January 12, 2015 Club Meeting

Chamber Speakers Circle Toastmasters

January 12, 2015

Attendees: David N., Samya, Aditi, David K., Suzanne, Randy, Kira, Lief, Martin, Annamarie, and Kira

Guests: None

Theme of the day:  Impromptu

Word of the day:  “Improvise”

Lefteris was the Toastmaster; David N. was the General Evaluator; Annamarie was the Grammarian, Aditi was the Ah Counter, Kira was the Vote Counter, and Martin was the Timer.

Samya opened the meeting and made the announcement about holding our club contest.  There will be two categories; 1) The Tall Tales Contest for anyone of the members, and 2) The International Speech Contest for members that have given at least six speeches.

Speaker #1:  David K., Project #2 – “Conquering Fears”        

David opened his speech with the quote, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

The fear of public speaking is up at the top for most people.  One way to conquer fear is to build our confidence.  David gave three basic points to build our confidence.

1.    Ability and skill – Practice to develop your skills. 

2.    Body Language – When you are nervous it shows in your body movements.  No eye contact, jittery, speak quickly, etc.  To counteract this, imagine taking a “Wonder Woman” pose for two minutes before going on stage.  Bring air into your lungs.

3.    Visualization – Visualize giving your speech with a calm and confident air.

Speaker #2:  Annamarie, Project #10 – “The Value of Leadership - Going and Showing the Way”       

After attending a Leadership Conference, Annamarie discovered what it meant to be a good leader.  The most significant impact you will make is by guiding people, show them the way.  The most important person is the one in front of you.

Annamarie told the story of the Monkey King.  I am their king.  She then made the distinction between “sacrifice” vs. a “figure head”.  Annamarie then talked about a foundation that she was involved with, where the leader was a figure head.  She said that coming to Toastmaster “was a savior to her”.  Annamarie discovered the importance of delegating.  She became an officer and was surprised that she could fully participate as a new member of the team.  Annamarie found that the only hope for leadership is to continuously allow “new blood” to participate.  Leadership is to know the way, go the way and then show the way.

Table Topics:  Samya was the Table Topics Master. Questions were asked around of the theme of the meeting.

David N. called on his team of evaluators.

Evaluator #1:  Lief evaluated David K.  Lief opened by stating the objectives and saying that David met each one of them.  He was well organized and had a good use of props.  It helped to illustrate the points that he was making.  Lief suggested that perhaps David could have a little stronger ending because the beginning and body of the speech were very strong.  Overall, the speech was excellent and gave us something to think about.

Evaluator #2:  Suzanne evaluated Annamarie.  Suzanne said that Annamarie’s speech was very thought provoking.  She had not heard of that distinction made before about leadership being sacrifice vs. figurehead.  Annamarie was well organized and her examples coordinated with her speech well.  She gave us clear examples of what a figure head style was like and then gave us her experience with Toastmasters.  It was suggested that Annamarie develop a way of utilizing the stage that is not as rhythmic in nature.  When one goes back and forth on the stage in a rhythmic way, it can tend to lull the listener.  Her delivery was so articulate that it did, however, counteract this effect.  Annamarie’s topic was easy to relate with and her delivery was very engaging.

Samya closed the meeting.