Friendly Reminders and A couple websites I found.

  Fellow Pioneer Toastmasters:

 Just a friendly reminder to be forward thinking and look out a few meetings on the schedule and plan what you would like to do.  The club depends on us,  the members,  to fill the roles each week. I try to schedule 4 weeks out as best I can.  I also have the meeting templates out usually at least eight weeks. 

Several things you can do to help the club. 

Mark your attendance.  If you know you won't be at a certain meeting in the future go into the schedule and mark yourself as not attending. That way you will not be scheduled. 

Next is if you have a desire to speak or serve in a specific role in the coming weeks you can feel free to schedule your self as you wish. 

 I came upon a couple websites that I found to be wonderful. 

The first one is SOBRIEF:   https://sobrief.com/

 This website is a website that summarizes books. The Banner when you first go to the site says : Read any book in ten minutes." This to me would appear to be very useful for many things. I would say that reading a book is best but reading its summation and key points is better than not reading at all.  Also is a great tool for review of ken points in a  book.  This site could also be a great resource for speech ideas and so forth. 

The website is Z-library and is a free ebook site. https://www.zlibrary.cc/

  While I fully am continually impressed with our city libraries and the online accessibility to things I would add this website to your favorites and when you are looking for a book check this out. Ebooks you can download.  All free. 

 

NegativeTopics in Toastmasters Speeches?

  Depending on the toastmasters club many clubs make an emphasis to stay away from social issue topics or political topic  speeches.  I think we all know at least in a general sense why that is. We al probably have some of that in our family dynamics, for example at Thanksgiving gatherings. We get together with people from our families that perhaps we don’t any other time of the year. It may turn to political discussions and arguing ensues.  Feelings get hurt and it turns into a not so thankful gathering. 

  I believe with mature and reasonable attitudes almost any topic is allowed in a speech and in toastmasters.  

 Two points I would offer for your  consideration:

1. Avoid Negative topics.   

  Some of you are thinking Chris you just said that most any topic is allowed!   Indeed I did , but what I am talking about here is if your speech is going to leave your audience worse off than before you presented it.  Perhaps you should consider not presenting it at all!   No one wants to hear a speech that leave them with a feeling of despair or depression!   When presenting a topic that is negative  I would highly encourage you to present solutions to the problem at hand. Make the solutions as practical as possible so if people are compelled by the information you shared they can take some kind of action.  Include a positive attitude of solutions and not just doom and gloom. 

2.   Be hard on the topic and not on each other! 

   Years ago for a college class I was taking one of the assigned readings was a book called “Getting to Yes Negotiating agreement without giving in”  by Roger Fisher and William Ury.

 In that book this concept it talked about and they use an illustration of putting the issue or topic on a table and both sides take time to either beat up on it or affirm it. Not taking shots at each other!   Beat up on the issue not each other!   I believe social media has created a mass of people that are doing the exact opposite of this principle. They are going strait to beating up on each other and it is absolutely not productive and destructive to our society as a whole. It is definitely divisive!    In speeches this can be challenging sometimes to distinguish to an audience. Statements like  "I respectfully disagree with "xyz" position and here is why." will got  long way in neutralizing peoples emotions.  The antithesis to that is saying something like "This  position is idiotic and here is why."

 Remember like it or not we are all in this thing we call life together at one level or another!

  In conclusion I would bring up a quote that I find so very true and I can think of examples of how it has been proven to be true in my own life. 

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”   Maya Angelou

 I submit to you fellow toastmasters this is very true in speeches as well. How do you want your audience to feel when hearing your speech?  That is what they will remember most.  

Some friendly Reminders For Pioneer Toastmasters

   Pioneer Toastmasters:

  It is my privilege to be in this club and associated with such great folks as you!   I was asked to do an educational Moment on some things we have sometimes been forgetting to do. It is easy as our lives get busy and full. 

  One of these things is for the Toastmaster of the week. When you are toastmaster for a given week you are in charge of that meeting.  Sometime before that weeks meeting,  Sunday or Monday,  go in and  review what we have on the agenda.  Review what roles are filled and which one perhaps are in need of someone to fill it.   Ideally if you know of someone without a role perhaps message them and ask if they can fill in on vacant roles.   After doing your best to ensure a full agenda, send out the agenda to all members with a note saying something along the lines of:  you are looking forward to this weeks meeting. Highlight what roles still need to be filled and encourage members to go in and sign up. It is also a good time to remind the speakers for  the week to fill in their speech information. 

 The toastmaster is responsible to ensure the meeting is staying on time. This typically has not been an issue in our club lately. However there have been times when we had three speakers and time was shorter for table topics as an example. Be aware of these situations and maybe clue the table topics master with a  reminder "we need to finish by 8pm" on table topics.   Don't forget to fill out your agenda form and after the meeting is adjourned sign it and turn it into the secretary. 

   Remember being the Toastmaster is your opportunity to lead.  You can be creative with this as well. We typically don't see this but the sky is the limit!  Maybe dress according to this weeks theme?   Sounds like fun to me!    

