Manningham Speechcraft week 5 16-11-09

The passion shone through

Now we come to the business end of this speechcraft course.  What a transformation in confidence and speaking skills I have witnessed.  We were privileged to hear 4 passionate speeches this night.  Passionate in not just the belief in the topic that was discussed but passionate in the delivery of the topic. Again I had the speechcrafters who where not presenting speeches introduce and evaluate the speakers.  The introductions were smooth and professional and the evaluations were supportive and insightful.

We have a regular 8 speechcrafters who are very committed to the course and are getting a lot out of it.  These speechcrafters have now completed 3 speeches in 5 sessions.  Thats a big undertaking for people who came into the course scarred of public speaking.  They have been brave and taken this on despite their nerves and broken through this fear barrier to come out the other side much better communicators.   I'm so proud of them!  This now means if they join Toastmasters they will get credit for 3 speeches towards the 10 speeches required for the competitent communicator award.

Unfortunately I had an email from one of the other speechcrafters who said she is unable to continue with the course.  She wrote to me to say she has enjoyed it immensely and would be interested in future speechcraft or perhaps joining Toastmasters. She is a great speaker and speech writter so I sincerely hope she does pursue developing her speaking.   That's not too bad having two out of 13 drop out of the course.  Six weeks is a big committment and sometimes things crop up and you are unable to committ. That is why it is always better to take on extra participants, even though it is difficult when scheduling the agendas. 

So we started off with 13 have 8 regulars, 2 dropped out that leaves the other 3.  One of which I have not seen since the first meeting, another the second meeting and the other who has been held up at work on several occasions.  I have invited them to come to the last meeting which is a celebration, they can present their 2nd or 3rd speech on the night if they wish. And of course can join the Manningham club as a member, this may suit their life schedules better.

Apart from the speeches we had a swift and well run round robin session.  An entertaining table topics session.  The speechcrafters really enjoy this challenge and I believe look forward to it.

I gave an educational on vocal variety which outlined the different qualities of the voice, we had a practice example and I read a passage without and then with vocal variety to demonstrate the difference.  I also spoke about the importance of word selection. To demonstrate this I invited a fellow Kew Toastmaster to present an amazing and entertaining speech with great examples of precise word selection.

I feel I have now done my job I have armed my speechcrafters with basic communication tools to be great speakers.  So far they have learnt and practiced:

• Speech structure
• Speaking with passion an in earnest
• Vocal Variety
• Word Selection
• Body language
• Introducing speakers
• Giving an award
• Recieving an award
• Evaluation that motivate
• Impromtu speaking
• Speech writing

But practice is the key word.  PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE at every opportunity given, to not loose the skills and confidence and build on it.  That's why joining toastmasters is a great way to practice and grow.

The speechcrafters have the opportunity to showcase their skills next week in their final speech.  I believe they will use all the skills learnt so far.  It will be a celebration night where they can bring a friend. We will have speeches, improptu speaking and presentation of awards, food and drinks.  I can't wait but am also a little sad it will be all over.  Its been such a journey for my speechcrafters all my fellow toastmasters I have taken along and especially me.  :)

Manningham Speechcraft week 4 9-11-09

Hot speeches and cool watermelon at speechcraft this week.

Week 4 was always going to be a worry.  It was the mid way point of the course with a two week break. Didn't get a lot of feedback from the emails I sent prior to the night ie. draft agenda and speech reminders.  Fingers crossed the speechcrafters would all return.   The other difficult thing was the weather.  It was a hot day and the venue is quite a glass house, so could everyone be bothered coming out on such a hot night?

The answer was yes!

I started the night with some fun.  A round robin interviewing all the in the room, introducing them and asking each a question regarding a theoretical scandal at the spring racing carnival.   There were lots of fun answers as each participant took on the persona of the person being interviewed.  Took up a bit of time but was worth it.

We had 8 out of our orginal 13 speechcrafters attend this week. We heard 6 terrific speeches based on the "be in earnest" project.  One of our speechcrafters was so keen he gave two speeches that night to catch up from the previous week. 

The speechcrafters who were not presenting speeches did the introductions of the speakers and also gave verbal evaluations. Putting the skills learnt from last weeks educational and the worksheet to give supportive and valuable evaluations. The toastmasters gave feedback on the evaluations, and the toastmasters gave written evaluations on the speeches. 

