ANZ Talk of the Town Toastmasters Newsletter #3

ANZ Talk of the Town Toastmasters – Newsletter #3

July was a pivotal month with numerous achievements to mention.

Firstly – we wish to extend congratulations to Jasmine Zhang, who completed her first ten speeches and will now be progressing to the Advanced Communication series.  Her 10^th speech on achieving her career goal was inspiring and remarkable – more on this later.

Next, we wish to congratulate David Tasker for coming 1st place in the State Championships for Tanguette (a type of a tango).  David will be competing again in three weeks time – we wish you all the best David!

Third – we had a record number of guests attending this session.  Whilst we have capped our membership until August, we encourage the Guest to continue attending as Guests, while suggesting other clubs they can attend to (that are currently taking members).

Lastly, on a sadder note – we farewell Julius Liunardi, who has returned to Indonesia.

Toastmasters – 5 July 2010

Nikkho Shandittho was the Chairman for the evening.  Rachel Seo delivered her Round Robin topic, which was ‘Is marriage necessary in our life today?”  Understandably this led to varied audience response, with married men in the audience saying they had thought of this during their Bachelor years, to married/attached women saying it depended on whether you met the right person.  Another person in the audience had an entirely different viewpoint where they didn’t believe in the Western notion of ‘love’ and instead favouring arranged marriage.    

For the Table Topics questions, Maya Kawashima delivered the following questions and selected the following people to answer:

Hugh – If you have recently been elected as Australia’s Prime Minister, what would be your key policy focus and why?

George (Guest) – If you are a Masterchef contestant and were asked to make your mother’s favourite dish, what would that be and why?

Dave Stewart – If you had the ability to ‘turn back time’, what period of your life would you go back to and why?

Grace (Guest) – What is the best book that you’ve ever read?

Frank – Where is your ideal holiday destination?

Ashish – If you have the option of pursuing a career change, what would that be and why?

Hugh spoke of focusing on health as the Prime Minister, as this is an area that affects all Australians.  George reminisced his mother’s meatloaf, and described the delicious sauce that accompanied it.  Dave’s ideal ‘turning back time’ was to his university days as a carefree Drama student.  Grace’s favourite book was ‘Gone with the Wind.’  Frank’s perfect holiday destination was Europe (and even describing the ‘glow’ of Europe on google map as being one of the key motivation behind his desire to visit there!).  Lastly, Ashish’s desired career change path was to open up his own business from his current IT profession.

We wish to mention special commendations to the guests George and Grace, who bravely answered all the questions without hesitation.  Also a huge commendation to Ashish who volunteered to answer the Table Topic question and did so with ease and confidence.

The following Prepared Speeches were:

Fan Gunawan                                                “Why is Breakfast so Important?”

Yau Yau (Icebreaker)                                 “Best of Both Worlds”

Jasmine Zhang (10^th speech)              “Embracing Change”

May Mei (Icebreaker)                                 “My Life”

Fan highlighted the importance of eating breakfast, particularly fibre and protein, and how eating these can increase your concentration levels.  Next, Yau Yau spoke of her upbringing in both Hong Kong and Australia, and how she feels privileged to have experienced both cultures.  Jasmine spoke of her determination in becoming a Financial Planner and how she overcame obstacles in achieving her goal.  Finally, May Mei spoke of studying Acupuncture in China and becoming a Registered Acupunctural Medical Practitioner in Australia, where she enjoys helping people reach optimal health. 

The following Evaluators were:

Wilmar Lay – evaluating Fan’s speech

Kevin Mitchell – evaluating Yau’s speech

David Tasker – evaluating Jasmine’s speech

Hugh Kilpatrick – evaluating May’s speech

 

Wilmar commended Fan’s use of statistics to demonstrate her argument and for her story-telling abilities.  Kevin Mitchell congratulated Yau Yau on her ease with the audience and delivering her speech with limited use of notes (for a First Timer!).  David complimented Jasmine’s passion and using many personal anecdotes, which strengthened her connection with the audience.  Lastly, Hugh praised May Mei for ‘having a go’ second time round with her Ice Breakers Speech and subsequently delivering an outstanding speech.

The winners for the evening were:

Best Table Topic                   David Stewart

Best Prepared Speech        Jasmine Zhang

Best Evaluator                       David Tasker

Vox Pop with Al Bradtke

1) What made you join Toastmasters?

A crippling fear of public speaking!

I did a short Toastmasters course and, at the end of it, they recommended joining a club so I didn’t stop practicing my public speaking and lose the skills I had learned. Being a slack beast at the best of times I didn’t join a club and sure enough lost all the skills and confidence I had developed. A year later I sucked up my courage and joined ANZ Talk of the Town.   

