sort of phenomena during a presentation by Club President Falan Guan. It started with Toastmaster Gayle Anderson (Club Secretary) showed those in attendance the proper way to bring a speaker to the podium with a creative and witty introduction, using big bold adjectives and phrasing it in the style of a classified advertisement.

Then Falan proceeded to execute Project 6 – Vocal Variety perfectly. She immediately grabbed our attention by quoting a well-known and topical subject, the I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King Jr (holiday this coming Monday). Using a variety of gestures and tones of voice she moved effortlessly through her subject, quoting to popular musicians (Dixie Chicks) and professors to dynamically make her points. She utilized silence to heighten her points and moved about the room making good eye contact throughout. Speech evaluator Gene Hargreaves (Treasurer) called it the perfect speech and even suggested this speech be entered in area contests because of its potential to win. Introduction, presentation and evaluation - all coming together to create a wonderful speech indeed.

Another example of the club’s creativity manifested itself during Table Topics. Sergeant at Arms Kathy Hendry served as Topics Master and carried to the podium a large red coffee container loaded with random objects. Each participant was given (or in some cases chose) an object and proceeded to talk about it.

Tony Li spoke on chopsticks being an example of China’s contribution to the world; Cynthia Jimmerson described an eerie coincidence in the object she was given (a bobble head turtle) and a discussion she had with her son the previous day (on the virtues of being the tortoise or the hare); Paul Burke in typical comic fashion demonstrated (in a very physical manner) his first job as a sentry in keeping holding a Nutcracker doll; Garth Garrett eloquently talked about the religious/spiritual elements of a tied rubber band; Richard Perez used a symbol of Love to described a rough spot in his health history that brought family and friends closer to him; and Topics winner Gayle Anderson tied in a common correction tape into her daily photo touch-up task and her love of conservation and the environment.