What worked well this week was assigning 5 min before the speeches to allow the introducer to interview the speaker.  This is especially important as the printed agenda changes when people don't show up on the night, so its impossible to organise this prior to the meeting. 

Unfortunatley one of our speechcrafters gave me notice he would not be able to continue with the course but was interested in joining the Manningham club.  So hopefully we will catch up with him then. Forwarded this onto Maningham to follow through.
We have another speechcrafter that has only been to the first session, with apologies.  We hope to see her for the last two sessions.
A couple of speechcrafters who are behind in giving their 2nd speech were invited to present their speech at a regular Manningham club meeting.  Hope they can make it along.
I was very impressed to hear that one of our speechcrafters attended the Area Speech Contest held last week, (very keen!).

Cool drinks, cold watermelon were popular at the break.  It's great the venue has a fridge to use, all these things are important when planning speechcraft.  The air conditioning progressively worked better during the night and the room was a comfortable temperature.

We heard an excellent educational on presenting and receiving an award.  We were given practical tips and then shown an example.

We had enough time for impromptu speaking session with evaluations.  These are always fun the speechcrafters seem to thrive on these now, so much more confident then session one. There were some really great examples of mini speeches in one minute impromptu.

The speechcrafters were asked to think about bringing a friend along to our final night.  It's going to be quite a celebration.  And were encouraged to visit and give feedback on this blog.

Next week will see the speechcrafters all complete their 3rd speech and have done at least one introduction and evaluation and several table topics.   It will be our last educational "vocal variety and word selection".  We have a guest Toastmaster speaker to give a great example of word selection in his speech.

We had a great team of 7 Toastmasters this week who are enjoying meeting the speechcrafters and watching their growth.

Can't believe we will be up to week 5 next week - looking forward to next Monday.

It was a fun night, lots of energy (despite the heat) and flowed smoothly.

Manningham Toastmasters Speechcraft - week one 12-10-09

Our Toastmasters team of presenters week 1

Boy did this course create a lot of interest!

I was contacted by interested participants right up to 1 hour before the start time.  I had to turn many back, but hopefully they will attend as a guest at this or another club, will follow them up.

I had enquiries from previous guests who were had shown interested in joining either Kew or Manningham Toastmasters so I didn't want to turn them away, so the particpant number number ballooned up to 13. 
That also caused the problem of needing more manuals, after a ring around by my team we had enough manuals for all.

The participants wern't the only ones excited, there was a great buzz in District 73 Toastmasters Land.
I had planned to have the Presidents of both clubs involved as presenters the first night.  One of which is also the Area Governor.  The Eastern Division Governor found out and wanted to come too. As luck would have it the District 73 Division Governor was in town and wanted to come too.  So we had all levels of leadership in our division involved in our first night.  It was bigger than big.  The energy level of the group was so high we nearly blew the roof off, the evaluations and educationals were 1st class.  What a lucky group of speechcrafters.

All of my speechcrafters present gave their Ice Breakers, they were courageous in getting up in front of so many strangers and giving the 2 minute speech their best.  Before their speech I gave an very supportive and encouraging educational on overcoming nerves.  I would like to think that it helped them.  We had 3 participants who did not make it to this night, so will hear their ice breakers next week.
We gave short but positive, informative and encouraging educationals.
Had a lovely cuppa and some chocolate cake and muffins (they really deserved it), then back to it.

We had an excellent educational on impromptu speaking then practice by having each participant answer a table topic.   All the speechcrafters participated and they looked more confident than earlier.  Then positive, informative and supportive evaluations.

An educational on how to choose a speech topic, which will help the speechcrafters in choosing their next 3 speeches. Another educational on speech structure to compliment the written instruction in their manuals.  This was a dynamic and motivating educational.
Then I wrapped up with homework and next weeks tasks which would be split the group into two and hear group 1's "organising your speech" speeches.

We ran 15 min overtime (but we started late and the introduction went overtime) Will amend next weeks agenda to try to not go overtime again.

The speechcrafters went home uplifted and positive.  My team was thrilled and exuberant about how well the first night went, an infectious excitement I hope will filter through to all the clubs in our District.

Can't wait to week 2     :)