What does your online meeting agenda look like to a guest of your club? What"What does your online meeting agenda look like to a guest of your club? What? You don’t have one? Can you imagine trying to cut down a tree with a power saw – without starting it up? Absolutely ludicrous idea, isn’t it? The power tool is designed to be used to solve a problem quickly and more easily than it would by hand. Have you ever thought about your agenda as a power tool? That maybe it can do a lot more for you than you expect? Some people think of an agenda just as a check list, nothing more. What value does an agenda bring to a club? How does it improve the club member and the club guest experience? Does it need to change for online meetings? Today on the podcast, let’s chat about your agendas – in person and online meeting agendas. What yours looks like, what you may need to change up, and how to use it out to recruit your club guests to become . INTRO Are you looking for an effective way to learn public speaking and leadership skills? We’ve got it at Toastmasters. In one hour a week, you can learn what you need to change the world. This is Toastmasters 101 podcast and I’m your host, Kim Krajci. On-site meetings vs. online meeting agendas A few years back, I tried an experiment with my lunchtime Toastmasters club. Instead of printing an agenda, we opted to use the Free Toast Host agenda online, but we copied the information onto a whiteboard in our meeting room. Saving money, saving paper, saving time – we thought. What we found was that we were missing a critical part of our marketing to guests when they walked through our doors. The meeting agenda provides more than just “who’s the Toastmaster and who’s the Table Topics Leader” information to the people in attendance. Personnel at the Meeting It’s a great introduction to the names of the people who are supposed to be in the room. Now, granted, we do see people who sign up – or rather, we don’t see them. Sometimes people miss meetings. Either they forgot that they were signed up for a role, or perhaps, in your club, are assigned club roles in sequence, and they didn’t go into the agenda to cancel. Or they forgot. It happens. My inner perfectionist has been squashed regarding the agenda. I no longer think of the agenda as written in stone. Some people think of it as a roap. I prefer to think of it as a set of written directions. Sometimes the directions aren’t clear, sometimes they tell you to drive down a road that’s closed for construction, and sometimes, they’re just plain wrong. We’re dealing with people and real lives here. That’s why it’s important that we try to keep our commitments to present or be present, but when we can’t attend, it’s a kindness to the club to make sure your name is removed from the agenda so that a replacement can be found before the meeting begins. Because the agenda helps the guest put names and faces together. In online meetings, we get to have labels – some of us add our meeting roles to our names. An agenda is more like a set of directions. In this case, it’s very much so when you look at the timing aspect of the meeting. When I was in a lunch meeting or an early work-day meeting, we had to keep close track of time because people had reasons to leave. An agenda with times listed – even if they’re suggestions and not hard time limits – helps keep the meeting moving on time. When the club is really jamming with Table Topics, it can be hard for the leader to know when to quit – unless the time is noted on the agenda. Instead of the timer having to be the bad cop and say, “We need to wrap this up,” everyone can see that it’s time to move on. Let me take a quick detour here to say – it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep the meeting on time. The agenda is the tool we use. If I want to answer the Table Topics question but we’re almost at that time limit, I will either have to rush my answer or . The Value of the Agenda Another valuable aspect of the agenda is to help new understand how our meetings flow. Guests will not know and probably go with the flow – although, giving them a rundown of what we intend to do and how long we intend to do it is important – I’ll talk more about that in a minute – but new often are feeling a bit at sea during their first meetings. When does the Word of the Day get announced and when is the joke of the day told? When I’m toastmaster of the day, they get mentioned in the order that I , which often is not the order on the agenda. Or the word of the day gets forgotten until the middle of the meeting, which really annoys some of us more competitive types. The agenda is a checklist. It’s a tool that can work for us – especially when we’re online and can miss the subtle signals that experienced Toastmasters might give to the new . Or when we shout it out at the first time Toastmaster of the day – which I’m guilty of. Sorry, Joy. Onsite meetings – roles and personnel Some clubs – such as TNT in Green in District 10 when they met in person – used nameplates for roles in their meetings. Other clubs have assigned seats for people who have roles. Those are good ideas. Anything that helps a guest or a new member understand the meeting roles and the people who are performing them helps! The printed agenda for an onsite meeting will likely be a print out from Free Toast Host or Easy Speak. I’ve seen so many varieties of printed agendas that I’m guessing that they allow for a variety of styles. Yep, just checked. Several options on Free Toast Host. Included on the