The Laughing Toastmaster

The Laughing Toastmaster: May Days! May Days!

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When did theme days become as common as the common noun?

Have you noticed? Our annual calendar is as crowded as a Benidorm beach in July. I’m talking about themed days, which seemed to have reproduced faster than a rabbit farm on steroids.

Take the month of May. When I was a child (about ten years ago) there were only two important days to remember: May 1st, International Workers’ Day (the remaining 364 days are for the shareholders). My left-wing uncles would hum ‘The International’ and swap stories about their struggle for the forty-hour week and fair pay. Funny how today I struggle for ANY ‘hour week’ and ANY pay. We’ve come so far!

The second sacrosanct day was (and still is) May 10th, my Mum’s birthday. Trust me you don’t want to forget that or you won’t be singing ‘The International’, just Mozart’s ‘Requiem’.

Today, as a Toastmaster, May brings the three most important days of the year, ‘The District 91 Toastmaster Conference’, also known as The Best District Conference of the Universe! I’m not joking. This weekend is filled with more stellar speaking stars than the Milky Way, creating a galaxy of future shooting stars in the making. It’s truly out of this world!

Surely that’s enough excitement for one month? Nope. Themed days in May are like confetti at a paper shredding party; abundant, useless and you can’t get them out of your hair.

Now I can understand ‘Red Cross Day’ or ‘United Nations Peacekeepers’ Day’ honouring our calendar, but what kind of person thought ‘Candied Orange Peel Day’ merited the same importance? Someone like me whose sweet tooth is bigger than an alligator’s (Alligator Day May 29) and just as vicious if you eat my Krispy Kreme donuts!

There’s no sugar coating it. May is a smorgasbord of fatty unhealth, including Nutty Fudge, Chocolate Chip Cookie, Apple Pie, Raspberry Tart and Blueberry Cheesecake Day. This sugar rush is enough to send anyone into a diabetic coma (and possible death), conveniently covered with ‘Life Insurance Day’ (May 2nd).

It doesn’t stop there. Sponsored by ‘No Diet Day’ and ‘Eat What You Want Day’ the sweet binge continues with Crêpes Suzette, Macaroon and finally Taffy Day. Yes taffy. Stuff powerful enough to remove a molar without a visit to your dentist. Perhaps that’s why someone (a dental hygienist most likely) felt the need to warn us with ‘Root Canal Appreciation Day’. Party pooper!

Luckily, there’s no ruining May’s party. It is by far the most hedonistic, pleasure-seeking, over indulgent month of the year! I’m not just talking about The District 91 Conference’s Saturday-Night-drunken-bacchanal-party! Sorry, I meant our ‘Delicate champagne polite chitchat get-together’.

Starting with Lei Dei (also known as fertility day … hint, hint) there’s enough booze and dubious activities to turn a quiet garden party in Surrey into a rampant Woodstock festival. Nakedness included. Kicking off with World Naked Gardening Day, allotments suddenly turn into tourist spots, giving a whole different meaning to ‘wildlife watch’. To lift your spirits (among other things) there’s Cocktail Day, Beer, Whisky and Homebrew Day (for the ‘hardened’ enthusiast). Posher crowds can jolly-ho with Wine Day, Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay Day. Although I think all plummy posh-ness vanishes when showing off your shrubs.
Not a gardener? Don’t worry! Take advantage of ‘No Pants Day’ and enjoy ‘Outdoor Intercourse Day’! If you live in the UK, make sure to check the weather. You don’t want it to ‘hail on your parade’ or frostbite your favourite bits, which would lead to ‘End of the World Day’ (May 21st).

In May the fun never ends! For us Toastmasters there’s ‘Stay Up All Night Night’, for that speech you promised to give the next day and have NADA. There’s also ‘Blame Someone Else Day’, very convenient for us speakers who didn’t win the contests … blame the judges!

As a Toastmaster, my personal favourite is May 22nd,  ‘International Day of Being You’. Toastmasters gives you the skills needed for public speaking, but more importantly, it helps you find your voice. Once you find your voice, you also find the courage to JUST BE YOU.

Enough talk! I don’t know about you, but I’m off to the D91 Conference Saturday-Night-drunken-decadent-debauched-downright-degenerate-all-nighter!  Sorry, I meant our demure, dainty, disciplined evening event.

