Feb. 17th, 2015 Theme: International Speech And Evaluation Contests

All language is a popularity contest. ~~ Erin McKean

Welcome to our semi-annual club contest meeting blog. On this day, we were delighted to welcome 7 guests.  

Jean was our toastmaster for the contests. In addition to providing a special written agenda, she also provided contest-like scoring sheets with tear-off voting preferences for each contest. The scoring sheet contained the criteria and suggested point values to distinguish the best in each contest category.

The meeting was conducted like an area level set of contests to give the winning contestants the experience of rehearsing for the area level contests.

The (Ga)T(e) single member team was: Jim as Timer.           

Naser was our only contest speaker of the afternoon. He completed his speech entitled "Cooking With Love" in 9:00 minutes. Consequently, he will go on to participate in the area-level International Speech contest.

In his speech, Naser described the changes that started when he became a first time father-to-be. He had never cooked before and decided to make it a goal for his wife and himself. He connected Life with Cooking as it had the qualities of creativity, passion, strong intention and Love. He humorously described the plight of his wife being unwilling to eat healthily, so he managed to disguise the healthy ingredients by preparing over-powering tastes to cover the healthy ingredients and evading announcing specific ingredients of the various meals to her. He came equipped with Apron and Spatula.

Naser is planning a different speech for the Area level International Speech contest, which we will see and hear in the next two weeks.

Towards the end of the meeting, Jean conducted a round-robin audience evaluation of Naser’s speech.

Melissa B. was the target speaker for the evaluation contest. Melissa is a member of the Canyon Park Echoes Toastmaster Club and kindly consented to speak here to let the evaluators focus on a new and outside speaker. Her speech was entitled: "25 Cents In The Therapy Jar".

Her very humorous and anecdotal speech allowed us to share in the experiences and the coping mechanisms involved with learning to be an effective mother. She labeled herself as a “Tiger Copter” mom (!), and later a “Let’s keep it Real” mom. She was completely focused on her son’s proper upbringing, no matter how responsibility-averse he tried to be.

 Robert was the first evaluator (determined by guessing the closest number to Jean’s chosen number.  He praised her delivery and various speech characteristics and recommended that she actually bring in a therapy jar with enough quarters in it to make noise.

 

Linda was the second evaluator (who, while deliberately outside the room, did not hear Robert’s evaluation). She offered praise for Melissa’s speech, body language, eye contact, and use of humor. She had several recommendations including slowing down in her speaking somewhat and also suggested bringing in a Therapy Jar as a prop.

Linda was voted the winner of the Evaluation contest and both She and Naser will go on to participate in the Area-level Contests on March 25, 2015 in the Seattle Times Building at 6PM.

                                                 

Each contestant was interviewed while the ballots were counted

All contestants were given Participation Certificates and the winners will receive personalized trophies with their name engraved.

.