agenda will be all the speakers, the times, some other details as you wish, such as pictures of the if they’ve been ed. One thing that I thought was missing on one of the options I saw – the lack of club information. I don’t know that knowing all the officers’ names is as important as the information and who to talk to about hip when you’re giving this document to a guest! For the guest – the agenda should be a sales document! Why should they ? What do we offer? Who should they about hip? We’re missing our shot at putting critical and persuasive information into our guests’ hands when all we give them is a list of times and names of participants. Agendas can help you with recruiting. Before you say, “Oh, we give all that to them in the guest packet,” let me remind you that good guests are not going to peruse your guest packet during the meeting. Until they have the motivation to open it, it’s useless. But the agenda is going to be on the table right in front of them for an hour! Toastmasters club mission statement Ok, then some of the agendas I’ve seen have the Toastmasters club mission statement printed on it. Isn’t that persuasive enough? No. A thousand times NO. A mission statement is not designed to persuade anyone of anything! According to Wikipedia, A mission statement is a short statement of why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, identifying the goal of its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market, and its geographical region of operation. Important information, to be sure, but hardly persuasive. When we can ask them what they need, what are their goals, then we can show them the answer to the classic question: What’s in it for me? That’s persuasion. That’s what gets people to come back! If your onsite meeting agenda doesn’t sell your club – change it. The onsite agenda needs to address the guest’s needs in some fashion. At the very least, it’s a takeaway that might grace your guest’s desk or pocket for a while, and when they look at it again, they’ll be reminded about your club meeting and what they got out of it. A tangible reminder and reinforcement of their experience. Ok, so maybe they write their grocery list on it back of it, but hey! They’ve looked at it again! Online Meeting Agenda Is your club struggling with the online format? Are you losing ? Are you finding new ? How are they finding you? One of my clubs is growing outside of city limits. We’ve got who live in other states. They never would Toastmasters but because their friends are in this club, they’re ing us. These new Toastmasters started as guests and became . Did our agenda help? Not really, because we don’t publish it. But I think we should for 3 specific groups of people: the guests, the new , and the who are in this meeting. The Online Meeting Online meetings do have some benefits – I mentioned that you can rename yourself with your meeting role – sometimes your name gets lost when you type in “Grammarian/Ah Counter/Word of the Day” – just saying. The online meeting agenda helps put people and their roles together. Not sure who that guest speaker is? There’s a name. Don’t know who the Table Topics Leader is? You’ll see that person right there. And the guest or new member can look at names on an agenda and names onscreen and put them together. But what if you’re meeting online? How do people see the agenda? If you’re using Free Toast Host, only who are signed in can see any of our club meeting agendas. That excludes all guests and those who can’t – and there are enough of them that I think this is a legit issue. One club copies the agenda into the chat. Empty slots are visible and I can scan down the list to see what role I can fill. I signed up to attend a meeting and I was told I would get an agenda in an email. I never did, but I tend to think that was my email’s fault, not the VPE’s. Mass mailings often get kicked into my trash folder before I even see them. Social Media Sharing Should you post your agenda on your club’s Facebook or Instagram page? What about Linked In? How do you handle people who don’t want their names published? When do you publish it? Speaking as a social media marketer, I wonder if posting the online meeting agenda on FB would be of any value. I love the idea of posting images with titles of speeches and maybe (with consent) the pictures of the speakers. Or the theme of the meeting or, if you don’t mind giving away the surprise, the table topics topic. That would be a fantastic vice president of education who managed that! If you’re going to do that – let me suggest that you include the date and start time in large print. And use the UTC code. I’ve noted several announcements of meetings with themes or topics that interested me – but I had no idea when they were being held. Some of them didn’t even have dates on them – they just say the say of the week. With the weirdness that is Facebook’s algorithm, I may not be seeing it even the same week of the event. Think I’m joking? I went to a funeral that the announcement said “this Saturday.” I was a week late. Don’t assume that your reader is going to get this announcement on time! How do you publish your agenda? I think that maybe the online meeting agenda should be kept a little closer. There are people who would rather not have their names published. There are also those empty slots that might look discouraging to the potential guest. But I do think it must go to the attendees before the meeting. How do we do this? Chat, PDF, Google Doc Some clubs publish the agenda in the