The Laughing Toastmaster: What They Don’t Tell You About the D91 Conference

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When Rakhi Jain (conference PR) suggested I write an article on, ‘Why Attend the D91 Conference’ I was all for it! At the same time, I thought, ‘Shouldn’t she ask someone who’s a bit more Toastmasterly?’ And by that, I mean people who say things like, ‘Everybody’s a Winner!’ Not a bitter person like me who thinks, ‘If everybody is a winner, why didn’t I even PLACE?‘ and starts to cry?

But then I realized these Toastmasters are too busy doing Toastmasterly things, like TED Talks, or travelling to far-away lands to get photographed with their Toastmaster magazines.

So, you’re stuck with me, which isn’t such a bad thing. Who better to convince you to go to the conference than someone who’s prepared to tell you what nobody else will?

Let’s start with the Evaluation Contest, in which one courageous speaker gives a speech and then waits for ten contestants to tear it to pieces (I mean analyse it thoroughly and thoughtfully) and provide constructive feedback.

Under these circumstances you’d think first prize would go to the speaker for their bravery. Not the case. Another set of evaluators (called ‘the judges’) evaluate the evaluators evaluating and decide on ‘BEST EVALUATOR’. Besides being a terrifying tongue twister, it begs the ultimate evaluators’ question, ‘Who judges the judges?’

Next up are the Workshops, not to be confused with pawnshops, which is where I ended up in order to buy the ticket (cost of living crisis and all that).

Workshops are divided into two main categories, EDUCATIONAL and INSPIRATIONAL, below some excellent examples:

EDUCATIONAL

  • Using Storytelling to do your Tax Returns
  • Learning When to SHUT UP (reserved for advanced Toastmasters)
  • Overcoming Procrastination (usually postponed)

INSPIRATIONAL

  • If You Can’t Convince Them, Confuse Them.
  • When One Door Closes, Pick The Lock
  • Why Toastmasters make good lovers (always oversubscribed with a massive waiting list)

Then there’s the Keynote Speaker, who usually features as the headliner of the event. Now, in most conferences around the world, the keynote speaker is a smashing success! An outstanding communicator! A worthy conference headliner!

But this is Toastmasters.

And what the keynote speaker does not realize is that their world-renown-speech is being scrutinized, analysed and evaluated by every single Toastmaster attending. We can’t help ourselves, it’s part of our DNA! In fact, I would argue the keynote speech should be followed by an evaluation, if only to make the speech even better? Just my opinion.

This leads to the most important event of the conference, The International Speech Contest, which alone is worth the family silverware I had to pawn.

This is the Superbowl of Speakers! The Cricket Cup of Communicators! The Olympics for Orators! And like in the Olympics, these outstanding speakers have faced huge hurdles to get to this point: CLUB, AREA and DIVISION levels. They now face the DISTRICT, which is not so much a hurdle but more like a POLE VAULT, the stakes are so high!

Because of all the years you would want to reach the World Championships, this is the one to do it, as the event will be taking place in beautiful Nassau! Imagine! A beach combo of sizzling sun, sea, sand, sex, speeches and speakers!

But we’re not there yet, and while the more Toastmasterly folk from D91 will be saying, ‘May the best speaker win’, I’m cheering,  ‘May my club member win!’

Finally, there’s the Gala Dinner. An opportunity to relax with fellow Toastmasters while enjoying a delicate meal and drinking responsibly. Ha, ha! Wishful drinking. More like skipping the meal and hitting the booze for a decadent-debauched-downright-degenerate-all-nighter!

If you think this is some kind of joke, it’s not. This year the conference title is ‘Inspiring Futures’ and the gala dinner is sure to inspire all kinds of shenanigans and  over the top fun! Not to mention the perfect opportunity to practice what you learned in the Lover’s Workshop:

Why do Toastmasters make good lovers? They practice body language, know about pace and rhythm and get to the point.

I won’t go into any more detail, because as every Toastmaster worth their speech knows,

‘What happens in the Toastmasters Gala stays in the Toastmaster Gala’.

See ya there!

Sonia Aste is an engineer, writer and comedian. She’s a Toastmaster and member at Riverside Communicators Club.
More from Sonia on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

Club Growth Newsletter – April 2023

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First things first: Thank You!

As your Club Growth Director, I wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation for your dedication and commitment to growing membership numbers so far this Toastmasters year. I trust that this has made a difference to your clubs.  Your passion for learning, improving your communication skills, and supporting one another is truly inspiring, and it’s what makes District 91 such a special community.