Attendees were:  Lynne, Jean, Jim, Robert, Barb, Pauline, Alice, Jung, Grace, Amritha, Kimberley, Jessica, Naser, Linda along with guests: Diana W., Victoria W., Myrna R, Barbara R., David P., Anisha A. and Melissa B.  Anisha, one of our guests, joined our club today.  Our membership total is now at 23.

~~~~~ Respectfully Submitted by Robert, the Secretary [You’re invited to comment] ~~~~~

Feb. 10th, 2015 Theme: Success

80% of success consists of just showing up. ~~ Woody Allen

Welcome to our 6th meeting of the year and this Blog. Today, we had the pleasure of receiving 6 guests. Jean acted as president since Linda was away at the U.S.-Asia Education Winter Summit Conference.

Amritha was our toastmaster. She told about the ingredients for success. She made the point that success is not a consequence of smartness or luck. Her success acronym:
See your goal;
Understand the obstacles;
Create a positive mental picture;
Clear your mind of self-doubt;
Embrace the challenge;
Stay on track;
Show the world you can do it.

She also recommended a Ted Talk by Richard St. John that offered the secrets of real success.

The GAT(e) team was: Lynne as Grammarian (achieve), Jung as "Ah" Counter, Kimberley as Timer.      

                                                                

Robert was our first speaker of the afternoon. He completed the 1st project (The Entertaining Speech) from the Advanced Entertaining Speaker Manual in 8:30 minutes. His speech title was "Blogging for Profit, Duty and Fun". As introduced by Amritha, the word blog (originally web log) was defined as an easily updatable, online, interactive, dated diary.

In his speech, Robert described his 3 blog efforts. The one for profit was his Erasable Games blog (erasablegames.com/blog) where, during 2007-2008, he produced 84 weekly cartoons and descriptions of many different Sudoku puzzle variations.  His handout showed the cartoon evolution between the first and last blog post. Throughout his talk, he offered several blog quotes that were appropriate to each of the blog efforts he undertook.

His current blog activities include the weekly toastmaster blog update (as meeting secretary) on publicspeakingnorthwest.blogspot.com (which you are now reading) and a Math and Computing blog (arkaye.com/blog) where he writes about accessible math and computing topics (e.g. the constant π (pi) ). 

Naser was his evaluator. Naser explained his utter delight in being able to respond to his wife’s questioning: What happened at the toastmaster meeting? Naser: Please read the toastmaster blog and look at my pictures. He was very grateful for Robert’s consistent attention to detail in describing the meeting. Because Robert used papers in his talk to accurately speak quotes from time to time, he suggested that the papers be put down when not quoting. He also suggested that Robert could increase audience understanding by talking louder.  

Naser won as best evaluator (tie).

Our second speaker, Alice, completed her 6th project (Vocal Variety), from the Competent Communication Manual in 6:40 minutes. The name of her speech was "Hear What You Hear". Alice introduced her talk by quoting (“mimicking”) children about their writings and being interrupted. 

She said that listening is input and speaking is output. She explained that it is very important not to interrupt and/or jump to (erroneous) conclusions. 

We interrupt because:

• We are smart

• We are eager to help

• We are forgetful, so we must (over)talk now.

It is important to patiently listen and be curious, since the other person’s end of the conversation may surprise you. Since we have 2 ears and 1 mouth, we should listen more than we speak. Listening shows love and caring.

Alice was voted best speaker.

Dave was Alice’s evaluator. Dave appreciated Alice’s variation with her speech patterns and her good eye contact with the many members of the audience. He empathized with her as he recalls his wife finishing his sentences for him (and sometimes incorrectly). He liked the excellent points Alice made about listening. He was positively impressed with her dignity, poise and great presence as she spoke. He suggested that perhaps she could move around rather than be at a single comfort spot.

Dave won as best evaluator (tie).

In harmony with today’s theme, Jim, the Table Topics Master, provided a collection of questions relating to success, chosen by number (1-5). Three improvisers variously talked about who is more successful, John F. Kennedy or Bill Gates; Most inspiring successful person: Abraham Lincoln; What success can be achieved in Toastmasters?  Naser, responded by talking about Alice In Wonderland being led by the special cat, and was our best table topics speaker.

Jean recognized Grace as having given her Icebreaker speech (and translating it into Cbinese) at yesterday’s Toastmaster segment at the U.S.-Asia Education Winter Summit Conference in Seattle.  See the February 9, 2015 blog post, below, for a summary of that meeting.

Attendees were:  Lynne, Jean, Jim, Robert, Barb, Pauline, Alice, Jung, Grace, Amritha, Kimberley, Dave, Naser along with guests: Diana W., Jessica K., Echo L., Kyle Y, Anisha A. and Divi P.  Jessica and Diana, two of our guests, joined our club today.  Our membership total is now at 22.

~~~~~ Respectfully Submitted by Robert, the Secretary [write now – in a comment] ~~~~~

Public Speaking Northwest Participation in U.S. Asia Education Winter Summit

Today, 8 members of our club took part in the U.S. Asia Education Winter Summit held for 3 days starting on February 9, 2015 at the Nexus Hotel in Seattle, WA (Northgate).

Starting about noon, Linda introduced the idea of Toastmasters to the parents and teenagers in the audience who are planning college careers in Washington, far from their China homeland.

She described her own experience and her significantly increased confidence, ability to lead and fluency in speaking English. Linda also demonstrated her ability to translate into Chinese what the rest of the Toastmaster panel said, as she posed a question to each of them. Each Toastmaster spoke for about 1-2 minutes in table topics style. 

Grace, effectively, offered her first two speeches, one in English and one in Chinese translation. Barb completed the session by inviting all those interested to attend our meetings starting tomorrow.