chat feature. They’ll have to republish it for late arrivals or as amendments are made. Other clubs share it as a PDF – which is an idea that I like, but again, there’s got to be someone on the ball and complete it on the fly and then post it in the chat or document sharing option of the online platform. Another very timely way is to share the agenda on a public Google document. Changes can be made easily and anyone can see them who has the link. Ok, I’m going to it, my clubs don’t practice what I’m preaching here. Both clubs try to fill the agendas through our Free Toast Host websites, and then, at the beginning of the meetings, fill in the missing roles. I’m expected to write down the roles as the presidents review the agenda. Not to sound like a discontent, but I don’t like this. I think we miss out on the value of the agenda. The Online Meeting Agenda Creates Expectations I think guests like agendas for a variety of reasons. They can look at it and know this is what to expect. Since we’re not sitting side by side and can’t whisper questions to each other, guests might not get the answers they’re looking for – especially when they’re trying to determine if Toastmasters is for them. Can you imagine a guest coming in and watching 3 new member speeches – and wondering if Toastmasters can help them grow because obviously, these speakers aren’t very good. An agenda can and should indicate what speech project is being presented. If a guest sees 3 Level 1 Ice Breaker speeches, then they know that they’re watching beginners. For the new , the online agenda helps identify the places they can participate in the meeting and practice those online meeting skills. Of course, this does apply to the on-site meetings, but here it’s critical in a more focused way. In the onsite meeting, a new member can watch a member serve in a role that the newbie hasn’t filled yet – one that’s not obvious. Timer is obvious. Grammarian – not so much. You can’t see someone online taking notes. You can’t look over someone’s shoulder. But you can privately chat with someone who’s filling the role and learn how to do it. We are an organization that promotes mentoring – our new rightly expect us to fill that role. Agenda Power The agenda isn’t just about the schedule. It’s a tool for success. When you fill in the details of your speech project – including your introduction – you’re helping out the club. The Toastmaster of the Day benefits with an intro, you get a better audience, your audience is ready for your speech. Intros are always win-win-win. Does your club use themes? Are they posted on your agenda? I asked to speak at a different club to get some speeches done before the June 30th deadline this year and walked into a meeting with a theme. Fortunately, the theme was “summer” and my speech was about baseball, so I was good, but that could have gone very wrong. Do you recognize last week’s winning prepared speaker, Table Topics winner, or best evaluator? If your guest won and you mentioned that their name would be on next week’s agenda, might they be more motivated to come back? Build a Great Meeting – next week Whether the club meets in person, online, or a hybrid of both, the agenda can make a meeting – a week in advance. There are some clubs that end their meetings with an open call for people to fill up the roles. Other clubs have a practice of asg roles in a sequence to give everyone a speaking slot – this is particularly a smart practice in a club where either there are too many or too few open speech project slots. Either way, getting the agenda filled is important to the meetings. Leaving it to the last minute means that the are filing roles when they’re not prepared. I see this often – I fill in a speaking slot with no preparation, which is good for me to learn impromptu speaking – but it’s not best for the club. We need people to be committed to improvement and that happens only with proper preparation. Here’s how you can help. After the podcast ends, how about you go to your club’s website and sign up for the next seven meetings? Take each of the roles – toastmaster of the day, prepared speaker, Table Topics leader, general evaluator, speaker evaluator, timer, grammarian – and sign up for each. If each member did this, you’ll find you have better meetings. And your club officers will be a lot less stressed. And your guests will see people who are committed to improving their own skills and making the meeting successful. Wrap it up, Kim Our music is from incompetech.filmmusic.io Toastmasters 101 is a podcast production of Toastmasters District 10. Now’s the time of year that many countries see their students go back to school. This mindset gets into adults’ minds too. You might know a person who is considering ing Toastmasters but just isn’t convinced that it’s worth the money and effort right now. How about you invite him to come to a few more meetings and talk about their goals. Once we know what people are looking for, we may be able to help them discover how Toastmasters can help them, too. Or you could suggest they listen to the Toastmasters 101 podcast. You can find us on the web at Toastmaster 101 dot net, or we can be found on almost all podcast player apps. We’re trying to get on some more international platforms, so let me know if there’s a place where you think we should be found. Talk to you again on Toastmasters 101 podcast. The post Your Online Meeting Agenda: The Power Tool You Need appeared first on Toastmasters 101. " data-title="Descripción:" title="Descripción">

