Liberation from One Right Way

You might think that a person comes to Toastmasters meeting to learn “the right way” to present oneself in public speaking.    Even though TM meetings follow a formal structure, my growth path with Cromwell Community Toastmasters has been an exercise in thinking outside the box.
The Toastmasters experience has liberated me from thinking that I have to respond to a question or a structure in a certain way.   It has helped me to be more flexible in problem solving and solutions creation at work.   I have learned to see meetings as opportunity for collaborative interaction – even when there’s a deadline driven agenda and a firm need to demonstrate progress.   This perspective is far more empowering than viewing a high-pressure meeting as an “audit”.  Such a meeting becomes an experience where you answer the questions exactly as asked and the value of your perspective is lost to the team because you allow the conversation to be driven entirely from another person’s point of view.

Perhaps the most obvious place that the Toastmasters meetings support individuality and freedom of expression is in the Table Topics portion of the agenda.   In our club, the room is given a topic and a person is offered an opportunity to speak extemporaneously on that topic – or on anything else they want to share instead.    The result when a person exercises that option the room comes alive in a special way.  Regardless of what they choose to say there’s something infinitely more interesting about hearing what a person brings of their own accord rather than the well-trodden call-and-response of question-and-answer.

I am convinced that this is a vital key to making the jump in your career from high-performing contributor to leader; the jump from following operations procedure to full participation in strategy.   Would I eventually have come to this realization on my own?  That’s likely.   Would I have been able to apply it immediately after understanding it without the Toastmasters model?  Not as likely.   And that’s where I find the value of that balance between structure and freedom that is a Toastmasters meeting.

— respectfully submitted by Jennifer Bourne
2014-15 Secretary, Cromwell Community Toastmasters, #5908

JOIN US NEXT TUESDAY, December 5, 2014

5:30 to 7:30 pm 

And every first and third Tuesday of the Month

CROMWELL COMMUNITY TOASTMASTERS

Cromwell Town Hall,

 41 West Street, 

Cromwell, CT 06416 (2nd floor,  follow the signs)

What I get from Toastmasters

by Heather Turner, club member and former VP of Public Relations

In the beginning…..

I attended my first Toastmasters meeting when I was 18, on the suggestion of my boss, as I was extremely shy and the description wallflower would have definitely applied to me. I believe I attended a grand total of 3 meetings. I never did give a speech (that I recall) and decided at the time it was not for me.  In hindsight I wished I had stuck with it, but realistically at that age you don’t know what you want or where you want to go in life.

A bit more than a decade ago I ventured forth once again to try Toastmasters. I found a club locally to me (at the time) in New London, NH. I attended one meeting and was somewhat interested, but I didn't think it was necessarily the place for me, for while everyone was very friendly, I was by the far the youngest person at the meeting (by about 40 years) and it struck me as being quite formal at the time. Everyone clapping, shaking hands and “Thank you Mr. Toastmaster!”

There was one woman there who was starting a third? fourth? career as a personal chef (not culinary trained just someone who liked to cook) and she gave her speech about making a dish, along with props of a whisk and a large bowl. For some reason that totally put me off — my former life as a professional chef rearing its ugly and egotistical head, or perhaps because her talk was making me cringe internally. It was a very good speech and well-presented; but in the same lines of how I thought the book and movie “Julie and Julia” went, when someone talks about cutting corners and having bad sanitation skills in the kitchen, it makes my hackles go up. Once a Chef always a Chef, as my husband likes to pick on me about.

Signing Up

About 4 years ago (August of 2010) my family had just moved back to Connecticut. I didn’t know a soul and I wanted to get out beyond my comfort zone. For the past few years prior I had been giving seminars to teach social media to groups. Talking to groups of 10 to 15 people didn't faze me, but I was being asked to go to conferences and speak in front of hundreds. The tipping point came for me when I went to a conference, and was asked to fill in for a keynote speaker who couldn't make it due to the weather.  People told me afterwards that everything went very well... but standing up there in front of almost five hundred people and drawing a complete blank on what I was going to talk about, for what was probably only a couple of minutes but seemed to me like an eternity, is something I remember well. I think if I was in a Toastmasters club at the time who fined members a penny for ums and ahs, the jar would have been overflowing as well.

What have I gotten out of Toastmasters? Confidence! I can now speak in front of hundreds of people and feel comfortable doing so. What else? The knowledge that I have become a better speaker and I can benchmark that through conference reviews that I have gotten back over the years. The best thing I have gotten from Toastmasters though by far is good friends. Since we have moved back here, my circle of people that I hang out with the most are other Toastmasters, some from the clubs I belong to, some from clubs all over the country that I have met over the last few years.  People join Toastmasters for all kinds of reasons, not just to gain more confidence or to become a better speaker, sometimes their bosses encourage them to come, sometimes because they have gotten a promotion and now need to give presentations to staff.

How to find a club to join?

Toastmasters is in itself a great organization in that everyone works at their own pace. There is no pressure to “do”.  People not familiar with Toastmasters just think it’s about public speaking, but don’t know about the leadership aspect. They don’t know that speeches are evaluated and your fellow club members will give you suggestions for improvement. 

I would suggest if someone is considering joining Toastmasters (and Toastmasters come from every walk of life and every profession under the Sun), visit a few clubs before joining. Every club has its own dynamics and its own strengths and challenges. If a club doesn't click for you, try a different one: each is unique.

