Emergency Preparedness

Today's meeting was all about last minute emergencies. So, when I was called in Monday to be the Chair, I stepped up the game and chose the theme of 'Emergency Preparedness' for the meeting! It was one of those meetings where both the speakers cancelled and the meeting notifications weren't sent out. Despite all the 'emergencies', Meridian Toastmasters members came together as a team and pulled off another successful meeting. We had 2 new guests show up and it seemed like they had a good time.
As the Chair, I opened the meeting talking about the importance of preparing for emergencies. In the wake of the Nepal earthquake, the world was reminded that natural disasters can occur anytime, anywhere. I believe it's important to be practical about the situation and prepare your home and families for any situation.
Emergencies can happen in our Toastmasters meetings as well! Today's meeting was a good example. However, Geofferey stepped up last minute and delivered a dramatic speech about an accident from his childhood. See his speech here. To fill up the second speaker slot, Pam and I approached Anil to see if he is willing to deliver an impromptu speech. As his mentor, I am very happy to see the remarkable progress he has made in a short span of time. It can be nerve wracking for any experienced speaker to talk with such a short notice. Anil handled it very well and narrated his story about his recent travel expedition. See his speech here. Tie conducted the Table Topics session with an interesting twist. He asked the members to choose first whether they will speak 'pro' or 'con'. Once they decided their side, he then gave them the topic. I have to admit it was a clever way to keep everyone on their toes! Pam rounded up the meeting as the GE. You can view the speech evaluations here. 

You can if you think you can!

What a positive start to the meeting by introducing this quote from Henry Ford, I found this quote to be simple, yet quite powerful. It was just the right amount of pep talk needed to start the meeting. I like how our weekly Toastmasters meetings also include tit bits about motivation and self-improvement every now and then. Our members have diverse life experiences and I am often inspired when they share their stories.
Today was another special meeting. We hosted a speech marathon and our schedule was filled with 3 speakers. Azura is half way through her journey to the CC status. She kicked off the speech marathon with Speech #5, Your Body Speaks. I felt she was clever in her topic selection and speech writing. She used her cat as an example to display how to communicate with your body. I am proud to be her mentor and she continues to show improvement in every speech. See Azura's speech here. I completed one of my projects from the Storytelling manual. I decided to adopt a classic folktale story (The Hare and Tortoise) and add a twist to it to teach a very important management lesson. See my speech here. Geofferey finished the speech marathon with a very entertaining speech about laughter. During his speech, he mentioned he is not a funny guy. But I happen to disagree respectfully! I thought he had excellent punch lines, especially with stories about his cat. I hope he is able to recycle his speech and use it to compete at the net Humorous Speech Contest. Check out his speech here. Looking forward to hearing your opinion on all three speeches.

Workshop on Impromptu Speaking

We often do not give as much credit to impromptu speaking as we do for rehearsed speeches. The misnomer 'impromptu' gives off an impression that you can't really prepare for it and it gets lost in the glitz and glamour of prepared speeches. After joining Toastmasters, I realized how much practice I need with speaking off the cuff. More often than not, we are presented with scenarios that require a coherent answer. While seems to be an easy task, some of us end up struggling at the most simple situations. Just like it's important to rehearse and practice prepared speeches, impromptu speaking could also use some tools and techniques that allow us to practice and become better prepared for the next time!

Christine and I have seen this as a gap in our Toastmasters education and decided to create a workshop to share tools and techniques to help you better prepare for the next time you are called upon to speak without preparation. We attempted to make it interactive and add enough opportunities for the audience to participate and practice the tools we provided. The workshop was perceived well at the meeting. It was led to an interesting discussion about developing a culture in our meetings to prompt and encourage members to step up to speak in case their is a speaker cancellation. We also talked about hosting debate style meetings. Great ideas and lots for the executive team to work on! 

Watch the  workshop online here and feel free to provide feedback for improvement.

Spring...!

Wendy, our first time Chair, started the meeting today with a warm welcome reminding us of Spring! Wendy seemed very comfortable and confident in her role as the Chair that a set a positive tone for the rest of the meeting. It was good to see some faces return at our meetings. Due to changing workloads and schedules, we often lose sight of some of our members. I guess this is one disadvantage of hosting a lunch time club. Melrose delivered a mini speech with her spirited Thought of the Day. She talked about how it's time to spring back in action and get out of the winter hibernation. See her speech here.

Christine returned to doing prepared speeches and she came back with a bang! With her take on a Scandinavian folktale, Christine created vivid images through her acting and vocal skills. I won't say more because you can watch it here. Since our second speaker cancelled, I volunteered to step up as last minute speaker. Since launching Easy-Speak about a year ago, Meridian Toastmasters club has come a long way in adapting to the new scheduling system. Since the introduction of new members few months ago, I can see a few gaps in the knowledge transfer. I used this opportunity to talk to the members about the recommended guidelines that we follow when we are chairing a meeting. You can see my Easy-Speak byte here. Happy to hear your thoughts!