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The General Evaluator Creates Great Meetings

What’s a general evaluator"What’s a general evaluator? What do they do? Why should you take on the role? As I was chatting with my protege Joy today about tomorrow’s meeting, she told me that it took her 3 weeks to figure out how to spell our club’s name. Yeah, Cuyahoga is not the easiest word to spell or even guess at the spelling of. Since it’s most prominently known as an environmental disaster site in the 1950s and 60s, I never thought she’d have a hard time with it – but our burning river has apparently lived down its reputation. You see, I have a blind spot. I’ve pretty much lived in this part of Ohio all of my life. I don’t notice that Cuyahoga – spelled C U Y A H O G A – is a complicated word to spell. So Joy, who lives about 800 miles from us, has no idea how to find us online. That’s what a good general evaluator does for the club meetings. They help us look at the blind spots that club might miss. Today on the podcast, we take a look at the master of the Toastmasters secret sauce of success: the role of general evaluator. INTRO Do you want to improve your public speaking skills? Do you want to develop the tools to become a great leader? Then Toastmasters is for you. In one hour, we can help you get started to reach your goals. This is Toastmasters 101 and I’m your host, Kim Krajci The Challenge of General Evaluator I’m going to guess that I’ve visited about 25 Toastmasters clubs in the United States in person. The role of the general evaluator changes from club to club, but the primary duty does not. The purpose of the general evaluator role is to take an overall look at the meeting – its structure and purpose – and how well this club met that standard. Unfortunately, this aspect of the general evaluator role frequently is overlooked. I think many of my clubs think of the general evaluator as a beginner MC. The person who introduces the evaluators and calls on the timer, ah-counter, grammarian and word of the day reports, and then sits down. So let’s talk it. What should the general evaluator do? In most northeastern Ohio clubs, the role of the general evaluator is like a junior Toastmaster of the Day. After the prepared speakers and Table Topics portions of the meeting, the general evaluator acts like a master of ceremonies, introducing people and leading the applause for a variety of reports. It’s pretty straightforward. Some long-time Toastmasters, when they see a problem in the structure of the meeting – such as starting late, or inappropriate behavior by the audience, might make a comment about how to improve the meeting. Ok, I’m guilty of the inappropriate behavior, but only when I sit next to Mike, who knows exactly what to say to make me crack up. But too often, nothing more than calling for evaluators and reports is all the general evaluator does. The Role of General Evaluator of a Toastmaster Meeting In other clubs – and I’d say that this is a significant minority of the clubs I’ve visited – the role of the general evaluator is reduced. Their only task is an evaluation of the meeting toward the end, usually after the timer or grammarian. Like those roles, there isn’t a specific time limit, per se, but there is a common idea that these comments won’t exceed 2 minutes. How your club uses the role of general evaluator is up to your club. I don’t think there’s one specific way. You can use the role as you wish – but let’s make it count. When I was talking with my protege, she was looking at a description of the role she found through a search engine. She read both the Toastmaster of the Day and the General Evaluator role descriptions and was very puzzled by them because we don’t follow either of the protocols that she read. How does your club use the general evaluator role? How can you make it work? First, I think that a metric or matrix of what the general evaluator should do for your club is extremely valuable, especially to new . I don’t think the role is intuitive – that a new member can pick up on what to evaluate and what the standard for your club meeting should be. What should the general evaluator look at? In no particular order, I think that the general evaluator ought to note the status of the meeting room. Was it prepared properly for the meeting before you started? You might not think that’s as important with the online meetings, but I think it is. If you have who want to share their screens, has the zoom host adjusted the meeting session to permit it? While we don’t have a physical copy of the timer’s sheet or grammarians report, the GE might want to make sure that the who are taking on those roles have the forms or have another way to record their reports. Was it clear how the timer was going to be giving time signals? We’ve seen several techniques used. I’m personally fond of the green dinosaur with the yellow and red nail polish bottles that we’ve seen one of our use, but I know that Zoom and other programs do have the ability to change backgrounds. Did the Toastmaster of the day or another member explain how to make sure the speaker could see those signals? any timing issues: did the meeting start on time? Did the Toastmaster of the Day TMOD keep the meeting moving at a good pace? Did the TMOD have the necessary information in hand, such as introductions and speech titles, before the meeting started or get it during the meeting without being disruptive? Any flow issues: did the meeting move from section to section smoothly? Prepared speakers to Table Topics to Evaluations? Or