My Experience as Chair of City Speech Open House

By Amit Kamble.

When it was announced that our club was going to have its first Open House for 2021, I was curious and excited to find out what it was all about. What would be the best way to know? I thought that the best way to find out would be to volunteer to coordinate the Open House would be to be part of it and I offered my interest to be a coordinator for the Open House. I am so grateful to City Speech President Luz Flores for generously accepting my offer even though I’m a new member.

As a Chair and coordinator for the Open House my job was to work with experienced members to create advertising material, make sure roles were assigned as per the Agenda and send reminders about the event. 

Thank you to Venkat Raman for guiding me through the process. He also drafted the Open House Agenda which made my job much easier as I had to just follow that format. Pooja Shah designed the flyer and Abhishek Chaturvedi emailed the flyer to past members and posted it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Also a big thank you to Abhishek and Pooja for the wonderful job they did in helping with the promotion of the event.

How can I forget all the volunteers who responded to my follow-ups and took up the Roles of Table Topic Master, Speakers, Evaluators, Timer and Ah Counter. You did an awesome job in your roles.

I must mention that all the City Speech team members are so helpful and welcoming that it was easy for a new member like me to successfully coordinate the Open House.  

I would like to encourage other members to experience events such as the Open House by chairing an event or volunteering for available roles.

Pathways

By Praveena Raman

In the 2020-2021 Toastmasters year the following three presentations were presented at our club.  All these presentations (video and slides) can be accessed on City Speech TM website under Member Resources (log in required).

• Pathways to your Goal: an introduction to the Pathways program (article).  Presented on October 27, 2020.
• Pathways: Ready! Set! Go! (Pathways Lightning Talk series): builds on the introduction and covers logging into Base Camp and selecting a path
• Pathways: Beginning the Climb! (Pathways Lightning Talk series): covered the levels of a path, the projects from start to finish and tips for the climb towards your goal.

I would like to invite you to participate in the Pathways Lightning Talk series and share your experience with projects on your path (at any level), which projects were attractive to you, did you tie your projects to your path and lessons learned. 

Michael Gwinner has shared with us a graph (current as of February 16, 2021) showing the number of members you have either started or planning to start on a given path.  The graph also shows which paths (of the 11 paths) have been chosen and how many members are on a given path.

 

As you can see Presentation Mastery is very popular among City Speech Members.  With nine members who have chosen this path, all of you can have path buddies and/or mentors to help you reach your goal.  You can brainstorm together as to how to tie your speeches specifically to your path and maximize your learning as you reach your goal.  As a bonus here is an article about the path The Path to Presentation Mastery: Educational projects help you become an accomplished speaker published in the March 2019 issue of Toastmaster.

Member Spotlight

By Praveena Raman

December 2020

Kamala Tyagarajan attended City Speech TM’s first virtual open house on September 22, 2020.  By the end of the evening she had decided to become a member and followed up by completing the formalities.  Soon after she became a member, Kamala not only gave her ice breaker speech but also volunteered twice to be Table Topics Master (TTM). 

In her most recent role as TTM, Kamala made her prompts so clear, simple, and to the point that members chose to answer her questions rather than speak what they want! Abhishek Chaturvedi, who was serving as General Evaluator for that meeting, noted in his report, “I think that it is because of this clarity [of Kamala’s questions] that members find it easy to respond with a 1-2 minute speech [answering those].”  Way to go, Kamala!

We, at City Speech TM, have been very lucky with our new members in 2020. They have all participated immediately after joining and are very involved.  Other members will be spotlighted in this section in the next issues of this newsletter.

If you would like to spotlight any new or veteran City Speech TM member, please send a paragraph containing the member’s name and what they are commended for to City Speech News Editor, Praveena Raman at praveena@ramans.org by December 31, 2020.

TIP:  You can earn points towards your OATM when you spotlight members.

Pathways to Your Goal

By Praveena Raman.

(This post was originally published in the December 2020 issue of the CIty Speech Newsletter).

Confidence is unique because it cannot be taught but is gained in every path!

On October 27, as City Speech Toastmasters’ VP Pathways, I gave a presentation titled “Pathways to Your Goal“.  This was a high level introduction to the Toastmasters Pathways program. Using mountain climbing as an analogy, attendees were asked to imagine they are preparing to climb the Mountain of Learning, using the Pathways Program to reach the Summit, their goal. They were informed that they had been given the communication and leadership ropes to help them in the ascent. They were also told that Toastmasters had given them a team as climbing partners, 11 paths to choose from and even flown them to base camp for their climb.  The core competencies and the structure of the program were described, with resources identified at the end of the training.  The video and slides of this presentation are available to City Speech Toastmasters at the Member Resources page on the City Speech TM website.  Members will need to login to access this presentation.