Geoffery conducted the Table Topics session and incorporated the theme of the meeting. Pam, as our Grammarian, was clever in noting interesting use of English language throughout our meeting. I liked her approach and would try to implement it next time I'm up for Grammarian. Katrina conducted the General Evaluation section of the meeting and shared her feedback about the course of the meeting. We have an exciting workshop planned for next week. Stay tuned for more details!

April Fool's Day

Geofferey Chen almost fooled us all today with his April Fool's Day prank! What a smart way to set the tone of the meeting! In case the members were feeling a little lost about the theme, Dragana talked about the history behind April Fool's Day and shared one of the classic pranks by Burger King. You can listen to her Thought of the Day here.



Pam, our first speaker, is quickly progressing on the Competent Communicator (CC) ladder. She completed her third project by talking about 10 reasons why we should sign up to be AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) members. Her passion about art was visible during her speech. Click here to see Pam's speech. I am considering sending it to AGO to see how they feel. I'll update our readers if anything comes out of it. Afshan, our second speaker, is close to finishing her CC manual. Afshan shared a lot of information about the characteristics of different generations. With such a diverse age range of our member base, I am confident all audience members found the information very valuable. At the end of the talk, Afshan left us with handouts with more comparative info about each generation. See Afshan's speech here.
As the Table Topics Master for today's meeting, I was inspired by the theme and decided to put my own spin to it. We converted our club meeting room to a newsroom and our members were news correspondents. Each of the members were asked to report on a news item, which is 'odd' but still true. You can see our Table Topics session here.
Christine conducted the General Evaluation section She used the sandwich style approach and offered useful tips to improve our roles. Christine also reminded us about the upcoming Elections and the importance of serving on the Executive Team. Keep reading to find out how we conduct our Elections!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Q. Why don't you iron the 4-leaf clover?
(see answer at the the end of of this article...)

Sundeep, our Chair for the meeting, chose an appropriate theme for the meeting today! We had a small crew at the meeting, but that didn't dampen our moods. Sundeep took control and started the meeting on time. Sundeep shared facts about the origin of St. Patrick's Day and Wendy informed us about the significance of the color 'green'. See her Thought of the Day here. I was the only speaker listed today, which worked out well since my speech was 12-15 min long. I completed the final project of my Interpretive Reading manual by delivering a 12-15 min Play. I chose a segment from the book 'What was She Thinking?' by Zoe Heller. The book was also release as a movie in 2006 where Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett portrayed the characters, Barbara and Sheba, respectively. I chose the segment from the book where Sheba invites Barbara for a casual Sunday lunch with her family. The segment touches upon how a casual invite takes unprecedented significance in Barbara's life as a single woman with no friends. The choice of words in certain passages is ever so haunting. I encourage you to watch the movie as well. Judi has done an incredible job at portraying the character of Barbara.
Though I've completed my Interpretive Reading manual, I feel I haven't done justice to this last project. I felt it became more of a Monologue than a Play. Maybe a segment from one of the classic plays might have been more relevant to the project. Oh well, I might re-do this project at another time! This particular manual has been quite exciting. See my speech here.
Pam concluded the meeting as the first time General Evaluator. I like how she opened her role by saying that her goal is to give power to what we have done well and feedback on how we can improve. She is also the Chair of the meeting next week. Hope to see another full house!

Oh.. and I almost forgot... Here's the answer to the question above --

Q. Why don't you iron the 4-leaf clover?
A. Because you don't want to press your luck!
(Courtesy: Sundeep, our Chair!)

Freedom of Speech

We were back to a 'full' meeting today and I was glad to be be Chair for the day. I selected the theme about 'Freedom of Speech'. I was moved, shocked, terrified and embarrassed by a recent documentary released by BBC, India's Daughter. It displays the horrific rape culture prevalent in India. The Government of India imposed a ban on the documentary stating the reason that it portrays a negative image of India. While that it true, but the image displayed by the documentary is not far from reality. This, along with the recent killings of Charlie Hebdo, inspired me to begin the meeting by talking about the right to freedom of speech.
We had a few last minute role switches, but our members gladly stepped up. Makes my job very easy! We are now 25 member strong!!! Woohoo....!
Jefferey Zhao was our first speaker. He completed Project #3 from his CC manual and talked about the importance of maintaining a calendar Jefferey has a subtle way of introducing humor in his speeches. You can watch his video here.
Our second speaker, also the President of the club, was Geoffery Chen who is working on his Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) designation. Read more about Communication Tracks here. Geoffrey presented an entertaining speech about 'Kill the K-Cup' and the shared valuable information about the harmful effects of the K-cups.
You can watch his speech video here.

Marcia, our TT master, embraced the meeting theme and added her own creative spin to it. She encouraged the members to voice their uninhibited opinion about topics such as TTC, Justin Bieber, Mayor Rob Ford, etc.! All members participated with much enthusiasm. Tie Feng, our General Evaluator (GE), offered his feedback and supportive statements to improve our meeting structure. The Area 5 Spring Contests are scheduled for tomorrow evening. Wish us luck!