Last week we had a great meeting lead by our seasoned Toastmaster Angela. Her theme was to Compete to Speak. Throughout the meeting she reminded us of an important speaking competition going on now in the US presidential race. Then, Nancy lead us through a competitive Table Topics session where we explained why we chose certain careers: taxi driver, investment banker, fireman. Allen was the most competitive and most heroic winning the competition as he described his job as a fireman. Our Quotemaster had to “think of her feet” when she thought her role was quiz master. But she did a great job reminding us the importance of and then showing us how to think and dance on our feet with a smile. Great job Daisy. All other functional roles did a seasoned job. And our word of the day was….seasoned.
We had two great speeches, one by Jason Jiao and the other an educational speech by Liu Bing. Jason broke the ice between us by giving us lots of details about his life: married (sorry ladies), has a son; works at CITS. Afterwards, Liu Bing educated us with some tips on the why, what and how we can give prepared speeches better. As we’ll be having our prepared speeches competition Mar12th his speech was timely. Some of his tips were:
- Keep it simple and clear – 5-7 minutes does not allow us to talk all about the Song dynasty. Focus on one aspect that you can cover within the allotted time.
- Mindmapping is a good way to get ideas - during your preparations, write your topic in the middle of a page, then map out from it and write down other things associated. This free association is a nice way to brainstorm many ideas about your topic.
Well done.
CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Club dues for next term to be paid before mar 15 to our Treasurer Allen.
If you want more details about our meeting read on…
Read more »
Last night Liu Bing led us through a relaxing meeting. As his theme was to “Relax” to help ease us into the New Year. Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai! He started by asking everyone how they liked to relax and the ideas varied: from doing yoga and drawing; watching TV; playing with a new hobby of having a 3 month old baby. It was a great and relaxing way to get everyone into the meeting.
We also had a surprise and special guest from Shanghai, Cate, join our meeting. It’s always relaxing when Cate is there.
Our GE for the night, CK, led an inspired and fresh evaluation team of: Timer – Jason Jiao, who did a great job keeping us on track and explaining and holding up the cards; Wordsmith – Hong, who brought us a fundamental important word of the day, “fundamental” (or how Rolf pronounces it FUNdamental); Ah Counter – Daisy, did a great job listening for Ahs and Uhms to help us speak clearer and cleaner as she caught one member with 25 ahs. Well done GE team!
Our Table Topics leader, Susan Song, challenged us to described how we relaxed during Spring Festival using certain things like: Nancy and her son playing with firecrackers, Matt watching a relaxing movie (Titanic), and Joe relaxing his way through New Years Day (Feb7th) by doing nothing. Our Quotemaster, Yoly, gave us an inspring quote from an unexpected source, Ben Affleck’s blockbuster movie, Gone Baby Gone. The quote was, “Everybody wants to know the truth, until they find it.” Afterwards, Joe gave his usually stellar TT evaluation, by giving tough but loving feedback and tips.
To read Joe’s tips and to see the prepared speakers please read on below…
CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- Next week will be the start of our educational month on Prepared speeches. It will end in Mid-March with a Prepared Speech competition (5-7 minute speech, any project, any topic). So start preparing now.
- Agenda changes: a) Prepared speeches include project objective remember to also include the project objective (ie project ACB1 Entertaining Speaker, title: A Toast to Remember) so the audience will know the objective of the speech before she starts; and b) Ballot Counting/Awards will be moved to after the GE report, so we will do Role Call before the awards. This way members can listen fully during the GE team’s report then rip and vote during Role Call. We can also include all the GE team in the functional voting.
- TM Magazines: The club will hold your magazine for 3 months time. As they take up a lot of space in our supplies bag, if we hold them longer we’ll need to buy a new bag. After 3 months, we will open them up and give them to guests as a PR tool. So, remember to pick up your magazines.
- Competent Leader manual – remember to keep bringing this manual. So we can all work on our leadership skills.
Read more »
Happy new year Toastmasters,
I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. I also want to remind everyone that we will be having a regular meeting this Wednesday, Feb13th, led by our VP Education Liu Bing. I hope to see and hear you then.
For more details see his email below:
Dear Global Communicators,
I’m sure you all are busy embracing the coming Mouse Spring Festival, as a Toastmaster of next meeting, let me announce our agenda and theme.
our theme for the meeting is: Relax.
Spring Festival is about gathering and enjoying the gathering, while relaxed feeling is the natural result of them. Please devote your heart to your relaxing, and share that feeling when we come together.
I will send out remind on Feb.11, we have Ah-counter open, if you want it please let me know by then.
Meeting role details are:
Meeting Date: 2-13-2008
Read more »
