Moving Right Along...

Coming back from the Fall Conference is a bit of a let down.  Of course there have been a few Toastmasters club meetings, including the BCP meeting last night.  Of course, moving into the Holiday season means that there aren't as many members or guests coming to the meetings, but that's too be expected.

One thing to note was the Area Governors call last night.  For all that they've been going on all along, this is the first time I've actually made the call.  Woo Hoo for me.  Ear Piece ran out of juice half way through, and had to finish the call holding the phone up to my ear.

I did get some good information to pass along to my clubs.  Train the Trainer will be offered in a couple of weeks, and the TLI will happen at the beginning of January.  Of course the Spring Conference is already planned.  We've made reservations at the resort (Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, NC), and I'm waiting for the conference registration to go up on the District 37 web site.

Fall Conference

Wow.  Busy weekend.

Drive to Fayetteville Friday afternoon.  Evening filled with evaluation contest, buffet dinner, and a Roast of former District Governor Sharon Hill.  I volunteered to be a judge, and I'm happy to state that my votes as a judge were spot on with the eventual 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.

After the Roast, I drove back to Cary, arriving about 11:40pm.  6 hours of sleep would have been enough, but the dog decided that she needed to wake me up at about 3:30am.   I wasn't able to immediately get back to sleep, and by the time the alarm woke me at 6:00am, I had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep.  This made Saturday interesting.  In spite of a big cup of coffee, and repeated cups during the day, I was dragging by the time I made it home.

Saturday morning started with the Parade of Banners, followed by a series of classes, Lunch, the District Business Meeting, the Humorous Speech Contest, Dinner, and presentation of Awards.  The only other thing of significance was the Silent Auction of gift baskets created by some of the clubs.  I bid on two baskets:  the first, a basket with assorted bath lotions and stuff, quickly exceeded my cost range.  The second, full of assorted goodies, I bid on a few minutes before the close of bidding.  $55 I ended up purchasing this basket for, with a posted retail price of about $190.  Fortunately, Pam wasn't too pissed off, since I gave it to here when I finally got home at 11:00pm

Meet the President

Last night, I attended the TechTalk Toastmasters club meeting.  In attendance was Toastmasters International President Michael Notaro.

I had a chance to speak with Mr. Notaro before the meeting, and I observed his interactions with other Toastmasters through the evening.  What struck me was the ease with which he displayed an interest in as many of the Toastmasters that he was able to, asking pertinent questions, and interacting appropriately.  I guess that if what enables one to become a leader.

Division I Contest

OK, I know that its an entirely different Division from mine, but last Saturday morning I swung over to NC State to attend another Toastmasters Contest.  This time it was Division I.  Very well attended, with no fewer than 37 attendees, with four each of Speaker and Evaluator contestants.  I did get to judge again (seems that Division I is even shorter of qualified Judges than H is).  Looking forward to the District 37 Conference

Division H Contest

Last night I participated in the Division H Humorous Speech and Evaluation contests.  The quality of speeches seems to be going up (as expected).  I had seen two of the three speeches before of course, but in both cases the speakers had polished their presentations.  I most enjoyed the third speaker, who I had not seen before.

The funny thing about the result is that in both contests, the eventual order of winners was just the opposite of what I had voted.  I.E.:  my first place prediction came in 3rd, and 3rd came in first.  Admittedly, my scoring from top to bottom was fairly tight, but it was amusing.

Now That Was A Contest!

Last night, we held the Area 84 Humorous Speech and Evaluation contest (Toastmaster District 37) at BCP Toastmasters. Great turnout!  We had four speakers and three evaluators (out a possible 5/5), and a total attendance of about 30.  The room was comfortably filled.  There were enough volunteers to take all the rolls so that I didn't need to do anything (except worry that all the paperwork was done, and make sure that everything got done).  We had FIVE great speeches (including the Target Speaker for the Evaluation contest).  Congratulation to all the contestants, and looking forward to the next level at Division H next week.