I want to encourage you to continue spreading the word about Toastmasters and the benefits of membership. Your enthusiasm and willingness to invite guests to our meetings and events are crucial to our growth and success. Every person you bring to your club has the potential to become a valuable member of our community, and I thank you for your efforts in helping us grow.  We are in the final quarter of the Toastmasters year, and I encourage you to keep growing.

Here are my top tips:

  1. Host an Open House to showcase your club to potential members. Consider hosting an open house event that highlights the benefits of joining Toastmasters, offers guests the chance to observe a typical meeting, and includes opportunities for guests to ask questions and engage with current members. Be sure to promote your open house on social media and local community bulletin boards.
  1. Social media can be a powerful tool for attracting new members to your club. Share information about your club’s meetings, events, and activities, as well as testimonials from current members about the benefits they have experienced through Toastmasters.
  1. Consider introducing Toastmasters in your place of work. A corporate Toastmasters club can provide a range of benefits to both employees and the organisation including improved communication skills, increased employee engagement, professional development, networking opportunities, cost-effective training, and enhanced company culture.

I would encourage you all to review your current membership goals so that your club can finish the Toastmasters year as strong as possible.

Renewals are Open!

We’ve barely finished our April membership renewals and I ask you to start preparing for the October 2023 renewal period, Toastmasters International’s semi-annual membership dues will incur a small increase and will now be $60 USD.  This still represents great value for money and Toastmasters continues to be the best and most cost-effective way to become a confident communicator and inspiring public speaker or leader.

The price increase takes effect from 1st August 2023.

Incentives: Net Growth 10 Challenge

The Net Growth 10 challenge is an exciting opportunity for Toastmasters clubs to grow their membership and win a prize to support their club’s activities. By participating in this challenge, clubs can increase their membership and create a more dynamic and diverse club experience that benefits current and future members. So why not take up the challenge and see how much your club can grow?

The goal of Net Growth 10 is simple: to achieve a net growth of 10 new members from the club’s base number as of July 1, 2022, by June 15, 2023.

However, to meet the challenge criteria please note that. “Net growth” refers to the difference between the number of new members a club has gained and the number of members who have left the club during the specified period. So, for example, if a club had 20 members on July 1, 2022, and gained 15 new members by June 15, 2023, but lost 5 members during that period, their net growth would be 10, which would meet the challenge criteria.  If a club successfully achieves this net growth target, it will win a prize of £100 to boost its club’s funds.

The Net Growth 10 challenge can help support the club’s activities and initiatives. By attracting new members, clubs can benefit from fresh perspectives, new ideas, and increased diversity, which can all contribute to a more vibrant and dynamic club experience.

However, you have every opportunity to plan for this and submit renewals before the increase date.  Yes, the renewals window is open!

Talk Up Toastmasters

Talk Up Toastmasters is a membership-building program that takes place annually from February 1 to March 31 2023. The program is designed to encourage members to invite guests to their club meetings and promote Toastmasters to others.  During the Talk Up Toastmasters program, members are challenged to add five new, dual, or reinstated members to their club.

They say it’s good to talk, and the following clubs have achieved this award:

104 London Debaters

1st London Toastmasters

Basingstoke Speakers

Beckenham Communicators

Bloomberg London Toastmasters

Brighton & Hove Speakers Club

Bristol Central Speakers

Central London Toastmasters

Chiltern Speakers Club

City of London Toastmasters Club

Data Science Speakers Club

Epsom Speakers Club

Farnham Speakers Club

Holborn Speakers

Kent Speakers Club

Lloyds Banking Group Toastmasters

London Communicators Club

London Public Speakers

London Victorians

Society Speakers

The Speakers of Croydon Club

Trojan Speakers Club

Winchmore Hill Speakers

Woking Speakers Toastmasters Club

All the above clubs also managed to introduce 5 or more unique members to their clubs.  They will all receive an award of £30 and will be notified by email on how to claim their award. Congratulations.

Debbie Williams
Club Growth Director, 2022-2023

An Extra Special 100th Meeting Celebration

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By Karen Bailey, President and Elaine Watt, VPPR, Worcester Speakers

 

 

Bonus Mondays

Our meetings at Worcester Speakers are on the first and third Mondays of the month, but every couple of months we end up with a fifth Monday in the month, which we call our “Bonus” Mondays. Sometimes we add an extra ‘event’ on those Bonus Mondays, which we tend to make into one of the ‘non-standard’ meeting, like Open Houses, Bring-a-Friend events, or Speechathons.

