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     :)

So you want to run a speechcraft course

This blog article is for Toastmasters members who are interested in running a Toastmasters International Speechcraft Course.  The planning experience has been a positive and enjoyable and enriching experience for me, so join me on my week by week blog.  Hope it helps other Toastmasters in speechcraft planning or inspires you to take it on as a membership and team/morale building exercise for your club.

My Commitment
I decided to run a speechcraft course.  This would help me ahcieve my Advanced Communicator Gold Award that I wanted to ahcieve in the 09/10 TM year.  I looked at the other projects to achieve this and although they were much less time consuming, I decided that speechcraft was in demand and would be a great membership builder.

The idea was hatched
My Club Kew has a healthy membership, but our neighbouring club Manningham (previously Doncaster) has very low membership, so why not run it in conjuction with the two clubs at the Manningham club, to boost membership for Manningham.  Our area Governor thought this was an excellent idea and put it to the Manningham club.  They were excited too, so the "Manningham Toastmasters Speechcraft Course" was officially launched.

The opportunities were:

• Credit toward my ACG award as being the official co-ordinator
• Membership building for Manningham Club
• Team/morale building for Manningham Club
• Raised awareness of the Manningham Club
• Communications and leadership opportunities outside the club for all involved
• Experience for toastmasters members in the speechcraft program for future courses
• Toastmasters members can run educationals credited to their awards
• Participants will receive high quality value for money course
• Participants will receive 6 months membership to Manningham Club at the end of the course if they take up the invitation
• Participants will receive credit for 3 speeches on their Competent Communicator Award (if they join TM)
• Club will attain DCP points for memberhsip and towards CC & CL goals

Before I started at Toastmasters I would have thought it crazy if it were suggested that "I" run a 6 week public speaking course, (especially for free).  But that's how Toastmasters can give you the skills and confidence that turns your approach to life around, when you give YOU RECIEVE.

The broad details were decided
Between our two clubs we decided to maximise the likelihood of participants joining as Manningham members:

• The venue was to be at the Manningham club rooms, they were available, reasonably priced and the infrastructure was already there, the participants would be familiar with the club rooms.
• We decided on a 6 week program, 2 hr sessions for 10 participants spanning Oct & Nov 2009
• The night was decided as a mutually available night at a similar time to the Manningham club meeting time but on a different night.
• It was decided to run it as a separate couse to the club meeting nights (the co-ordinators manual suggests run it on meeting nights)  this makes the course an event of its own and also will not detract from the meeting goals of the club's regular meetings.
• The price was set at $120pp to cover expenses with no profit.  This covered venue hire, manuals, supper, misc stationary, and six months membership to Manningham Club (the TMI joining fee would come from surplus funds from the course or met by the Manningham Club).
• Participants will be invited at the end of the course to become members, for ongoing support (which will be based on their decision to commit to join the club).

The 6 week schedule was drawn up
I planed each session, a rough agenda drawn up for each night.
My overall schedule covered:

• 4 speeches by the participants (each with a written and verbal evaluation)
• 1 evaluation by the participants
• 1 introduction by the participants
• 1 recieving an award by the participants
• At least 4 opportunities for impromptu speaking by participants
• A Toastmaster for each evening
• A timer/table topics master for each evening
• Evaluators for speeches and table topics for each evening

Educationals on:

• Overcoming nerves
• Selecting speech topics
• Speech structure
• Introducing a speaker
• Evaluations
• Body language
• Vocal variety & word selection

There is a minimum content to be covered according to the co-ordinators guide, this course covers much more.  The schedule is intense and rich in content and maximum speaking opportunities for the participants.
The scheduling did take a bit of time to complete but is an essential step to get the schedule organised in the initial stages to be clear on resourcing.



Call for volunteers
No one can run a speechcraft on their own!  Here is where the leadership comes in.
I ran an educational speech at Manningham and the Wafflers Clubs and an announcement was made at Kew.  The great thing about Toastmasters is you put out the call and people come to help.

I had more than enough Toastmasters responding.

I scheduled 4 Toastmasters members for the first 3 nights, 3 Toastmasters members for the next two and 4 again for the final night to fill the requirements on the schedule.


Assign tasks to resources
This again took a bit of time ot work out the best roles for the experienced Toastmasters and the best roles for the emerging Toastmasters.  I called in specific Toastmasters with exceptional skills for particular educationals.  It is a real show case for the talent we have in our area, the participants are very lucky to have such a skilled team to support them.

Things to think about are that there is no duplication in assigning roles,  ie ensure that a toastmaster is not running a section and expected to evaluate as well.  It is important to not have too many Toastmasters involved in one night, because you don't want more Toastmasters than participants and it gets too hard to organise a lot of people each night (the exception to this comment is if you are running it inconjuction with regular  meetings).  I had an open invitiation to Toastmasters members if they were not involved on the night to come and observe as a learning experience for future courses.

When resources were assigned I sent an email out to each resource for each week with venue details, dates, times, draft agenda, outlined their specific task and educational deliverables for the tasks and timing.
Then I waited for confirmations and/or inabilities.  Then revamped the schedule.


The Participants
We sourced our participants from:

• Visitors t the Kew and Manningham clubs
• Spread the word to Area, Division and District Governors
• Letter box drop of flyers in the local area
• Contacted past enquiries made to District about upcoming speechcraft
• Visited local business networking clubs

Initially our intention was to target participants who live locally who potentially would join the Manningham Club, but invitation was extended to all interested parties.  Participants were only confirmed on the course when they had paid in full.  This was done by direct credit into the Manningham account.


The Response
1 week before the start date we had 8 participants paid up, with another 3 promising to pay prior to the course.  This article was written 6 days before the course commenced.  Participants were sent a confirmation letter with venue details, dates, times, what to bring, and instructions on preparing their first assignment a 2 min Ice Breaker, the message included an outline about the Ice Breaker speech.
Organised some extra participant's manuals to be purchased to cater for potentially one or two extra participants.  Expectation that at least one may drop out before the end of the course.


The Team Building Effect
There has been such a buzz about this course, the feedback from the participants was exciting.  The feedback from the Toastmasters members and leaders has been exciting.  The Manningham club members have joined together to promote and facilitate the administration.  It will be a much more enthused and invigorated club at the end of the 6 weeks.  I am expecting a growth in memberhip too.


Finalizing The Agenda
Preparted the draft agenda, waiting on the final participants payments to go through, to add them to the agenda, will send out agenda to participants and Toastmasters members prior to the first meeting.

IT'S ALL SO EXCITING   -   CAN'T WAIT FOR WEEK 1