Table Topics to prepared speakers to evaluators? Well-run meetings flow smoothly and without disruptions. In some ways, this is less of an issue with online meetings where distractions are quickly muted by the zoom host. But the club president or the sergeant at arms – whoever opens the meeting – can certainly make these transitions easier with a review of the agenda and role assignments at the beginning of the meeting. Speaking of online meetings, the GE can certainly encourage to change their online screen names to include their assigned role for this meeting in the future. Evaluate the evaluators. In everyone’s level 1 project 2, a Toastmaster is expected to give an evaluation of a prepared speech, and that evaluation is supposed to be evaluated. This should be the task of the general evaluator to fill out that form – so make sure you have it on hand. They are easy to from the Toastmasters Pathways website. You can just it once and then keep it on your hard drive to reuse as needed. I finally created a file folder called Toastmasters Evaluations and I’ve saved all my blank evaluation form s there on my desktop. I’m not saying that’s the only evaluator that the general evaluator should evaluate. Every evaluator could use a few words of encouragement or even a point of growth. I the first time my friend Debbie gave me an evaluation of my evaluation – it was the first time I’d gotten comments to help me improve my evaluations. Address the Table Topics speakers: unless your club has evaluations of the Table Topics speaker, any positive comments are a nice touch. It’s not expected, but I’ve always appreciated it when my Table Topic minute is noted in a nice way. All that in two minutes? You gotta be fast, man! When I serve as general evaluator in person, I keep the agenda close and make notes on it. An agenda is more like written directions than it is a road map. Sometimes speeches go long – or short. Table Topics are too fun to quit or they were skipped altogether to permit a longer speech project to be completed. I don’t want to point out the obvious as a general evaluator. I want to address underlying causes that will improve future meetings! Here’s a less than pleasant example. I once had a club president who was determined to end every meeting with a story. However, this club meeting was early in the morning, and people needed to leave on time to get to work. The president’s storytime consistently extended the meeting a good 10 minutes past our scheduled end time. A general evaluator might note that the club meeting isn’t ending on time and how that hurts some – and hope that club president got the message. A new club member isn’t going to notice that, but longtime Toastmasters will. We’re aware of the value of the general evaluator in developing leadership skills. Leadership Training The general evaluator is an underappreciated leadership role. Especially in clubs where the role is simply a single report and not serving as an mc for the evaluation portion – there’s not much obvious leadership training going on. I see the GE role as leadership because it’s a chance to closely watch and analyze how the people in the meeting understand and undertake their tasks. It’s not just listening skills that come into play. It’s observation and consideration of how to improve in the future. Great general evaluators create great meetings in the future. This is why the GE role needs more attention. Our general evaluators are our mentors: they see what we can do better, but they’re not going to be like the coach who trains you. Nope, the GE is a mentor and we’d be wise to pay attention to them! Changing your General Evaluator Role? Should your club change the role of general evaluator? That’s not my decision to make. It is one that the club executive committee might consider or present as an alternative to the club for the future. Maybe reducing the role to a single report would suit your club better because you’re under a time constraint and keeping the TMOD for the entire meeting would work for you. Or maybe expanding the role to include introducing evaluators and grammarians and timers might help provide a the newer a baby step toward leadership. It’s up to your club to decide. Whatever your club does – make the general evaluator role one that improves your club and your ’ experiences. You may find your club has some blind spots that need to be attended to – like making sure your club know how to find your club’s website because they know how to spell your name! Wrap it up, Kim Our music is from incompetech.filmmusic.io Toastmasters 101 is a podcast production of Toastmasters District 10. Now’s the time of year that many countries see their students go back to school. This mindset gets into adults’ minds too. You might know a person who is considering ing Toastmasters but just isn’t convinced that it’s worth the money and effort right now. How about you invite him to come to a few more meetings and talk about their goals. Once we know what people are looking for, we may be able to help them discover how Toastmasters can help them, too. Or you could suggest they listen to the Toastmasters 101 podcast. You can find us on the web at Toastmaster 101 dot net, or we can be found on almost all podcast player apps. We’re trying to get on some more international platforms, so let me know if there’s a place where you think we should be found. Talk to you again on Toastmasters 101 podcast. The post The General Evaluator Creates Great Meetings appeared first on Toastmasters 101. " data-title="Descripción:" title="Descripción">