Toastmasters International Webpage Resource Section.

   Personally I have not taken advantage of the Toastmasters International webpage's resources section very much at all. It is worthy of some exploration as it truly is a great library of resources for all of us as Toastmasters and Leaders. 

The Resource Library is where you will find many documents, forms, manuals fliers and so forth that you will need for different parts of your toastmasters journey. 

The video library has 123 items which includes videos on tips for different aspects of public speaking. There are video testimonials, videos about different years World Championship of Speaking, Information about how to interview better and many other topics. I am sure all of us can find something of interest and value!   

The podcasts section is also very good. There is a variety of people interviews as well as podcasts about different subjects regarding toastmasters. 

 I have to confess I do not reference this section as much as I should. It has a lot of great information.  I would encourage all to go and explore this section of the webpage. 

https://www.toastmasters.org/resources

Eye Contact during Public Speaking

There is a lot of information out there about this subject.  I have read several articles about how important eye contact is when speaking in public   I will share briefly three points about this.

 1. Practice eye contact 

  Like anything in our lives it does not necessarily come natural to all of us and even cultural differences come into play here.  As you interact with people make it a point to make eye contact with people. You can practice doing this in a mirror. If you have online video calls for work or something, practice eye contact by looking into the camera 

2. Before being to speak during your presentation.

  

  At the beginning of your speech before you even begin to speak take a pause and look at your audience.  Look left and right and see all of them. This helps to ground yourself and connect with your audience before speaking.

3.  During your speech make eye contact with one person for three to five seconds and then move on to another person.  This time frame is typical amount of time it takes to finish a sentence or make a point.  

   Eye contact is an important part of speaking both in conversation and in public speaking. It is worthy of our attention and practice to make us better speakers. 

There is a lot of material about eye contact and public speaking out there here are a few articles I references in writing this educational moment. 

https://janicetomich.com/five-tips-making-eye-contact-public-speaking/

https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/how-do-you-balance-eye-contact-gestures-when-speaking

https://www.quora.com/What-are-steps-I-can-take-to-improve-my-eye-contact-when-speaking-in-public

https://www.toastmasters.org/resources/public-speaking-tips/gestures-and-body-language

Social Network Etiquette: Minding your manners in a digital world.

 

I grew up before the world wide web existed and most of what we see today as social media was not even a thought we would have understood back then.  Social media is an amazing thing when you put it in context of how it has made the world connected and one might say smaller.  It has also been problematic  in many ways.  It has emboldened behavior that would more than likely not happen in a normal exchange between people face to face. There is just something about typing words on a screen that is easy to dismiss that there is a real live person on the other end receiving those words.    

  While there is much to be shared and talked about on this subject and this would probably make an excellent speech topic. I will keep this educational moment brief. 

   I would offer this:  If you would not say it to someones face the way you are about to say it in a post on social media don't post it!  This perhaps obviously is about relationships with others who will read what is posted but it has ramifications larger than that.  There are many aspects of social media where it will reflect poorly on you in many different ways including professionally in your career, personally in a moment of weakness and now it is an arguably a permanent record.    How do I know this? I have been guilty of making careless and even sometimes stupid comments and I am ashamed to say I hurt peoples feelings and offended them, for no real good reason other than I wanted to be "Right". 

  I shared in a speech a while back that I made a commitment to not make negative posts or comments online ever again.  I have tried to and have mostly kept to that commitment to myself and it has been good.  What I found was how much people are starving for positivity in their online experience and I am guessing in their lives period.  That is what I want to be part of!   Try posting something positive and see what kind of response you get! My experience is I get overwhelming positive responses back.   

  As toastmasters we work on being better communicators, better leaders and I have said it before, better people. Let's extend that idea into the way we post on social media. 

  This educational moment of course has much of my own thoughts on this subject but it started from this article on Toastmasters International  It is an excellent article:  

 https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2017/june2017/etiquette

Speech Contest Season

  Fellow Pioneer Toastmasters  

 As we have been discussing the last couple months contest season is upon us here in toastmasters.  Starting very soon here this month into the next month.  Area level and Division Level contests will be starting. I would encourage you all to consider going to at least one of these contests just for the experience of it. You will see some great speakers delivering their excellent contest speeches. These speeches get better as they progress up the levels. 

 I would also encourage you to consider serving in the contest if you are not competing.  Area and Division directors much of the time struggle to get enough volunteers to support these contests. Judges, timers,  ballot counters and so forth are needed to conduct a proper contest.   

 You can find a lot of great information on the district 26 website about the contests. including when and where and we can certainly get you in contact with the Area or Division Directors accordingly. 

 This is a very exciting part of Toastmasters. 

Here are some links to the information.   If you need any help getting in contact with proper folks or anything else let me know we will find out the information needed. 

https://www.d26toastmasters.org/our-calendar/

https://www.d26toastmasters.org/2024-2025-speech-contest-season/