Area 83 Contest

Last night I attended the Area 83 contest.  If anything, it was even less well attended than Area 81.  Only 3 humorous speakers and one evaluator.  I do have to admit that the facilities were first rate (NetApp's cafeteria).

I'm hoping that the Area 84 contest next week is well attended.

Moderately Disappointing

This evening, I attended the Area 81 fall contest.  This area is one of the struggling areas in the area.  Although attendance was normal for an Area contest, there was no Humorous Speech contest, and only two Evaluators for the Evaluation contest.  I know that my wife's old club, PPD is one of the clubs belonging to this Area, and hasn't been meeting for the last year.  Not sure of the other Area 81 clubs.

Practice Makes Perfect

Tonight, I attended the Techtalk Toastmasters Evaluation Contest, where I was the target speaker for the second time this week.  Same speech (Paint the Wall) as before... fine tuned based on the comments I received at Power NAAAPsters.  Tonight, I learned more.  I begin to realize why professional speakers are so smooth.

Am I Getting The Hang Of This?

Tuesday, I presented not one, but two speeches.  What's more, they were two different speeches.  Best of all, I performed both speeches without notes.

OK, I did have notes for the first speech.  This speech, titled "Me, Myself, and I" was performed during lunch at Schnieder Electric Toastmasters for my Ice Breaker speech (2nd CC).  The outline notes were printed on the back of three sheets of paper with the words "Me", "Myself", and "I" in 144 point text (differing fonts).  I didn't have the entire text written out, and didn't really refer to the outline.

The second speech was this evening as the Target speaker at the Power NAAAPsters club Evaluation Contest.  This speech, titled "Paint the Wall" was performed without any notes (the printed sheet was sitting on the seat of my truck).  It went pretty well, and I will present the same speech on Thursday at TechTalk Toastmasters club Evaluation Contest.  I will also be having the speech evaluated then for speech # in the CC manual.

Fall DEC

Yesterday, I attended the District 37 2011 Fall DEC (District Executive Committee).  First time that I've gotten to one.  Interesting, and I got to meet a lot of my fellow Toastmasters.  A lot of District business was conducted, much having to do with the new procedures related to the Toastmaster re-branding.

I also spoke with Naomi Takeuchi, who is no only the District Lt. Gov of Education and Training, but is also a member of one of my clubs, Power NAAAPsters.  She is also the club Contest Master, and she asked if I could step up as the speaker for their Evaluation contest.  Of course I agreed, since I am already scheduled to do the same thing on Thursday for TechTalk.  I'll use the same speech, titled "Paint the Wall".

First Fall Contest

Yesterday afternoon, I attended B.C.P. Toastmasters fall Humorous Speech and Evaluation contest.  I sat as the chief judge, a role I haven't had before.  Our contest was very well represented, with five speaker and three evaluator contestants.  This is a far cry from the same contest three years ago where B.C.P. had one contestant... me... for both contests.  Kudos to all the contestants, and its great to see such enthusiasm of our members.  The speeches and evaluations were great!

Looking forward to the next contests!

Area Council and Gossip

Wednesday night, I met with some of the club officers from several of my Area clubs.  It was great to sit down with representatives from several clubs to trade ideas and begin to coordinate activities.

Thursday afternoon, I presented the final manual speech needed for my AC Gold.  The speech, titled GOSSIP, was Speech #4 out of the Interpretive Reading advanced manual.  Gossip was an adaptation of a play I found on the Internet, portraying the operations of a small town newspaper.  I thought it went pretty well, although I could always wish I had practiced (more).

Fill the Hole

Last night, I presented a speech by that title at Carylina Toastmasters.  I used it as speech #2 from my second Competent Communicator.  Didn't do as well as I'd hoped, but I'm still working on weaning myself off of notes.  Really, I need to practice my speeches more before I perform them.  Well, I get a chance on Thursday, when I'm presenting my final speech from the Interpretive Reading manual, "Gossip" (a play).

