International Women’s Day Panel: Successful women sharing their stories

By Luz Flores

International Women’s Day (March 8) is celebrated globally to recognize the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. On Monday, March 8 this year, I had the privilege of taking part in these celebrations.

A week earlier, I got a call from a high school friend of mine, inviting me to participate in a virtual event organized for this occasion by the SUMA Inmobilarias Association in Mexico. I was to be on a panel of women.  The panel discussion would be in Spanish and would be shared live on Facebook and YouTube.

I was really nervous to participate, but said yes to my friend. Toastmasters gave me the confidence that I could do a good job. I needed to prepare my responses to questions that will be asked during the panel discussion. I received the questions Saturday evening, just two days prior to the live event. With very little time to practice, I reviewed my Pathways Level 5 project to prepare for it. That only helped me prepare for the introduction and conclusion well. The actual questions would be asked at random and needed to be answered on the spot. This is where the Table Topics practice during our Toastmasters meetings comes to the rescue.

When the event time arrived on Monday, I was nervous, but ready. I met the rest of the panelists as they were being introduced. We were 7 women: an architect, a public notary, a public accountant, a business administrator, a lawyer, a real estate agent, and me, an engineer. Impromptu speaking became the norm during the discussion. Some questions were modified and adjusted on the spot. Some conversations needed to be continued from panelist to panelist as continued comments. Table topics is so important. You always have to be ready to speak!

Some of the questions addressed: challenges as a woman in our careers; problems in our professional life; balancing our life as a mother, professional, wife, and daughter; status of women today; what it means to be successful; advice to other women; and our current and future professional projects.

I understood from my mom and my husband that I did do a good job. In typical Toastmasters style, I also learned of some areas of opportunities to improve. My high school friend was really happy with the event and my participation. I was happy and relieved after the event!

I felt the support of both City Speech Toastmasters and Word Warriors Club (my home club when I lived in Mexico) as I experienced the event. Thank you all for helping me by way of helping each other to improve and grow as communicators and leaders.

Speechcraft 202: Turning Resonate into Reso-Neat

By Jeffrey Young, ACB, ALB, Area I-33 Director

Disclaimer: I do not ever think I’m a perfect speaker. But I’ve had a lot of things to say over the years, and so I’m writing from personal experience rather than being an expert. We always have room to grow as speakers no matter if we’ve been doing it for one day or one thousand days.

It’s not often I completely flub a Table Topic, but it still happens – like at the meeting on March 9, where I took on the role of a sportscaster in my own life and managed to fall over my tongue while sticking my foot in my own mouth. Not my finest moment, for sure. I wanted something that would resonate with the audience, and instead I wound up with reso-naughts. So naturally, I’m going to write about it.

Writing a resonating speech is all about relating to the audience in a way that they relive an experience with you.

The /Memory Story/ is a powerful tool in speeches. If you can lay out your story in a way that connects to your audience, you create an emotional bond that can captivate an audience’s imagination and transport them in a tiny time machine of your own making to wherever you were at that time.

Following the Rule of Threes (‘put up three ideas’ for your article or speech), I’m going to relate the Three Requirements of Resonating Recollection:

1. Figure Out Your Flow First, Followed by First Looks

When I have a ton of ideas in my head all fighting to get out, each one of them wants to be first. Toastmasters teaches us to Organize Our Ideas before saying a word, and that was my first mistake. Today’s Table Topics Master gave us a gift – a format of opening and closing that we could follow, and all I needed to do was fit my story in the middle. If you don’t have that format, figure out a solid opening framing line that indicates that a story is in the works, even if it’s the tried and true ‘Once upon a time…’ which I’ve actually used in a speech before.

The Sportscaster persona I was using could have laid out the picture a little bit better – ‘an uneven 12 on 12, mano a mano knockdown dodgeball competition and battle of the sexes.’ Describing each team in greater detail, talking about the team Captains, that sort of thing. Maybe I could have explained briefly the rules of Dodgeball as well.

2. And then… Action
   Once you’ve taken your audience to the place where your adventure happened, it’s time to describe the events that made it memorable as more than just a place you went. What happened to you that you want to share? What emotions did you feel? Were you alone? Or were you helped or hindered by your traveling companions?

In my case, I could have talked about how the boys were acting all superior and how their first few throws sent the girls scattering into the corners. But then, the girls’ champions started turning the tables with that first catch of the dodgeball…

3. Engage Everyone’s Emotions
   This is the tough part. The emotional value – that intangible thing that makes or breaks an inspirational speech. The ability to use vocal variety and words and emotes to get everyone to –feel- a –feeling- you want them to feel, be it hopeful, angry, sad, frightened… How do you add it? The easy answer is to re-live the moment in your words and actions.

“It’s a massacre, folks! The boys are suffering a massive upset and man, they are upset as they walk off the court with their heads down. The girls are fighting mad and oh! There goes the last guy who could throw down with the girls, because he threw it right into the clutches of the girl’s team captain, Cathy Sivio! The boys have one player left, and he’s absolutely tiny, and he looks utterly terrified! It’s the Girl Goliaths versus David! He’s so small they can’t hit him as he throws himself across the room, heedless of his own safety! I think his name is Jeff, and he puts the Dodge in Dodgeball! Look at him go! Cathy throws at him and misses by a county mile! His problem is he can’t throw worth anything because the ball is bigger than his head…. Who will win?” “Oh, the ref is stopping the match! He’s not going to give the kid a fighting chance… someone throw a flag on the ref or something, because that scrappy kid sure looked like he wanted to go down fighting… such a disappointment…”

That was the Table Topics answer I would have delivered if I’d had the chance to slow down and think about it further, but hey, hindsight is everything.