Division B Fall Contest 2014

Notes on the Division B Speech Contest- October 29th, 2014

We had an impressive turnout for the Division B speech contest! More than 40 toastmasters from our division gathered in Berlin at the North East Utilities conference room to hear our local superstars speak in table topics and give prepared Humorous speeches.   I’m really proud to say that 7(!) of us were from Cromwell, an impressive percentage at this level for just one club.  

 If all the contests had 7 club supporters there should have been a lot more people in the room…

Table Topics:  Who has been the greatest influence in your life and why?

[Ogewu Agbese]:  Who?  It didn’t strike me until I took a trip to Nigeria.   The things we take for granted here are not so simple in Nigeria.   If you want light, you have to light a fire.  If you want water you have to walk 2 miles, fill a bucket from a pump, come back and boil it.   When I think of all that my Dad has done to go from a village in Nigeria to come to the US and get a PhD, raise 5 children.   That was a true inspiration. 

[Lisa Vance]:  I was going to say my Mom, all the things people like about me come from my mom.   But there are so many people who have influenced me - and a fair number of them are about 3 feet tall – my students.   And many of them have done something that many people thought they would never do.   One of my students, the doctors said would never walk.   Several years later she was running down a hill.  And then there was my husband, who before we married lived in Scotland and moved mountains to come here.  There was never just one person – there were always many different people. 

[Dane Wilcox]:  My wife!   I recently celebrated by 30^th anniversary.   It’s been a good marriage and it’s been a bad marriage.   She’s the person who has goaded me to my own pursuit and my own goals.   When I was laid off from work she said, Go get that graduate degree.  Then she said, it’s time to get a job – here’s the application.  

[Katy Curtis]:  When I was little the greatest influence in my life was my mother.  She could do anything!    When I was a teenager and had health issues she went against the school administrators and defended me.   As an adult she helped everyone, and helped everyone and inspired everyone.   She made everyone feel wonderful and made me feel wonderful about my life.   Even though she’s gone she continues to be my inspiration. 

Humorous Speeches

[Katy Curtis]:  Wishes can come true.  

 I had a wish, I wished to become a lady.   A long time ago I joined the SCA – to live medieval time in the way they should have been with flush toilets.  Just one problem, they don’t just make you a lady for sitting around and twiddling you thumbs.   So I decided to make clothing.   It came out two dimensional.   So I danced up a storm, and before you ask – Yes, most of my former partners have regained the ability to walk…   So I decided to help people, by not hurting them, and then eventually by helping them and even organizing the event.   Then I eventually was called into court.  

[Annette Wright]: My favorite sport.
I recently invented a new sport – hiking and crocheting.  Call it Hi-crochet!  Very much like a biathlon.   Focus concentration exactness.  Cardio I get a total body workout… except for my left arm.   So now I get to exercise and I’m completing a project, pursuing a hobby.   So to get started: dust off your old fanny pack.  The biggest obstacle out there is the ever present wacko – but I have my hook so I poke him in the eye.   Went hiking with son’s boy scout troop – one young man fell and broke his ankle – but not me.   I’m thinking about applying to the Olympic committee.  Thinking the German alps, Oktoberfest time.   If rhythmic gymnastics is a sport, I am so in!

[Bill Sullivan]: DMAIC   

Six sigma is a scientific methodology to eliminate waste in the work environment.   Next time you pay your taxes make out two checks,  70% to support their work and 30% to pay for the waste.  Last week my wife was exhausted telling me the laundry was piling up.  Define what’s the problem.  Measure, the problem starts in the hamper for a week I sat in the hamper.  Analyze, started digging deeper (stated looking at the time the entire laundry process took, timing every step.   The first problem I found was, the ‘sock bombs’  and the another was ‘python pretzel pants’.  Implement improvements, we sat the kids down and started some education.  Remove the intermediate basket return step, my daughter thinks it’s a dresser.  Finally Control, I monitor this process every day.   So next my wife said, I was hoping tonight you would just come home and DMAIC dinner. 

[Joseph Oddie]:  When making plans keep it loose.  

 People don’t plan to fail they fail to plan.  I want to add to that – when making plans don’t be so rigid.  Planned a hiking trip to Europe we’ll planned ahead.   My family had given me a journal to keep – write down the things that interest you.   Aug 15^th1978  Paris.   I noticed a beautiful woman on the train.   Moments later she approached me she was Sylvie Mallay a travel agent going to Leon.   Her hands move across my forearms to my wrist, all I could think of was my Timex.   I turned down her invitation to stay with her in Leon.  Over the next few months I had some wonderful experiences but all I could think about was her.    When I got back to Paris I looked her up.   I called her at work but the person who answered the phone said she wasn’t there.  I grabbed a guy off the street and asked him if he speaks English.  He didn’t speak French.   My last night I ate in a restaurant, alone.   That night I left never to see Sylvie again.    Don’t be so rigid that you can’t change your plans when an opportunity exists. 

                                                                                                                                                                                            

And Representing Division B at the District Level, The Winners ARE!!

For table topics: Ogewu Agbese

For humorous Speech contest:  Bill Sullivan

Second place finishers were:

For table topics:  Katy Curtis

For humorous Speech contest:  Annette Wright

Come to the District 53 Fall Conference on November 22^nd, in Bloomfield and see the next level of the contest.

Respectfully submitted by
Jennifer Bourne

Secretary
Cromwell 5908

[posted by Hollie Rose, CC, CL
Thanks Jen!]