Reporting

This afternoon, I visited TechTalk Toastmasters at NetApp for my official club visit.  TechTalk is one of my strong clubs, with at least two DTM members.  Good, solid meeting with two speakers and table topics for four.  I spoke to the officers afterwards, and collected the information necessary to file my Area Governor club visit report. 

Of course, I can't file my report(s) yet, since the new Toastmasters International web site has lots of broken links, including the one for filing Club Visit reports.  Oh well, I've got until the end of October to file.  They should have things fixed by then, or everyone will be complaining.

You win some, you loose some

Ok, it really isn't a matter of winning and loosing...  yesterday, I had two Toastmasters meetings that I was scheduled to go to. 

The first was Schnieder Electric Toastmasters, in Knightdale.  This is the club I am mentoring.  Went off without a hitch, as expected.

The second, in the evening, was to Power Naaapsters.  Unfortunately, only contact with PN was via a 2 week old email....  and the only means of contact was with the club president, via email.   Needless to say, it didn't end well.  Hopefully I can reestablish (better) contact before their next meeting.

Club Visits this Week

Monday, I visited my original club, Carylina Toastmasters.  Strong Club (41 members on the books).

This morning (Wednesday), I visited another of my Area clubs, Talkers@Cisco.  This club looks like it has a fairly high turnover, but good membership in spite of that.

I expect that both of these clubs should make President's Distinguished this year.  (So will BCP if I have anything to say about it.)

Big Shoutout to TechTalk Toastmasters

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting of one of my area clubs, TechTalk Toastmasters, located on the NetApps campus in RTP.  TechTalk is one of those clubs that as an Area governor I won't have to worry about.  This last year, they were President's Distinguished, and there is no reason to think that they won't do so again this year.  They are a strong club, with three DTMs, plenty of members, and active recruiting.

Toastmasters Leadership Institute

This morning was District 37 TLI-East.  Lots of fun for Toastmasters who are interested in the Leadership Track. 

For those who aren't familiar with TLIs, those offered by District 37 include a session with officer training for the various officer roles (President, VP Education, etc.), as well as two additional session in which attendees are able to select from any of several (5 - 6) different classes on various topics.  This year, I was privileged to actual be a presenter (specifically, the Treasurer session), an I also attended sessions on How to Achieve Your DTM and Evaluate to Motivate.

Busy Busy

Yesterday, I was out at Schneider Electric Toastmasters in Knightdale.  Today, I was working out my handouts and lesson plan for this weekends TLI.  Tomorrow I am Toastmaster at my home club, B.C.P. 

A Toastmaster's work is never done.  :-)

Train the Trainer

I attended the Train the Trainer training today over at the Western Wake Library.  Looks like I'll be teaching the Treasurer Training at next week's TLI.

Signed Up

This morning, I signed up for the Train-the-Trainer session to be held this Saturday morning.  Purpose:  to become qualified to be a presenter at future TLI's.

Visited Talkers@Cisco

This morning, I took time from work to visit the Talkers@Cisco club.  I won't say that this is one of my struggling clubs, because they did get their DCP Select, and it looks like they have plenty of members and guests in attendance.  However, they didn't have a speaker lined up, and only one volunteered at the last minute.  Looks like a perfectly adequate club, but they need to work on their meetings.  I think I'll be making time to come back next month to see if I can help set them on the right path.

Visited Carylina Toastmasters

Yes, these are the folks who were my first Toastmasters club.  I served in three officer positions (SAA, Treas, VPE) during my time there. 

Part of my responsibilities as Area Governor is making sure that the clubs in my area achieve Distinguished status.  No worries with Carylina, since they are one of the strongest clubs in the state... over 40 members, and having achieved President's Distinguished for the last half dozen years.

Carylina presented three great speeches, including an ice breaker by a lady from India that you would swear was being presented by a CC!