2) What aspect of Toastmasters do you find particularly rewarding?

Kevin’s tin of biscuits. Also performing a speech well.  

3) Your most memorable speech – the title, and what was it about? (in 2 sentences!)

Pug Puppies 2009. About how I want a pug because they are so funny looking and how my wife won’t let me get one (because they are so funny looking).

 

4) What is the greatest fear that you have overcome? (aside public speaking!)

Just public speaking (and that’s still a work in progress)!

5) Who do you most admire and why?

Comedian Tony Martin. One of the funniest people alive, with a disturbing knowledge of obscure films and TV shows.

 

6) What do you like to do in your spare time?

Rock climbing, reading Proust and taking long walks along the beach. Failing that I like to sit at home and play Xbox.  

7) Something about you that no one really knows?

I’m a former cub scout of the year (Deepdene 1989).
Upcoming Toastmasters events (external)

 

Volunteers needed for various club contests (We help them, they help you).

Put your hand up as a Judge for various contests.

Clubs are requesting for Judges in their Humorous and Evaluation contests. If you haven’t done this before or have not attended the workshop, simply let them know – they’ll be happy for your help.

City Centre TM (same club location as us), require three more Judges / Guest Speaker and a Contest Chair.  Monday 26th July, ANZ Building, 4th level 100 Queen Street, Melbourne.  Time: 6-8, contact Jess jessica.cerejo@gmail.com or Trudy T.Rundle@mitsui.com

Happy Hour Toastmasters Club – Judges needed for the ‘Evaluation and Humorous speech contest’!!

Wednesday 4th August from 5.10 to 7.15pm at 50 Lonsdale Street in the CBD

David Murphy, the VPE of Happy Hour Toastmasters Club for judges for their Evaluation and Humorous speech contest will be held on Wednesday 4th August from 5.10 to 7.15pm at 50 Lonsdale Street in the CBD.  Contact Tania tania.wilson@yahoo.com.au for more details.

Judging and Contest chair workshop:

Saturday July 24th. Starts at 12:30pm and finishes at 4:30pm.

The workshop will be held at the Liardet Community Centre on corner of Lairdet and Nott Streets, Port Melbourne. Melways ref. 2J E4.

We need to know number so we can have the right number of handouts, don’t want you to miss out.  There is a cost of $10.00 that covers tea, coffee and biscuits. The $10.00 will be collected at the door on the day. A receipt will be given.

You can contact Adrienne at adrienneb52@gmail.com or the “Corporal of T&E” at terry@barridge.net or phone 0419318981

 Next meeting

Monday 19 July

**See you there!!**

ANZ Talk of the Town Newsletter #2

Toastmasters Newsletter Edition #2

Welcome to the second edition of the Toastmasters Newsletter!

We commenced the month of June very well with several new faces present at our club. Whilst this has been good news, we have actually capped our membership limit until August this year. This has unfortunately meant that we’ve had to turn away several attendees from becoming members 😦 Nevertheless, we’ve encouraged them to continue attending as guests, or to attend alternative Toastmasters clubs. Some of the feedback from our guests have been extremely positive.  Tej (a Guest) commented, “I can say I was impressed with how everyone tried to help each other and were very welcoming to guests, and also with the feedback mechanisms to help people improve.”

Obviously these are some of the key aspects of Toastmasters: to help improve each other’s public speaking skills in a very supportive environment, whilst becoming more confident with our own public speaking abilities. These were some of the themes covered at the annual Metropolitan Division Club Officer Training (District 73) titled ‘Exceed Expectations’ on Monday 28 June, which was attended by Jess Cerejo, Caitlin McMahon, Tania Wilson, Maya Kawashima and Kevin Mitchell, held at the Australian Post Office Centre on Bourke St. Bert Naik the Division Governor charismatically delivered the Welcome Address. He emphasised on the importance of collective decision making in order to come to an agreeable consensus, and how always sticking to one’s own point can be dangerous and counterproductive.

We then broke into our respective Vice President Groups. My group (Vice President Public Relations) spoke about how to better promote Toastmasters to the wider community and how each of the clubs could increase the membership rate. Whilst we at the ‘ANZ Talk of the Town Toastmasters’ have capped our membership, Jess and I believe this is a good opportunity to grow as a group internally, where members can get to know each other better. Some of our suggestions to faciliate this include:

– Organise trivia nights

– Give feedback and suggestions on this newsletter – whilst I write this newsletter, remember this is YOUR paper – I am open to hearing what else you’d like to see on it

– Create a Linkedin group (more on this to follow) – Keep updated on events pertaining to Toastmasters District 73 (covers VIC, WA, SA, and TAS): http://www.d73.toastmasters.org.au If you have any other ideas, please let Tania, Jess, Ajit, Pallavi, Hugh, Kevin or Maya know – we would be delighted to hear from you!

