Begin with a Question.

Have you ever began a speech with a question? 

Some examples are:

"What is the one lie you tell yourself most often?”

"If your life were a book, what would you name the chapter you are living right now?”

"How different would your life look if you decided that failure was simply a data point, rather than a destination?”

"Is there anyone in your life you need to forgive—including yourself—to finally release the weight of the past?”

  

These type of Questions are thought provoking and will get your audiences attention….  

Open with the question and give a pause for it to be absorbed. Don’t walk on the question…

 You can develop your speech from the question. 

 

   You can make the question not only relatable to your life but to you audiences life.  Personalize this with a story orf your own. Chances are the members of the audience are probably, at one level or another,  going to relate.  What is the lesson in this story you have to share? 

  Tell how you dealt with the circumstances in the story!  What happened? How did it affect you or your life? How did it affect you emotionally? ETC. 

  How do you now view the story and the question? Has your view changed changed? 

 Come back to the question in your conclusion. 

 Perhaps in light of the lesson you learned you might ask the question again. Maybe as a gentle call to action. 

IE:   "So, I’ll ask you again: Who do you need to forgive? Because your future is waiting for you to let go of the past."

 

Creating Strong Slide Presentations

  This is hardly my area of expertise.  In reading some information about it I ended up reading this article.  Creating a string slide presentation by Diane Windingland,  a Toastmaster from Texas.  Coincidentally, a person I have conversed with on social media about Toastmasters and so forth.  She is a very nice person! 

  

  Her article covers some very basic things and I think are worth of consideration when developing slides for a presentation. 

1. Start with the message not the slides! 

This may seem obvious but I think we so often get caught up in making a slide “beautiful” that the message takes a “back seat” to the slides appearance and so forth.  

 

2. Write Headlines not just Titles

  I really liked this point.  The example they give is A title would be Q2 Sales,  Instead Write Q2 Sales jumped 15%.  Title vrs. headline! 

3. Reveal information Step by step not all at once. 

  Probably the one I hear evaluated most often.  A very busy or crowded slide is self defeating in delivering your message.  Typically more slides with less on them is a better approach than a busy, crowded slide with too much information on it. 

Some other quick tips in the article I liked! 

• Keep one idea per visual.
• Guide the eye with color and layout.
• Talk about the slide—don’t read it.

 There is so much more information out there about effective and quality slide development. These are some quick tips to help out. 

https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2026/march/creating-a-strong-slide-presentation

Some other features on Free Toast Host: Files

   During our toastmasters meetings we use some paper forms that we file at the end of the meeting as a way of recording the minutes of the meeting.  These are located on the free toast host website in the Member downloads section. 

Go to our website and log in

 

After Logging in, go to the Members Only Tab

When you open Member Downloads it will open this page

 In each folder are various files that we use in the club for different things

The Meeting Agenda, The Timers report form and the Grammarians Report form are the key forms we use during our meetings.   If you have a role that uses this form and you are normally, or on that given meeting, will be require ti use zoom this is where you find these forms.   When meeting is complete you give these to the Secretary to file. 

I encourage all of you to go in and explore these resources and see what is in there. 

Using Free Toast Host

  How we schedule our meeting roles on the website (FreeToast Host) H

  When you log in it will look like this :

In upper Left Hand Corner Under the Members only Tab click on "Meeting Agendas"

It will take you to this page :

On this first page there is a box "are you planning to attend this meeting?  with a yes or No selection.  

As much as possible  Select the answer to this question.   More importantly fi you are NOT going to be able to make a meeting please select NO.  This will illuminate you from you being selected on the members list for a role in this meeting.

I try to maintain four weeks schedule into the future.  I also try to have at least 8 weeks out meeting templates on website. So what this means is you will have four weeks notice of the roles you are being assigned and four weeks beyond that  you can select roles in weeks four to eight should you desire to do that. 

 Please feel free to elect when you wish to perform a role in the future especially speaking roles.  