When it comes to a speech, all it really takes is to expand out this format into something longer, and with a life lesson to go with it, and maybe a joke or two, and you’ll have a winner eight times out of ten. The other two times, you’ll get upstaged by a better story, or you’ll forget half your story in the middle. I’ve been there, too….

Icebreaker Ceremony at the Word Warriors Toastmaster Club in Toluca, Mexico

By

By Luz Flores,
President, City Speech TM

The ice breaker ceremony and speech were an important experience for all the members at the Word Warriors Toastmaster club in Mexico. Ice breakers started your path and your Toastmaster journey. I was a member of the Word Warriors before moving to California.

Meetings at Word Warriors had the prepared speeches section at the beginning and always started with the Ice breakers. After the break, we would have the ice breaker ceremony, speech evaluations, followed by table topics and general evaluation. The icebreaker ceremony was led by the Club President. During the ceremony the ice was broken literally by the new members and not just verbally. After the ice was broken, the President of the club would give some encouraging words to the member or members who presented the ice breakers.

What was the main ingredient of the icebreaker ceremony? Ice! The member would have a big piece of ice in front of them which they would break with the gavel. All the members cheered and clapped for the new members. After breaking the ice each new member would recite the Toastmasters promise (given below)

As a member of Toastmasters International and my club, I promise:

• To attend club meetings regularly
• To prepare all of my projects to the best of my ability, basing them on the Toastmasters education program
• To prepare for and fulfill meeting assignments
• To provide fellow members with helpful, constructive evaluations
• To help the club maintain the positive, friendly environment necessary for all members to learn and grow
• To serve my club as an officer when called upon to do so
• To treat my fellow club members and our guests with respect and courtesy
• To bring guests to club meetings so they can see the benefits Toastmaster’s membership offers
• To adhere to the guidelines and rules for all Toastmasters education and recognition programs
• To act within Toastmasters’ core values of integrity, respect, service and excellence during the conduct of all Toastmasters activities

Woo your Audience and Build Relationships

by Praveena Raman

With the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day, the month of February has been associated with love and relationships.  In our journey as a Toastmaster we continually strive to build relationships with our speeches, from the very first icebreaker to the professional speeches.  In his article, A Speech is a Love Affair (Toastmaster. February 2015; p14) Toastmaster Jack Vincent mentions that a great speech is like a love affair as we focus on our audience, touch their emotions and also their minds creating an attraction and a connection.  He talks about how to seduce, engage and win the hearts of our audience.  Jack mentions that simplicity sparks emotion and attraction is a strong emotion; so with a simple but attention grabbing opening we can start seducing our audience.  We then nail the seduction with a well-paced speech delivered with genuine confidence.  Jack next discusses how to engage the audience with a well-developed content assuring them of a wonderful journey they will be taking with us and then winning their heart by delivering the content with passion and love.

Let us try and put into practice these recommendations from Jack Vincent and see if we can have a number of love affairs this year.  As you all know to develop a great speech, apart from a powerful topic we need words to help us convey our enthusiasm, our passion, our love so that we can woo our audience properly. To help us in this effort, below is a 7 verse Jingle written in the 1930s by Elizabeth Scott Stam.  It is available on Google, however the below verses are from a submission to The Toastmaster, June 1938;V4(n2):p22.

Once we have wooed and won our audience, let us keep building our relationship, strengthening and maintaining through our Toastmasters journey. In his February 2021 ViewPoint column in the Toastmaster, International President, Richard E. Peck, asks us if we are the String, the Bow or Both in Cupid’s bow? In his view Cupid’s bow can be used to describe relationships and he explains that just as there needs to be a balance between the tautness of the string and the bend of the bow for the perfect release of the arrow, in the same way we need to have the right balance between building and maintaining relationships.

Let’s continue to woo our audience and build our relationships not just this month but this year and more as coming together gives us a sense of belonging and learning and growing together gives us a sense of purpose.

City Speech Blog: Why Now and What Next?

By Praveena Raman

In the summer of 2020, at one of City Speech Officers’ meeting there was a discussion about how our members have adjusted and taken to the virtual setting.  We also acknowledged that this new environment that we were thrown into was making it challenging for many of our members to attend the meetings and continue their education.   

The question that came to my mind was how can we keep our members informed and engaged? We needed another form of communication that would support the education and growth of our members beyond the regular Toastmasters meetings. 

As I reflected on these thoughts I remembered that we used to have a communication tool the City Speech Newsletter that I could resurrect.  Over the years I have had experience creating and writing Newsletters for various professional and community organizations that I had been a member of as well as being a writer for the local Newspaper, Tri-City Voice.  So writing itself would not be too much of a problem but finding the time to do so was another issue.

The Newsletter could convey news, events and articles to all our members but in my mind it should be just one to two pages long but heavy in educational content.  How could we achieve that?  I did not have to ponder on it too long as I remembered that we also used to have a Blog. No one had blogged for City Speech for about 2 years. That could be another communication tool which could be used to support the Newsletter.  I had a personal blog that I was planning on developing further as part of the Effective Coaching Level 4 Elective, but decided that perhaps I could spend time resurrecting the City Speech Blog instead and make it a source for a variety of educational content and discussions.

Since last September, the City Speech blog has been feeding City Speech News, through which we share news and educate our members, District 57 members and even some members of Toastmasters International. So now what’s next?

A blog and newsletter can only be interesting and successful if it is a team effort.  I request you, City Speech Toastmasters, to start thinking about contributing your thoughts and learnings in the form of short articles or posts.  You can start by spotlighting a member and giving kudos, welcoming new members or submitting your prepared speeches. 

As Ralph Smedley, founder of Toastmasters, said – We work together to bring out the best in each of us and then we apply our skills to help others.  I will leave you with that thought.