Toastmasters Mon 21 June, 2010

There were over 20 members in attendance. Chris Greig was the Chairperson for the evening, and started by delivering JKF’s famous quote, “Ask not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Chris then asked us to think of powerful quotes ourselves, to which none of us could match Chris’! The Word of the Day was ‘Temperament’.

Frank Chan delivered the Round Robin topic, which was, “We spend too much money on buying things that we don’t need in order to impress people we do not like.” Many of the women and men in the audience laughed and related well to that saying, with (both) gender admitting to doing this on a regular basis because either a) the items were on sale, b) they wanted to impress the opposite sex, or c) because of peer pressure. Others took a step further – one Guest cynically commented on doing this all the time, particularly at after-work drinks where they buy drinks for those whose names are almost instantly forgotten and whom the Guest would never see again.

Ajit delivered the Table Topics for the evening and selected the following people:

Jess – “If you could design an Australian flag, what would it look like?”

Tej (Guest) – “What does the colour of peace look like to you?”

Grant (Guest) – “What is the worst lie you have ever told?”

David – “What are the lyrics of your favourite song?”

Nikkho – “How do you explain to your partner that running your car into the garage was a good idea?”

Chris – “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Jess spoke eloquently of a picture of an Australian flag that she drew in primary school, which consisted of the Ayers Rock with the Southern Cross stars above it. Tej described multiple colours that reflected peace and also different types of moods. Grant wryly reminded us that ‘lying is an integral part of us’ and how we (mainly) lie to protect other people from knowing what we really think of them and vice versa! David spoke passionately about his love of lyrics by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter. Nikkho pictured a scenario where he won $20M on a Germany-New Zealand soccer bet, and how running his car into the garage was a good idea after all. Lastly, Chris asked rhetorically, “My question is not so much why the chicken crossed the road, but what was it doing there in the first place?”

For the ice-breakers, we had Maya Kawashima, Ashish Khurana, Jim Tan and May Mei. Maya spoke of her upbringing in Japan and Serbia, her current life in Australia, and some of the lessons learnt along the way. Ashish passionately spoke about his upbringing in Singapore and aptly described this metropolis. Jim delivered a humorous speech on his upbringing in Malaysia, and how he moved to the ‘money jungle’ of Australia in order to find his ‘money honey’. Lastly, May gave us a picture of her acupuncture study in China.

VOX POP with…Jessica Rose Cerejo 1

) When did you join Toastmasters and why?

I joined in January 2009 to perform well prepared speeches with more impact, and to rid of any slurring.

2) What aspect of Toastmasters do you find particularly rewarding?

Self development opportunities and meeting people. I particularly like how most high profile management positions across the world acknowledge and respect the Toastmasters organisation; and the fact that Toastmasters isn’t JUST about speaking – the leadership component is a great way to grow my leadership skills in a professional setting.

3) What is your most memorable speech given?

Last year at the humorous contest – I learnt so much despite being 5 minutes over time and I had an absolute ball!

4) What is the greatest fear that you have overcome? (aside public speaking!)

Singing in public. I have a terrible signing voice so I joined a choir for 5 sessions last year to overcome this fear. Maybe that could be my next speech!? I am yet to overcome my fear of ball sports! I am still scarred from my childhood. When I was 10 years old I was watching the boys playing football. I quickly learnt that standing near the goals posts wasn’t a wise move. I thought I was nearly dying, when in fact I got winded (lungs deflated) by the football. I’ve signed up for volleyball but haven’t gone to a game yet!

5) Who do you most admire and why?

My mum. For her resilience, strength and determination.

6) What are your interests/hobbies?

Giving things a go. My hobbies and interests always change as I’m always trying new activities. My main interests are eating scrumptious food, crazy dancing, adrenaline activities,appreciating the little wonders and everyday magic of the world, travelling, music, arts, culture and my number one: laughing.

7) Something about you that no one really knows?

“I am your father” I eat chocolate – every day, probably more like every 2 hours! Sub orbit the earth (or into space if i can afford it) for my 50th birthday. Clowns scare me.

Next meeting

Monday 5 July ANZ Buiding Level 4, 100 Queen St, Melbourne

**See you there!**