On December 3rd, District 57 (D57) Pathways Chair Lindy Sinclair, DTM, gave the “Vanquishing the Pathways Blues”presentation.  For City Speech members who had attended the “Pathways to Your Goal“, this presentation would have been the logical next step in their path to the summit.  They would have learned the correct vocabulary of the Pathways program, had a refresher of the paths in the program, and also would have been exposed to the tools available to them on Toastmasters International website to help them choose their path.  If you missed this training or need a refresher, this presentation was recorded and will be available on the D57 Toastmasters website for viewing.

Additional Pathways resources are available on D57 Pathways Learning Zone.   Please read the announcement of the next D57 Pathways Training in the District News section of this Newsletter.

Also be on the lookout for the next City Speech TM Pathways training in Q1 2021

Member Spotlight: November 2020

by Mary Perez and Praveena Raman

Congratulations to the following members

Tony Zhang, Shue Xiong, Mary Perez, and Michael Gwinner
Very early on in his membership, Tony Zhang completed his DL1 (Dynamic Leadership, Level 1) in pathways.  Not only did Tony get this accomplished during our COVID shutdown, but he also decided to step up and become our VP of Education. Likewise, Shue Xiong also completed his PM1 (Presentation Mastery) in pathways while attending Zoom meetings due to COVID.  He then decided to use his talents and become our VP of Membership at City Speech.  Congratulations to these members turned officers who bring new meaning to the word, Motivated!

Speaking of motivation, Mary Perez, within the first year of joining City Speech Toastmasters, has not only completed LD4 (Leadership Development) in pathways but has also stepped up to lead the club as President during this COVID-19 virtual era.  She has brought a new meaning to Table Topics with virtual pillow fights and Disney theme making us relive our carefree childhood days.

Not to be outdone by the newer members (compared to his nearly 2 year tenure), Michael Gwinner has not only completed PI4 (Persuasive Influence) in pathways but has also served as VPE in his first year and started the Mentor program at City Speech.  In his second year, he is serving in the role of Secretary for City Speech and is also working on the new Pathways Mentor Program certification at Toastmasters.
Kudos to all four!

Virtual Open House – November 2020

By Venkat Raman

Our first Open House of the year on Sept 22 went very well. We added two members as a result of hosting it. With that to boost our confidence and excitement, we are delighted to announce our second Open House of the year on November 10.

COVID-19 is still in control. So, this will be a virtual meeting as well. The idea is to showcase our adaptation to the new norm and demonstrate how much can be achieved even in these remote meetings.

Mark your calendars and attend our Open House:

VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE
Date/Time: November 10, 2020; 7-9 PM
Joining instructions: Sent by email. (If you are a guest, register here)

Program:

• Meet and Greet
• Prepared Speech
• Intermission
• Evaluation
• Impromptu Speeches
• Q&A
• Closing Comments

Spread the word! Have your friends and family attend to get a taste of the City Speech Toastmasters hospitality and engagement.

2020: Expect the Unexpected!

2020 dawned just like another year full of hope and promises. For me it was the usual: weekdays filled with work, yoga, walks, television and of course Toastmasters on Tuesdays. Weekends were, well, weekends! In February I even attended two conferences in San Francisco, at the same time: one in oncology and the other in writing. The oncology conference was an international meeting. However, there were not many attendees from Asia or Europe. We had heard some rumblings about coronavirus in China and Italy, how it was very infectious, how people were dying and everyone was worried as no one knew how to combat it. Then March came, and I noticed that in our weekly City Speech meetings we stopped shaking hands and were instead bumping fists. We stopped giving hugs when greeting each other and then days after our Open House we were told that here, in California, we had a pandemic and were required to shelter in place, at home.

Pandemic! Not earthquakes, not tsunamis, but a pandemic caused by a teeny weeny virus brought our life as we know it to a near screeching halt! To our credit, the halt was brief. Due to our resiliency and innovativeness life virtually started humming again. We had a new “normal” with our day starting at home, staying and ending at home. We were on Zoom, Skype, WebEx or Bluejeans communicating, leading, managing and working remotely from home. This extended to Toastmasters too. We went virtual when City Speech also joined the Zoom world without missing even a single meeting.