——— Sonia Aste is an engineer, writer and comedienne who thanks to Toastmasters, found her voice. She is a member of the Riverside Communicators Club.
——— Catch her at D91 conference:

——— More from Sonia on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram666

The Laughing Toastmaster: I Can Make You Win…?

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Caution: contains information unsuitable for winners

In a world obsessed with winning, I’m glad to say losing is very much alive. I can personally testify to losing jobs, pin numbers, house keys, car keys and so many Toastmaster competitions my self-esteem is lower than Twitter’s reputation.

Yes, it’s competition time at Toastmasters! A time when the Toastmasters Gods (aka Judges) insist on following that silly tradition of, ‘There can only be ONE winner’, leaving the rest of us in Loserville. Worse still, we have to muster up false-smiles and say things like, ‘The important thing is to participate’, ‘It’s all about the learning experience’, when all we want is to go home and cry. Or is that just me?

I hate losing! I hate losing even more than I like winning, which makes me wonder why it keeps happening. There’s only one thing I was happy to lose (at the tender age of 16), and even that was a disappointment! But that’s the case for 99.9% of the world population so I don’t feel too bad about that.

World experts (in THE EVENING STANDARD) claim successful people have what is called a ‘Winning Mentality’. Wow! Is that all? I mean, it’s not like I go around telling myself ‘You’re gonna lose!’, neither do I shout ‘I’m a winner!’ like they suggest. More like I don’t talk to myself. But what do I know? I’m losing.

I better do something before I end up unable to leave home for fear of losing my keys, catching agoraphobia and eventually losing my mind.

I decide to enrol on a three-day event, ‘BE A WINNER!’ with the self-styled winner guru. Three days? A lifetime of losing can be changed in less than it takes an avocado to ripen? I’ve wasted so much time!

I will be able to ‘Unleash My Power Within’. First, I have to ‘Unleash my Credit’ with the bank, because it’s £1000. Expensive, but what’s a little (more) debt when I will also ‘Awaken the Tiger’ in me? Not sure about having wild creatures inside my body, as anyone who’s watched ALIEN will testify.

With hope and anticipation, I get there, READY FOR SUCCESS! I’m thrilled to see 7,000 other losers are there too! It’s like Loser’s Anonymous except we wear nametags:

MY name is SONIA ASTE, and I’m a Winner!

I’m really impressed! The event hasn’t even started and I’ve already achieved it!

MY £1000 pound ticket turns out to be the cheap seats. I’m so far from the stage I could be in another time zone. I hire binoculars (extra £50) and can just about make out a tiny dot on stage informing us that WE ARE ALL SPECIAL!

Tiny Dot explains that once he had been overweight, homeless, jobless, no one loved him, his father in prison, his mother washed other people’s laundry, he suffered from BO, acne, dandruff, halitosis and … didn’t go to The Prom. It’s so sad … I mean not going to your prom??? I cry into my binoculars. But Tiny Dot transformed his life, because:

YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE!

We are asked to write down WHAT WE WANT TO BE. Middle-aged guy next to me writes down: ASTRONAUT, a petite lady on my right: BASKETBALL PLAYER. Boy!

People are really going for their dreams! I write: WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE (in chemistry, physics, literature, medicine, economics and peace). That should cover it.

Next, Tiny Dot informs us that we have to ‘walk on hot coals’ to conquer our fears. Hot coals? Like in the Spanish Inquisition? Excuse me I’ve just remembered I’ve got athlete’s foot and my GP insisted I didn’t aggravate it.

Binocular Section look at me with disgust and go for it. OK fine! But if being a winner guarantees not burning your tootsies why does everyone look petrified and a medical team is on standby?

One guy ignores all instructions launches into a FRENZIED FIRE CRAWL. Men in white remove him from the premises.

Despite not doing the BARBECUE walk, I still get a CERTIFICATE OF PARTICIPATION.! This includes a 50% discount on the next course: ‘BE A WINNER AMONG WINNERS!’ which I might need because with all this winning, I think I’ve lost the plot.

 

——— Sonia Aste is a Toastmaster who still considers herself a winner. Catch her in the panel discussion:

And the Winner is … none of these panellists! How to learn, grow and bounce back from losing.

Sunday May 8th District91 Conference 9:45am

——— More from Sonia on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

The Laughing Toastmaster: We Need a Cure for Meeting-gitis

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Did you know there’s a virus going around? I don’t mean the one that’s so bad it makes having a root canal feel like you’re in Disneyland.