Goals for our Speechathon

For this meeting, we decided on a Speechathon, as it allowed us to hit several goals at once. All our meetings are hybrid, meaning we have both in-person and online attendees, allowing us to have participants from all over the world join our meetings. For a flavour of the event check out the video below:

Our three key goals for our Speechathon were:

1. Celebration of our 100th meeting

In December last year, our Sergeant-at-Arms, Ben, spotted that the numbering of our meetings meant that we were coming up to our 100th meeting. With a little maths, we worked out that it would coincide with the Bonus Monday that the end of January 2023, so we targeted that date. As it was a celebration, we threw a proper party, with cake and balloons!

 2. Moving people through their Paths

The second goal for the Speechathon was to help Members move through their Paths. We had 8 speeches presented on the evening, with a real mix of levels and Paths covered. There were two Icebreaker speeches, three other Level 1s, two Level 2s and a Level 3.

With so many speeches to squeeze in, it presented us with two challenges: A. How do we keep the unplanned part of the evening to get everyone who wasn’t speaking up to the front (or spotlighted online) to push people out of their comfort zones without Table Topics? And, B. How do we make sure everyone gets their vital evaluations so they are able to improve and learn without making the evening run on until midnight?

We resolved these for the evening, with both solutions working really well! To add back in the spontaneous, unplanned aspect, we introduced a new role which we called Impromptu Introducers. The aim of these was to have someone from the audience get up and do the introduction for the next speaker; they would have no advance notice of it so there was the same feeling that people get from Table Topics, and it was great experience for people to practice introducing speakers and making sure they included all the vital components (name, speech title, timings for the Timekeeper, the Path and speech level, and general objectives for the speech).

To solve the issue of the missing feedback, we assigned Members in the room to give ‘silent’ evaluations by printing the relevant Toastmasters Evaluation Form for the speeches, and asking them to complete them and hand them to the Speakers (or scan/take photos and send to online Speakers). This way the Speakers still get their crucial feedback without extending the length of the evening, and all of the Speakers appreciated this.

3. Hitting our DCP goals

With so many speeches happening at a range of levels, the Speechathon also helped us push towards our DCP goals. Two of the speeches were level completions, which achieved the first of the Level 1 Educational points available, and the rest all helped put us one step closer to gaining those all important points.

Final Remarks

Our 100th Meeting Speechathon was well attended both in terms of Speakers and attendees, and the fun party atmosphere helped to make it a really memorable evening for everyone involved. We’d highly recommend a Speechathon to any club thinking about it as they are a great way to help both our Members and the club hit our goals!

We were interviewed by District 91 PR Manager about the experience of running this Speechathon where we reminisced about the event, what was most memorable and we even shared a ‘muted’ moment!

You can find Worcester Speakers on Facebook. We’d love you to visit us: https://www.facebook.com/WorcesterSpeakers/

Elaine Watt, VPPR and Karen Bailey, President, Worcester Speakers, 2022-2023

The Laughing Toastmaster: The Flippin’ Forecast

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What’s another name for the Four Seasons? A day in the UK!

Ha, ha!  I have to laugh! Until a sunny spring day turns to winter in Siberia. Then it’s not so funny.

Not when I’m wearing a cotton dress and get to Toastmasters feeling like I’ve just trekked through the Himalayas. Then it’s not funny at all. I check my toes for frostbite.

Weather in the UK is very unpredictable. Experts say it’s due to, ‘Cold polar air from the north and warmer air from the Tropics pushing against each other’.

Uh oh, that sounds evil. Sounds like my life. One day I’ll be going through a warm, sunny patch of life, when all of a sudden, ‘CRACK! BOOM!’ and it’s dark clouds and stormy times ahead. No way to see that coming.

At least with the weather, we have the forecast:

6 o’clock News & Weather: ‘Sunshine and showers, chance of mist, possible fog.’  Translation: Haven’t a clue.

8 o’clock News & Weather: ‘Heavy rains, chance of hail or snow, possible spring like day.’ Still don’t have a clue.

10 o’clock News & Weather: ‘Sunshine and showers, chance of hail, sleet and any other type of precipitation known to mankind. Possible meteorite.’ Let’s cover our backs.

Confused, I search the internet, ‘Possible clear skies for many, turning increasingly cloudy across some areas. Chance of rain in the North’.

Possible? Chance? What happened to good old-fashioned percentages? As in ‘80% chance of rain?’ Am I part of the many? Do I live in some areas? Is Northampton the North?

Bewildered, I ask THE LOCALS.  They all say the same thing ‘The weather forecast? Oh, they never get it right’.

Wait a minute … did you say never? Never as in … ever? Why not?

What kind of professional never gets it right? Imagine a judge that ‘never gets the verdict right’, or a surgeon, ‘fails those operations every time’.

I worked in the IT industry, got it wrong ONE time and was fired quicker than you can say ‘we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather’.