5th Speech, Interpretive Reading Manual

Yesterday, I presented my 5th speech out of the Interpretive Reading manual, the Oratorical Speech, titled "The American's Who Risked Everything".  This was a historical rundown about the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  The speech I used was that made by Rush Limbaugh back at the 2008 GOP caucus.  Of course, when he made it, it lasted the better part of an hour, what with applause and so forth.  I figured from the transcript of the speech that as written, it would be around 25 minutes for me (minimum).  Since this project was for a 10 - 12 minute speech, I was forced to trim it down.  I did so, and even then needed to drop a paragraph near the end to bring it in at 12:20.  No loss, since this paragraph didn't really add much to the thrust of the speech.

My big problem as a speaker remains the fact that I prefer working from notes.  I know I can do it without, but I'm generally to lazy to do so.  As I begin to present speeches that count toward my 2nd DTM, I fully intend to get away from notes.

New Club Chartered Yesterday: Schneider Electric Toastmasters

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the Chartering Ceremony  for Schneider Electric Toastmasters in Knightdale.  I've been acting as one of the club mentors for the last few months, and will continue in that role for a few more. 

As with most newly formed clubs, I can see that they are going to struggle for a while as they get used to the typical Toastmaster procedures, but they seem to have a reasonably solid user base at their company.  If they can continue to recruit new members to replace their inevitable attrition, they should do fine.

Toastmasters District Officer Training Today

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=208752359163543

This training will tell me everything that I need to know about being an Area Governor...  I hope.  This will be the first year that I'll be taking this session.  Usually, it is offered in the afternoon of the same day that the club officer training is... (which training I have been through at least half a dozen times).  This year, it is on a separate day, at a separate location, due to facility scheduling conflicts.  Should be an interesting session.

Introducing.... ME!

Ok, I admit it.  I am a little late getting into the Blogging thing.  Yes, I was almost bleeding edge for Web Sites, back in the day of GeoCities and so forth, but I got away from it because... it was just too much trouble to maintain the sites.  Blogging on a site like Blogger.com takes a lot of the hassle away, and lets me blather on to my hearts content.

And this is certainly the place for general blathering.  Specifically, I'm going to blather about my organized blathering, i.e.: my activities in Toastmasters.  You see, I've been doing Toastmasters now for over four years, and you might say that I've gotten good at it.  But then again, you might say I haven't.  You decide.

I joined Carylina Toastmaster in February of 2007, as a man who has known that he should improve his speaking skills for a long time.  Well, now was the time.  As most new members did, I started working my way through the CC manual.  I finished in about 10 months, which is faster than some, slower than others.  I also let myself be conned... er, persuaded... to become the sgt-at-arms for the club, a position where I got to drag the club supplies too and from meetings for a year.

I continued the next year, earning the additional awards of ACB and CL, and filling the duties of Teasurer.  Of all the offices that I've held, that one is the biggest pain in the behind, even though it isn't that much work.  Admittedly, this is mostly because I'm not much for record keeping.  Someone like my wife would do so much better at it.  I also joined a second club, B.C. P. Toastmasters.

Third year, and I earned ACS and ALB, and held the office of V.P. Education for both clubs that I was a member of.  Yes, VPE does involve the most work of any club officer position, but unlike Treasurer, this was stuff I actually enjoyed doing.

Fourth year, I was elected as President of  BCP, and dropped out of Carylina due to time conflicts with a class I wanted to take.  I did step up to be a club mentor for a new club that is forming on the other side of town, Schnieder Electric Toastmasters.  No additional awards this year, but its mostly because I've been putting off finishing the ACG.  ALS, the highest award of the leadership track, requires that I hold a District office.

Which leads to the coming year.  Starting in a week (July 1), I will become the Area Governor for Area 84 of District 37.  This means that I will be coordinating with five clubs...  B.C.P., and Carylina, as well as three new clubs:  Power NAAAPsters, Talkers@CISCO, and Techtalk Toastmasters.  In addition to attending at least a few of these other club's meetings, I get to go to District meetings a few times a year.

Who am I?  A guy who has gotten fairly comfortable standing up in front of a group of strangers to talk.  For everything else, go look at my other blogs.