Elections Time

It's Elections season in Toastmasters!

Meridian Toastmasters hosted it's yearly executive elections meeting. As the past President, Christine chaired the Nominations committee. Karen and Geofferey helped out with the nominations. I am so glad that we had a full slate of executive officers for the up coming year. And I am excited to be elected as the Club President for the next year! You can watch our Elections part of the meeting here.

Keep it Simple

Anil opened the meeting today with the theme, 'Keep it Simple'. He emphasized about the importance of simplicity and narrated a story about how we tend to complicate things in our life. It was a small meeting, maybe because the weather was so gloomy! But, we compensated for lack of members by doubling our energy! Our grammarian, Karen, added an interesting twist to her role. Instead of the usual filler words, she suggested implementing more pauses during our speaking roles today. I thought it was clever and added another dimension to the duties of a grammarian.
I completed my Storytelling manual today by delivering the project #4 - A Touching Story. I recently read a book 'Five Seconds at a Time' by Denis Shackel. I was deeply inspired and motivated by the message conveyed by the author. The language of the book was very simple and conveyed the message very well. Naturally, I was inclined to use the story of Denis and share his simple mantra to overcome obstacles in our life - 5 seconds at a time. He used his own example of surviving a tragic mountain climbing accident to elucidate the concept. See my speech here. Since our second speaker had to cancel due to a work conflict, Anil made a prompt decision to show the speech delivered by the 2014 World Champion of Public Speaking. I think it was an intelligent move to use up the extra time. It was also a helpful to watch and learn from the speakers of an international caliber. You can view his speech here.
Anthony conducted the Table Topics session. His energy and enthusiasm are quite infectious. Even though I was distracted by work emails, I was drawn to the Table Topics session. He used everyday phrases and encouraged members to add their own twist to the meaning of the phrase. Everyone participated, including our guest! It's always fun to see our guests brave it out and speak during Table Topics! Marcia, our General Evaluator, provided feedback on how we ran the meeting. She made an important suggestion to move the Meridian Toastmasters banner so that it's in the 'view' of the speakers, especially when we record videos to be publicly displayed.
After the long weekend, we will return on Tuesday... And, it's Elections time again! New year, new executive!

Respect

Karen, our Chair, started the meeting narrating an experience she had last week at the local ravine. A local citizen 'disrespected' the boundaries that the City had marked out for a construction project. Karen shared her thoughts about how it's important to respect the boundaries. If we don't, we could end up hurting ourselves or someone else in the process. I could see that she was passionate about this topic. Maybe this could be a speech we could hear from Karen in the future. We had 1 new guest attend the meeting.
Our 2 speakers today, Melrose and Marcia, delivered their speech #8, Get Comfortable with Visual Aids, today. Both of them have unique styles that help them shine in different ways. Melrose talked about ANTs. I was expecting her talk to be about how ants are so disruptive and it's difficult to remove them. Her speech was all about that, however, the ANTs were Automatic Negative Thoughts that plague every one of us now and then. Her speech was inspired by a book she recently read. I thought it was very clever. With her effervescent personality, Melrose makes difficult topics quite fun to learn! Since this project was about getting creative with visual aids, I would've liked to see Melrose be more creative with the visual aids in their speeches.See her speech here. Marcia has a very professional style of speaking. She seems confident and in control of her topic. Marcia shared her experience volunteering at various organizations and encouraged the audience to consider volunteering to make a difference. She brought one of her T-shirts and shared a booklet where her name was displayed in the list of volunteers. See her speech here.
Pam conducted the Table Topics session. She posed questions to the audience keeping the meeting theme in mind. Tie added his own humorous twist to the idea of mutual respect. He shared how it's important not to have respect all the time because many jobs (e.g counselors, lawyers) make their living out of this! Needless to say, he won the Table Topics session today! Anthony rounded up the meeting as the General Evaluator. Christine and I will be speaking next week, both from our Storytelling manuals! Better get going on that!

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!