I’m talking about Meeting-gitis, a dangerous condition that if left untreated can turn you into a full-blown Meeting-alcoholic.

This may not sound like a big deal. Most of us work in environments where meetings are an accepted form of life. What else are managers going to do all day? But while your boss does it because he loves the sound of his own voice, Meeting-alcoholics do it out of a pathological fear of having a meeting-less agenda.

‘It took over my life’ confesses Julian Warn, a Toastmaster who wants to remain anonymous (but I forgot). ‘I ended up neglecting my family, friends and my personal hygiene. At work, I’d go to any meeting that would take me. I even participated in the ‘Accountant’s Lunch Catch Up’, which was not only useless (I work in IT) but drop-dead dull.’

Julian admits gate-crashing meetings to feed his addiction. ‘Sales meetings were the easiest to infiltrate. They were all drunk or hungover.

He recalls more of his shameful past, ‘I reached rock bottom when I found myself going to ‘HUMAN RESOURCES: WE’RE HERE FOR YOU’ (voluntary attendance). It was just me. That’s when I decided to ask for help’.

Treatment is not easy to come by. Traditional programs based on AA’s ‘My name is Julian and I am a Meeting-alcoholic do not work as they involve yet another meeting, feeding the addiction even further.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Meeting-gitis strain has mutated and we face an even more devastating virus: ZOOM-MONELLA. Born out of the need to stay connected during the lockdown, people suffering from ZOOM-MONELLA feel compelled to attend meetings ‘virtually’ 24 hours a day!

The latest casualty (an engineer from Surrey), was forcefully removed from his shed which had more screens, graphs and satellites than NASA’s control room. His loving wife, Bonnie Woes (another Toastmaster) tearfully admits, ‘Intervention was necessary. He had turned into a ZOOM-BIE’.

Think this has nothing to do with you? Think again. How many times have you ZOOMED into a meeting and thought, ‘When is this going to end?’. Or worse, had the temptation to MUTE everything, pretend to listen while secretly watching Master Chef? Or was that just me?

As Toastmasters, we are lucky to have meetings that are lean, mean and run like a machine, thanks to our wonderful Timekeepers. But this is far from the norm, most meetings are useless and lack purpose.

‘ANTI-MEETING’ lobbies around the world are calling for new laws to tackle the problem. Not by punishing the addicts, but by penalizing the ‘MEETING DEALERS’. Charming and persuasive, these criminals lure innocent victims into attendance with promises of coffee, Krispy Kremes and ‘It’ll only be 5 minutes.’ Without realizing it, the victim is subjected to ‘The Gateway Meeting’ (meeting to program future meetings) and addiction is inevitable.

A spokesperson for ‘Just Say NO to Meetings’, Rupa Data (or was it Datta?) comments, ‘There are different approaches to dealing with meeting addiction around the world. Some countries place a greater emphasis on law enforcement, while others do not.

Sonia Aste

In the UK steps are being taken to create legislation to classify them into three groups: A, B and C.

Class A are the most harmful and include PowerPoint Presentations, (PPP is now an identified form of torture).

Class B includes meetings where someone with an ego the size of the UK debt hogs up all the stage time.

Class C includes people saying ‘I’ll be brief’.

Rupa continues, ‘Progress is slow due to lawmakers’ endless meetings. In the meantime, we should all be doing our part to prevent this terrible disease’.

In order to do that, ‘Just Say NO to Meetings’ has published a guideline to help stop the addiction before it starts.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF VERY SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS:

  1.  Meeting rooms should be empty (no chairs, tables, whiteboard or air), to promote speedy endings.
  2. Aim to start LATE and finish EARLY.
  3.  The ‘meet and greet’ person should reek of B.O. and suffer from halitosis.
  4.  All attendees will be required to leave their egos at the door.
  5.  Anyone with an agenda that is not in the agenda will be prosecuted.
  6.  Anyone asking any ‘further questions’ will be fired on the spot.
  7. Finish with an ACTION PLAN – that requires no further meetings.

Rupa ends with a piece of advice, ‘The perfect meeting? The one that doesn’t happen’.

——— Sonia Aste is a Toastmaster who believes in only one kind of meeting THE TOASTMASTER MEETING. She is a member of the Riverside Communicators Club.
——— More of her stuff on website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram