Club meeting turned into area award ceremony

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Tradition of Excellence
RDU Toastmasters continues its strong tradition of developing club members into leaders for Toastmasters International beyond the club level. Part of that tradition is using that achievement and experience to motivate and inspire members in the home club at RDU Toastmasters. One example is the meeting on Dec-15, 2009 which featured an award ceremony for the President Distinguished Area Award presented to Sue Breitsprecher, RDU Toastmasters Member, Toastmasters District 37, Area 52 Governor. Success continues to breed success at RDU Toastmasters, and represented areas.

Award presented by Kimberly Langley, RDU Toastmasters Member, Toastmasters District 37, Division E Governor

Comments from Sue in accepting award

“I enjoyed being an Area Governor for the 2008-2009 Toastmasters year. I learned a lot about the different clubs and met many interesting people while serving in that role. I organized Speech Contests and watched a number of superb Toastmasters compete in the Humorous and International Speech contests.
One of the requirements of AG is to visit the clubs and make sure they are following the Distinguished Club Plan. Attending other clubs’ meetings helped me learn new ways to conduct meetings and Table Topics that I have shared with our club to add some variety. I hope the things I have learned have not just benefited myself but also helped OUR club to learn and grow. Visiting clubs also gave me insight to ‘club personalities’ which are very unique. Some clubs are more serious, one club I had was funny. It seemed all their members delivered their table topics and speeches with a funny flair even the role of Toastmaster interjects a well timed zing or two.

The people that I met through my role as AG will be friends for a long time and was one of the best aspects of that position. Toastmasters is all about helping others and fellow AG’s and the Division Governor helped with achieve this award. Their support at different times during my service were invaluable to me. Reminds me of a saying that Frank Andrassy often refers to…’You can have everything you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.’”

Special thanks to Kevin for bringing in lunch, Jeannie for the chocolate treat, Sylvia’s son for the home-made cookies, Kimberly for presenting the award; and to all members who attended and helped organize the event.

RDU Toastmasters International Humorous Speech Contest, September 22, 2009

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Contribution by VP of Public Relations, 2009

RDU Toastmasters has a storied tradition of success in speech competitions, and the speakers participating in today’s club contest delivered entertaining speeches you expect to hear in a division, or area contest.  I have been in Toastmasters for 4 years; and have never been more proud of the speeches and evaluations delivered today.

The value of a Toastmaster’s education is put on display during competition, and it’s a rewarding experience for everyone.  The participants gave some of their best performances and used the tools learned through active club participation.  The speeches were to be judged independent of each other on various criterea including speech development, effectiveness, speech value, audience response, physical language, voice, manner, appropriateness, and correctness.

The Speeches

The first speech was by Silvia who shared the big sister perspective on having a younger sibling, a baby brother.  While Silvia is classified as a “grown-up”, her antics and story of being a bratty big sister were wildly entertaining, and all of us with siblings (older and younger) could relate.  The highlight to me was the image she painted of how she hoped to treat this new born baby brother like a rag doll, and it reminded me of the Tiny Toon’s character El Mira.

The second speech was by Jeannie about the challenges of learning English as a second language.  Her special brand of humor through observation had all of us laughing at ourselves, as english speakers.  The highlight to me was the story of interpreting the eastern north carolinian pronunciation of the name “Jim” for whom an acquantance said he worked.  Though he said “Jim”, she heard “GM” and went on and on about working for General Motors while her US-born daughters had a good laugh.

The third speech by Tom was quite a performance, using imagery, nostalgia, singing, and impersonations.  Tom somehow related a brilliant sunset to drinking the night away with an Irish man at a bar.  The highlight was his Irish impersonation of a gentlemen who challenged him in a toast-off to the greatest gameshow hosts of their time.  This is a challenge you just don’t win; until you tell the story years later to the laughter of the crowd.

Behind the Scenes

Before the speech, Jeannie shared her concern that she might go blank during her speech.  And after delivering a flawless speech, she briefly forgot her closing statement.  It took less than a couple seconds to recall the line, however the question remains whether this was a self-fulfilling prophecy by stating the concern aloud?  We may never know for sure, but from my experience; sharing concerns aloud prior to a speech can be a calming device for some including myself.  Even seasoned speakers like President Obama take long pauses to collect thoughts and sometimes it’s unavoidable, and is a scenario Toastmasters helps overcome by transforming into a dramatic pause adding further value to the coming statement!

At the conclusion, there were interviews given by the contest master.  Sue, the evaluation contest winner, shared the challenge of not being able to prepare.  Jennie shared with us that words of foreign origin can be some of the hardest to learn in a new language; Silvia shared that her “slow” and “clumsy” brother turned out to be an engineer!; and Tom shared that this speech was on such a profound experience, he did not even have to write it down!

Top finishers will go on to compete in the division level next week September 30 at 6:30pm at Cameron Village Library in Raleigh, NC.

Special thanks to all participants, club members in attendance, the contest master Frank, Chief Judge Jeri, Ballot counter Kevin, and Timer Margeret.

Journey to competency awards with KSchnatter

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Questions prepared by VP of Public Relations 2008.

Award(s) from Toastmasters International to date
CC & CL

Most challenging speech or project
The most challenging speech dealt with explaining table saw safety. What made it challenging was describing the physics to the non-technical and to deal with the props I brought with me.

Most memorable speech or project
I think most people enjoyed by speech about my family’s mishaps on our family vacation to Disney World and Louisiana with our pull camper.

Where do you feel you have most improved leading up to your award(s)
I think that my public speaking has greatly improved, even in the situations where I thought I had not had the time to prepare as well as I would have liked.

What advice do you have for members of rdu-toastmasters working towards similar recognition
Keep at it. Make goals for yourself to achieve the awards. Put yourself on the schedule and try to maintain your commitment. Remember that the more you put in, the more you will get out of it.