What’s going on? Why are these people getting away with it? Come annual reviews, what are their managers telling them? ‘Don’t worry, the important thing is you tried’?

Call me naïve but surely in the land that gave birth to Alan Turning (World War II code decipherer and father of computer science) breaking the weather code should be a breeze?

Sensing my despair, a wise Toastmaster informs me of a FORECAST that is a rock among forecast. A timeless British institution, loved and revered around the world for its smooth sounding rhythm, clarity of words and knowledge.

I tune in with joyful anticipation:

THE SHIPPING FORECAST

‘Viking North Utsire South Utsire Southeast 4 or 5 increasing or 7 veering south 4 or 5 later, occasional, losing identity, good with fog patches becoming moderate or poor.’

Now that’s flippin’ phenomenal, but gets us nowhere in this forecast fumble!

What to do? Follow the forecast and risk frostbite? Rely on my neighbour’s arthritis acting up for possible rain? Dog’s barking for a fast-approaching blizzard? Postmen wearing shorts for hot weather? Scratch the last one, British postmen wear shorts in the dead of winter.

More importantly, what to do about life? Because if we can’t even work out the weather, what are the chances of forecasting when life will hit us with dark, devastating storms? As in, breakups, failed promotions, not even placing in that speech contest.

That’s where Toastmasters comes in, because our organization provides the knowledge and resilience to be able to get through the toughest of times. Let’s face it, if you can stand in front of a group of people and give a speech, you can face life’s harshest hurricanes.

A club member once said that Toastmaster comes with a protective umbrella that helps you through life. I disagree. I think it gives you the skills needed to cast that umbrella aside and face life’s challenges with the courage and resilience of our Toastmaster spirit.

Whether life be fine, Or whether life be not,

Whether life be cold, Or whether life be hot,

We’ll weather life’s weather, Whatever the weather,

Cause we’re Toastmasters, are we not?

Sonia Aste is an engineer, writer and comedian. She’s a Toastmaster and member at Riverside Communicators Club.
More from Sonia on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

Woking Speakers Open House Event, 23rd March 2023

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By Seema Viswanath, VPM

Introduction

Woking Speakers Club held our Open House event on the evening of 23rd March 2023.  We had 18 guests who attended this year making it one of the most successful Open House events for the club. Milica Bennett VP-Public Relations and Seema Viswanath VP-Membership led the organisation of the event; they were ably supported by Bob Nisbet, Sergeant-at-Arms.

Preparation

Leading up to the event, we designed and published the below poster at the local library and supermarkets in the local area. We advertised the event on Eventbrite, Facebook (including on the local community pages) and LinkedIn. We invited the club alumni and previous guests who have attended our public speaking meetings. We also shared the details of the event through club members, all of whom helped promote the event in their own networks.

We received the required materials (badges, name tags, leaflets) from the Toastmasters International District 91 support team on time which were distributed to the members and guests before the meeting began.

Execution

Each guest was greeted personally on arrival by a Club Member to ensure they felt welcomed. After declaring the event open, James Sanderson – Club President introduced Toastmasters to the guests. Chris Arning – VP Public Relations, D91 attended the event and addressed the audience. All the members and guests then got a chance to speak at the warm up. The prepared speeches were carefully chosen so we had a mix of beginners and experienced members. The speakers and evaluators were all confident communicators. They shared the benefits of being part of Toastmasters such as access to online resources, mentors and above all being a fun and safe environment for public speaking with the guests.

It was a pretty packed schedule as you can see from (just the front page of!) the Agenda below:

After a 15 min networking break with tea, coffee and biscuits, the second part of the meeting was focused on our guests.

Every guest was asked to fill in an interesting, unique or adventurous aspect of their life that they were proud of at the beginning of the meeting. We used this information for the table topics asking guests to come to the front and speak on their specific aspect. Due to time restrictions, not everyone got a chance to speak, but 10 guests got the opportunity to speak in front of us.  Following the evaluations and awards, we handed out certificates of participation to the guests.

The event closed in our usual manner, with a trip to our local pub.

District PR Manager, Chris Arning was in attendance with his friend Nick (who lives in Woking and whom he had been trying to get to come to Toastmasters for ages).

For a flavour of the some Guests reactions to their first Toastmasters experience and Milica, Seema and James Sanderson’s reflections on the event, see the below video.

We thank all the members and guests who participated in making this event a success. If you want to find out more about our club, please visit us at www.wokingspeakers.org.uk.  We look forward to welcoming you as a guest. And you may find these resources from Toastmasters International helpful too: https://www.toastmasters.org/resources/resource-library?t=open%20house

Seema Viswanath, VPM, Woking Speakers, 2022-2023