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Come Back to Toastmasters

Peole leave Toastmasters clubs for many reasons. What reasons do we have for them to come back...

17:27

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Customize Your Toastmasters Path

How do you customize your Toastmasters experience? “At least, they didn’t have to amputate my...

15:39

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Adding Images and Vision to Your Speeches

How do you show your audience what you want them to see"How do you show your audience what you want them to see? How do you add images that the vision of your speech? The Nature of Communication Like dance, like acting, public speaking is a movement of ideas from the artist to the audience. I believe that public speaking is an art. It comes down to our ability to create a vision in our audience’s mind that inspires them to do something. That the ART of rhetoric. Then again, there’s the old saying that a picture says a thousand words. This might imply that you should include images – pictures – with your speeches to make them more effective. Actually, that’s the whole idea behind presentation software. I’m not going to argue that having images helps explain complex data. But do you need images for your speech presentation? Today on the podcast, we’re talking about adding images to your presentation to help you know when and how to use images and when to choose language that creates the images in your audience’s mind that exceeds any image you might show. Intro Do you have a vision to change the world? Do you need to develop the skills to see it happen? Then Toastmasters is for you. We teach public speaking and leadership skills to help you change the world. This is Toastmasters 101 and I’m your host, Kim Krajci. Vision There’s a path in Toastmasters called Visionary Communications. I’m actually working through that path this year. I decided to change up the focus from creating vision to story telling – I’ll need to report to you about that next week. Learning how to create vision for your audience is the primary purpose of most public speaking. That’s why using images is so effective. When we can’t figure something out, images help us comprehend information. It’s a great tool – presentation software s our message when we use it right. When we use it wrong – that’s the problem. How do you know when to use images? This year, we all have been using Zoom or other online software for meetings – Toastmasters, professional, educational. I start teaching a speech class in September. Because of the uncertain nature of the pandemic, I’m preparing to record my lectures so that if I have a student who has to quarantine or if the schools are closed, I have the lectures already prepared. One of the first presentations I need to record is my introduction and to review the syllabus. Should I use images? How do I decide? The question you need to ask yourself is this: What’s the point? What do pictures bring to your audience? We always have to that we’ve got an online audience, they are functionally trained to look for something else when what they’re looking at on the screen starts to bore them. There’s always something else to look at – even if it’s a game of solitaire or an Instagram video. On the other hand, the most attractive image to humans is… the human face. So it behooves us to learn how to use our faces to help create an attractive image on the screen to help keep the audience’s attention. Somewhere in there, there’s a balance. In the process of making my lecture decisions, I’ve found myself going both ways: images and not. The thing is – I don’t know how to edit videos. If I’m going to use my face – I’m going to only use my face unless I magically learn how to edit video to add in the images. If I’m going to use images, I’m going to only use images – I’m a big fan of Canva.com – an online website that produces good images and presentations and allows me to present them inside the program. Therefore, I need to make a decision and stick to it. My personal introduction won’t take long – maybe two minutes? I’m not sure I have a lot to say and honestly, when we first meet in a classroom, I’m not interested in making my students comfortable with me… just yet. My entire first class is about introducing my students to their stage fright symptoms and ratcheting up the stress to make sure the students feel each and every one of those horrible sensations. That sounds cruel, but I promise, it’s only for a little while. They’ll all be so relieved when they survive and class is over! I’ve never had anyone vomit or out yet! Two Choices I think my intro can be short: my name, and my purpose in teaching the class. That’s it. Now, the syllabus is a different matter altogether. For a class that has students from the ages 10 to 18, I’ve discovered that most of the students have never seen a syllabus, have no clue how to spell the word or what it is. I have to review all the components of the class in the syllabus with the students and this presentation isn’t going to be quick. The syllabus contains links to assignments, instructions regarding turning their home work in, expectations about presentations. You’re not giving a speech wearing black socks, sandals, gym shorts, and a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball T-shirt in my class. This document is 6 pages long and while I don’t have to cover every link or assignment from the start, I do need to make sure they know how to read the syllabus. Since this is going to take roughly 7-10 minutes, I’m pretty sure I’m going to use images to add some humor and to indicate where in the document I am. This is not where I want to scare them. What I’m saying is… the primary decision whether or not to use images is based on my audience, not my message. I think we sometimes get this wrong. We think our data is more important. That’s a mistake. The image we see with our eyes may be worth a thousand words. The vision we see with our mind’s eye is probably immeasurably more valuable. Communication has 3 components: the speaker, the audience, and the message. When we prioritize one over the others, we get out of balance and that stops communication. Our data – our images – are tools, not the end in itself! So how do we create vision in our audience? If the whole purpose of what we want to do with public speaking is to inspire change – to get our audience to act – we have to create a vision for them where they can see themselves doing something new, something different. That’s the challenge and the fun of public speaking. I can use images to help people understand my information. Vision is entirely different and applies to a different part of the human being. Facts apply to our brains. They should appeal to our sense of reason. But decisions aren’t always made on facts alone. We have to consider the three great cores of communication: logos, pathos, and ethos. When I teach speech, we do an analysis of two famous speeches. In Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech I Have a Dream, we see the heights of how effective the right words can be. His speech