Although the time duration was only 20 minutes, the audience reaction was positive and highly receptive. This carried over into the lunch period where we dined among 18 people at a long table at the Saffron Grill.

Members attending included: Jim, Jean, Robert, Barb, Lynne, Grace, Jung and Linda. I expect there to be more guests visiting our regular meetings in the weeks to come from this conference.

~~~~~ Respectfully Submitted by Robert, the Secretary [ It's OK to comment] ~~~~~

Feb. 3rd, 2015 Theme: Transitions

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. ~~ Isaac Asimov

Welcome to February and this Blog. Today, we had the pleasure of receiving 3 guests. Kathy was our toastmaster. She described how we are all affected by changes due to transitions..

The GATE team was: Linda as Grammarian (consequential), Grace as "Ah" Counter, Amritha as Timer and Jean as the General Evaluator.

Naser was our first speaker today. He completed the 5th project (Your Body Speaks) from the Competent Communication Manual in 10 minutes. His speech title was "Procrastination – The Ideal Behaviour". In his speech, Naser examined the irrational delay of behavior which is called procrastination. In his questioning of the audience, he discovered that the entire audience admitted to procrastination but only one person (me) thought it was a good thing.

The virtues of procrastination were enumerated: prioritizing more pleasurable activities over less pleasurable ones; in the time of Cicero, sitting around and thinking and deciding only when absolutely necessary was considered virtuous. Procrastinators are thrill-seekers, optimistic, perfectionistic and excellent excuse makers. These characteristics lead to a life of adventure.
Naser was voted best speaker.

Jim was his evaluator. Jim liked the humor, the rhetorical Q & A with the audience, and the gestures made by Naser. He suggested that his body movements could be further exaggerated by loosening up to accent the humor of the situation when talking about his wife’s reaction to his weekend relaxation. 

Jim won best evaluator for the insightful review rife with body language of his own.

Our second speaker, Dave, completed his second project (Organize Your Speech), from the Competent Communication Manual in 7 minutes. The name of his speech was "Don’t Stand Too Close To The Financial Ledge". Dave introduced the Financial Ledge as a metaphor for minimal (less than 3 months worth) or no savings, minimal account reserves just prior to receiving the next paycheck, and described 3 remedies for this plight.

• Having a personal budget (balancing how much money comes in and goes out)

• Having an emergency fund (providing up to a 3 month income cushion)

• Paying off debts. (Reducing the Debt Snowball) Paying off those debts with the highest interest rate first to minimize the amount of interest added on or paying off smallest debts first for a sense of accomplishment in having fewer debts.

Lynne was Dave’s evaluator. She acknowledged that the ultimate audience for this speech is to be college students (next week). She agreed that Dave did produce a well-organized speech, backed by a clear power point presentation and that he offered 3 ways to step away from the financial ledge. She liked how he distinguished between needs and wants when deciding whether to buy anything. She suggested that the entire audience be included and asking questions of them to increase their involvement with the speaker.

In conformance with today’s theme, Pauline, the Table Topics Master, provided a handout identifying a variety of transitions and strategies for responding to change, particularly when unprepared for it. A number of impromptu speakers variously talked about somewhat painful changes involving civilian to military life, long distance moves, becoming a mother, strengthening a marriage, and becoming pregnant.

 Jean was our best table topics speaker.

Jean was our also our General Evaluator. She noted positively the warm welcome given to our trio of guests, and for their benefit, explained what Toastmasters is about. She complimented Kathy about providing a clear agenda and smoothly updating the roles for today, and explaining the transition theme. While Pauline the table topics master offered an excellent handout, the format of one question for all participants offered too much time for speakers after the first one, making it successively easier for subsequent speakers. The physical room arrangement could be improved by moving the audience’s U-shaped tables further away from the projector/computer table so the speaker could see the entire audience and be seen by them. She also suggested that applause occur with every transition of a new speaker to the lectern area.

Attendees were: Linda, Lynne, Jean, Jim, Robert, Pauline, Alice,  Jung, Grace, Amritha, Kathy, Dave, Naser along with guests Cathy Z., Jessica K. and Morgana T. Two of the three guests discovered us via Meetup.com and the other via Toastmasters International. Our membership total remains at 20.

~~~~~ Respectfully Submitted by Robert, the Secretary [say what you will – in a comment] ~~~~~