Today, I can very confidently say that here in Fremont and in California, this year has been full of surprises, the unexpected has become the new norm. It has been six months and we are still, to a large extent, sheltering in place. A few weeks back we had an unusual and unexpected electrical storm. A beautiful one at that, as evidenced by all the photographs posted on WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media. But sadly that beauty became horrifying with the fires that were ignited by the lightning. Soon our world was filled with a scary reality of getting prepared to possibly evacuate the shelter of our homes during this pandemic. Our environment was filled with smoke and an orange-yellow glow during the entire day made us wonder if we were living in a futuristic sci-fi world.

But we made it through all that and we are even hosting our first Virtual Open House this Tuesday, September 22, 2020, 7-9 pm PDT. We are excited and invite you to join us and meet our Toastmasters family some of whom reside in Mexico and experience the world of Toastmasters at City Speech!

Please Register Now and you will obtain the link to an evening of fun! And do Expect the Unexpected!

Milestones recognized: Venkat Raman, Sandra Savage

Our meeting today was refreshing as it benefited from a sudden influx of nine guests! One of them was our very own Area Director, John Dinh. John was visiting us at the perfect time to let the guests see how member accomplishments are recognized. More on that later.

The evening started slightly off-balance, as some of the gates to enter the premises were locked up as this is a vacation week for the school district, our facility host. But we made up for it in having a well-attended, full length meeting that sported three substantial speeches.

Pravesh introduced us to the concept of Blockchain Technology and Sara helped us understand the aspects of healthy living that keeps food, exercise, sleep, and stress in balance. The unexpected bonanza was when John Dinh offered to fill an open speech slot with his presentation on how prepare for a speech! He also tripled up as an evaluator of Sara’s speech. John was wearing different hats today.

In addition to the prepared speeches, our table topics were also engaging our guests. A few of them volunteered to speak, always the fun part of our meetings.

The meeting ended with an opportunity to go through a mini-awards ceremony where an individual accomplishment was recognized by Pravesh, our VP of Education, and two members with district level accomplishments last year were recognized by John Dinh, in his capacity as our Area Director.

Venkat Raman receiving the OATM award from  John Dinh

John presented the plaque to Venkat Raman in recognition of his qualifying for the Outstanding Achievement Toastmaster (OATM) award. John also recognized a Triple Crown award (for completing three or more milestones in the year) to Sandra Savage, who was unable to be present at the club meeting.

Venkat Raman receiving the HPL certificate from Pravesh Kumar

In addition, Pravesh Kumar, VPE of our club, presented the Certificate of Completion to Venkat Raman in recognition of his efforts on a High Performance Leadership (HPL) project.

 

 

We’re now on Meetup

City Speech has joined forces with several other clubs in Division I and is now featured in the brand new meetup created yesterday by Division I.

The new Meetup group, Power of Speaking, is still being filled out with meetup listings. Spearheaded by the expert guidance of Ken Chow, Architect of the whole setup, we have just been approved by meetup.com.

City Speech used to be part of a different meetup group and we have seen guests attending meetings through our listing there. With this renewed effort, there is more focus on managing these listings.

With the pool of clubs participating in this group all contributing to the listings, our calendar is surely going to look busy! We need to manage our listings well so that people browsing on the web take notice.

Exciting times for public relations!

We’ll keep you updated on how this works out for us as time goes on.

Lygometry and more!

This week ushered in a thought-provoking speech at the club meeting.

Abhishek talked about Lygometry, the science of quantifying what we know we don’t know.

The very concept is intriguing.

Interestingly, my familiarity with this concept itself is in its domain: I didn’t know this term or the existence of this discipline of science. Now that I know the term and existence of the idea, I can start with stating that I know nothing about it.

Gives fodder to finding out more, right?

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One of our guests, Joshua Widjaja, offered an interesting analogy for the Table Topics sessions when he said they were like spicy food; you may not like it while doing it, but you want to do it again! We certainly hope it grows on you, Joshua!

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Meeting at the Fremont Adult School in summer has its moments. We practically have the place to ourselves. Extended sunlight seeps into our psyche to start the meeting on a happier note. And the warmth of summer is undeniably enjoyable.

Or, do you think it is too hot? Check out how Toastmasters International may be trying to help!