inspired a nation to seek to change. Crafting a speech like Dr. King’s may take a lifetime of experience, but we can start with learning how it’s done and practicing at our Toastmasters meetings. Using Language to Create Images Using language that inspires people to do better – that’s what Dr. Martin Luther King did. His years of preaching his faith and public speaking had created his unique voice that called all men to do better in our society. How do you do that? Study the greats. First, I think we all need to study the greats. Toastmasters never expects us to look to the past for examples. But history is rife with them and we can learn from them. Great speakers and great speeches didn’t just happen – someone understood the power of knowing the audience and understanding how language affects us. Of course, I’m going to suggest Dr. King’s speech. I’ll also suggest speeches by James Baldwin, Winston Churchill, and US Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and Barak Obama. I believe there are many great speeches in every culture and nation that I don’t know about. Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth. Go look those up and read them. Listen to them! Speeches aren’t meant to be read – they’re meant to be heard. Second, rhetorical devices Repetition works. Dr. King’s speech title isn’t I Have a Dream, but no one re the original name. He had used the phrase in previous speeches and was prompted by a guest at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to talk about his dream. By repeating the phrase, he worked it into his audience’s mind. Sojourner Truth’s speech Ain’t I a Woman? also uses repetition effectively. Do we expect the repetitions to be thematic or important words? Lincoln used repetition with the simple words “we cannot” in his Gettysburgh Address. Parallel construction by using phrases like, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” as President John F. Kennedy used in his inaugural speech uses repetition without repeating himself – although, if you read or listen to that speech, Kennedy maximizes repetition of phrases. Using alliteration in your speech helps your audience engage with you. This can also reduce your effectiveness. You don’t want to sound like a tongue twister, nor do you want to trip yourself up. But used well, your audience often responds well. The Images of Sounds Some sounds have come to be associated with certain emotions – the S sound often has a mental link to snakes in many languages, which may conjure some unpleasant emotional responses. What imagery do you want to inspire? Alliteration doesn’t come naturally to me. When I’m writing my speeches, I will often find better word choices and alliterations when I practice or deliver the speech. It’s disheartening to listen to myself say something on the fly that I could have used to craft a better speech, but I do it frequently. You will find a great list of all the rhetorical devices found the Mirriam Webster website – the link is in the show notes, as are all the links to the speeches I’ve mentioned – that includes examples of each of these. Go and get inspired! Using emotional words and sounds Finally, I think the last thing that inspires your audience to get your vision is to lay it out with how it will impact the world. I teach this in debate class as a persuasive technique to win a structured debate. This creates a vision. When you can put an image into people’s minds, it’s their vision of what you want them to see. That’s a pretty interesting result. But think about it. When we read a book or hear a podcast, we have our own images in our minds. When I’m telling a story, I don’t have to say “I’m standing in a grey kitchen beside a gas stove and a white refrigerator.” Those details don’t matter to my story, so I don’t need to include them – but the audience who listens to me has an image of a kitchen. Their kitchens. When you want to inspire change, you can depend on your audience to create their own imagery in their own minds – and that’s a much better basis for you. They have the buy-in to your message when they have the images that come to their minds with your words. They have emotional links to those images. You get to build on those, not tear them down and rebuild your exact images where your listener doesn’t have an emotional connection. Using your audience’s mental images That’s why the mental images are far more important than any image you might put up on a screen. If I don’t have an emotional connection with your vision, it stays your vision. I don’t engage. I don’t buy into it. The first inspirational speech I gave in Toastmasters was for the Competent Communicator about hypermiling – driving techniques that reduce fuel consumption back when gas was double the price it is today. When I was creative and demonstrated the impact with a story and with data, I had several people tell me that my speech changed how they drove. Did I give them a picture of the car I was talking about driving? Nope. I gave them their mental images and they bought into what I talking about – how to reduce their fuel costs. When I go to enrollment meetings for my classes, I always explain that I have no clue what a quadratic equation does or why it gets 2 answers, But I talk every day and the single best skill that a successful person needs is the ability to speak to others. I’ve inspired many families to my classes because I gave the parents the vision of their children’s success – and the students an image of being able to convince their parents to permit a particular goal – one student used what I taught in class to get a pet lizard. What kid doesn’t have something they want that their parents don’t? I never dreamed of assisting in the acquisition of a lizard. But the image was in my student’s mind. The image we see with our eyes may be worth a thousand words. The vision we see with our mind’s eye is probably immeasurably more. Images and vision – what works for your audience and your message? Whatever your message is – your success depends on how you communicate your vision to your audience. Toastmasters will teach you – and give you the opportunities to practice those skills. Wrap it up, Kim Our music is from incompetech.filmmusic.io Toastmasters 101 is a podcast production of Toastmasters District 10. Our international Toastmasters convention is being held this month – August, 2020 – online! Our Toastmasters International Convention starts this month. And instead of paying airline prices and hotel fees as well as the convention costs, we can attend the 2020 Virtual Convention for free! You can now at https://www.toastmasters.org/events/2020-international-convention – the link is in the show notes. You can even see the World Championship of Public Speaking. , District 10’s competitor, Dr. Kitty Brandal, the finalist from our district will learn next week if she makes it to the final round. We’re rooting for you, Kitty! us next week when I talk about storytelling – and converting a path to a new focus. The post Adding Images and Vision to Your Speeches appeared first on Toastmasters 101. " data-title="Descripción:" title="Descripción">