We typically try to fill two speaking roles each week minimum but we have three slots. So if you want to jump in or practice a speech you have that opportunity. 

As we scroll down the page you will see the different roles assigned. Some may be needed filled and so forth: 

At the bottom of the agenda is a note section that one can add notes. Some will add "Will not be at this meeting".  or I will be online for this meeting"    

The selection of roles and removal is fairly self explanatory. "Sign up" buttons to add yourself to a role and the "X" by your name when you are assigned the role to remove yourself. 

When you're assigned  a role and something changes that you cannot make the role please do your best to see if someone can fill that role for you.   We are a team and we need to help one another with the meeting roles.  

Going back to the top of the agenda you will see a row of icons. These are very handy for things like Mailing our the agenda. When you are assigned the Toastmasters role on Sunday or Monday click on that Envelope looking icon and it will allow you to message the whole club with that agenda attached. Just  send a polite reminder message saying something like "Looking forward to seeing you this week please be prepared for your assigned role. " 

There are other icons that will allow you to print the agenda and other things. Primarily mots members willies the email and print functions.

More Tips for Toastmasters

I have referenced this article several times now and it is because I think it has a lot of good tips in it. I will personalize these tips in this weeks educational Moment I have referenced this article several times now and it is because I think it has a lot of good tips in it. I will personalize these tips in this weeks educational Moment 

• Use humor when things go wrong.   If something goes wrong during your speech, tell a quick joke to help put you and your audience at ease.  Much of this will come with experience and getting more comfortable in front of an audience. I shared a while back about someone falling flat on there face when walking up to speak and they made a joke out of it. Just own it and move on it will make you more human an endear you to the audience. 
• Gain experience.    It has been said but an mentor of mine at one time that “Speaker speak”    So try to never pass up and opportunity to speak!   Toastmasters of course offers many avenues for this From participation in your club,  to being a guest speaker at other clubs or even participatin  speech contests.  At TLI’s.  (Toastmaster leadership Institutes.) when you have been a little more seasoned you can lead sessions about officer roles and other subjects!  And more!

•  Eliminate filler words  This will largely vwith practice.  WEE have a grammarian role at our meetings and we really do need to use our clicker more regularly especially for our new folks to get used to hearing the click and realizing they hare using filler words. 

• 

   Ditch distracting mannerisms.  A good evaluator will point these out for your benefit, as you progress!   An example I have seen a lot with some new speakers is the leg slap.  I know that may sound funny but it is when they gesture and they just let their hand fall and it hits there leg. This is an example of what will be eliminated with practice in Toastmasters. 

https://www.toastmasters.org/about/90th-anniversary/90-tips

Distinguished Club Program Goals Status

Here is the latest on our Distinguished Club Goals. Looking real good, keep going. 

 

Artificial Intelligence as a Tool for speech preparation and practice.

 I want to briefly just mention something that probably the younger folks will perhaps view as just commons sense to them.  Many of them are probably fully embracing this technology while some of the, shall we say,  more seasoned folks are not. 

  My youngest son is in college now and he was sharing with me, that one of his classes actually requires him to us AI for assistance in writing a draft for a paper he has to submit.   I found that at first glance strange maybe. However it make some sense in that I think AI is here to stay!  So Learning how to make the most of this tool is a good thing.

   As for use in preparing a speech?  After our club speech contest recently when we were discussing some thing one of the contestants answered a question about how he prepared his speech. He said how he used AI to do certain things to help him prepare.

 I have also used AI for ideas about speech ideas and potential outline points etc… I of course tailored its suggestions to make it my own and to make it better! 

 A couple years,  ago a program called Yoodli ,  was demonstrated for our club  and it basically takes a video recording of a speech and will do many things. It will make a transcript of the speech. It will analyze many aspects like how many word per minute were spoken and suggest more or less words. It  will pick out filler words.    And so forth.  At one time we as toastmasters member had free access to yodlii but Think that is no longer true I will check on that and let you all know in a future Educational Moment