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Your Speech Introduction: Sell Your Speech First

How an introduction visit to a different Toastmasters meeting changed my club meeting...

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Toastmasters Triple Crown and Smedley Awards

What are your goals this year in Toastmasters"What are your goals this year in Toastmasters? Have you given that much thought? What if you decide to think big and go for a Triple Crown? What’s a Triple Crown, you ask? Today on Toastmasters 101, let’s discuss your work and what you can do to win three awards in this Toastmasters year. Do your goals this year include learning how to speak in public? Are you interested in leadership? Then Toastmasters is for you. We teach public speaking and leadership skills. This is Toastmasters 101 podcast and I’m your host, Kim Krajci. How many projects can you do in one year? In my club, we have several new who are asking questions about what they should do first. Probably like all experienced , we encourage our new to take on the listening roles – ah counter, grammarian, timer. In my club, the usual next step is to take on a small speaking role like Word of the Day or Joke of the Day, or Invocation or Toastamonial to end the meeting. However… in my club, getting the chance to do the Word of the Day or Joke of the Day is pretty tough because some of the senior fight over them. Yes, I’m one of them. We have people who are moving slowly and we have people who are moving fast. That’s a big benefit to – you work at your own pace. Those who want to work slowly will see the steps of the first level done by others. But those who want to move quickly will work with mentors to make scheduling decisions to move through the program faster. If your club meets weekly – which a majority of Toastmasters clubs do – you can expect that there are about 150 speech slots in one year. It’s reasonable to think that you’ll get a shot at a speech slot every month. That’s why Toastmaster Roy Monarch asked me about the Triple Crown Award. The Triple Crown is an award given to a Toastmaster who completes three awards in the Toastmasters program. In the former education program, that would be completing manuals and possibly completing some leadership tasks. This award is usually distributed by districts and is not a Toastmasters International award. Roy said he’d never heard about the Triple Crown before now – and his club intends to offer it to their this year. So how can you get a Triple Crown Award? If you’re looking at earning a Triple Crown Award, you’ve got to start planning it. You can take a look at your projects in Base Camp. There are 5 tasks in Level 1 – 4 speeches and being a speech evaluator. In Level 2, 3 speech projects. In Level 3, usually 3 projects. So if you’re a new Toastmaster and just starting out, you’ve got 11 projects to complete in 12 months. That’s not hard, is it? You can make your plans now. If you’re a new Toastmaster, let me give you a few ideas how to make this easier. In general, doing the projects in order makes sense. You will build on your skills in sequence, which is why the projects are in this order… except… I find waiting for basic presentation skills until you’ve given 7 other speeches and perhaps developing some bad presentation habits doesn’t serve your goals well. Who wants to get into a practice and discover later that it’s a bad habit? In a previous episode – episode 18 – I talk about the essential speech skills that you need to build a foundation for your public speaking. I’d much rather you did those speech projects before your Mentoring or Communication Style speech projects – but that’s up to you. Skip ahead if you want! However – and this is important – you must complete all of the projects in a level before you get credit for them. That means you must go through the instructions and take the final evaluation quiz. Then you can submit your completed level request. Here’s the rub: you can’t submit a completed Level 3 until you’ve completed Level 2. Yes, it’s funky that way. You may want to skip Level 2, for example. You can do that – but you won’t get the Triple Crown if you do Levels 1,3 and 4. Unless they’re in different paths. Here’s the deal: the 3 awards do not have to be in the same path. If you’re working in 2 paths, the accumulation of 3 awards from either or both pathways is permitted. We’ll talk about working on two Paths at a time on another podcast – in fact, I’ve already talked about it once on Episode 23 . You can start another path at any time that you’re willing to pay for it. So you don’t have to get all your level awards in one Path. You could finish a Level 5 Path and start a new one and do levels 1 and 2 and still complete 3 awards in one year. That’s what the Triple Crown award celebrates: commitment to working through the Toastmasters education program at a pace that allows you to complete the work in 1 year. Starting on July 1 and ending on June 30 of the following year – that’s the Toastmasters year – you complete the work and report it. You may have been aware of the change in your district leadership in July. That’s why – our year starts in July. That’s why we have club officer training this time of year – new officers need to know what we expect them to do as they get started. So – make a plan. But you may want to find out if your district recognizes the Triple Crown Award. They may not. And that’s what Roy Monarch’s club intends to do – because their district does not. If you think your district should – I can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t ask them to start. “It’s not been done here” or “We don’t do that” fail to recognize that we’ve changed up a lot in Toastmasters in the past 3 years. Between Pathways and Covid 19, we’ve had a lot of changes. Now your district can institute another. For people who feel that this is just a silly thing and of no value – let me say this. Don’t bother working for it then. But let those of us who want to do it do it. We promise not to stop you from not working on the Triple Crown. Did that make any sense at all? Here’s another award that Toastmasters International does recognize: The Smedley Award. What’s a Smedley? Ralph Smedley was the founder of Toastmasters. We honor his memory in 2 ways: we have the Smedley Fund, a funding mechanism for the advancement of education, a resource for Toastmasters in times of crisis, and for youth programming. From the Toastmasters.org website: …The reinvigorated Smedley Fund retains its same purpose—the advancement of communication and leadership education through the research, development, and distribution of educational programs and materials. https://www.toastmasters.org/About/Smedley-Fund The Smedley Fund will be used to replace Toastmasters materials if your club’s materials were destroyed in a disaster. The application for it is online at the Toastmasters.org website. I didn’t know about that until today! The other way we Mr. Smedley is the Smedley hip Contest, which is held annually during the months of August and September. If your club gains 5 new – reinstated or new , you win the Smedley Award and a credit toward a purchase from the Toastmasters store website. Sadly, transferring don’t qualify. So… it may be time for you to have a club open house event. How does that work when our meetings are online? I’d love to know – has your club had an online open house? Let me know – I want to be able to share your success and methods here on the podcast. Whether you’re working on club goals or on your personal goals, we want to help you build your message and find your voice at Toastmasters. Wrap it up, Kim Our music is from incompetech.filmmusic.io Toastmasters 101 is a podcast production of Toastmasters District 10. My thanks to Roy Monarch for his question and my congratulations for his completion of his Distinguished Toastmaster Award! We’ll talk again on Toastmasters 101. The post Toastmasters Triple Crown and Smedley Awards appeared first on Toastmasters 101. " data-title="Descripción:" title="Descripción">

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