Our Spark Plug, Renate Wilms by Vicky Iozzia, DTM 3

Let me tell you about Renate Wilms, ACG, ALB.  She has been in Toastmasters since June of 1990 as a member of Radiant Ridge Toastmasters in Crystal River, Florida.

She was nicknamed our “spark plug” years ago. You can’t run an engine without a spark plug, can you? Without Renate’s energy and dedication I don’t know where the club would be.

Renate hates to be complimented. (Too bad, Renate!) She throws herself into everything she does with gusto, and has served as President, Vice President Education, Secretary, Treasurer, and Vice President Membership, of her club.

Do we need new members? Renate is there to beat the bushes. Are we planning an Open House? Renate is there dealing with the details. Is someone absent and a meeting role needs to be filled? Renate fills it. Is a member not feeling well? She is the first to get a card, have everyone sign it, and make a visit. Is there something she can do to help a fellow member? She is there and ready to give with an open heart.

Are these questions getting you tired? This gives you an idea of how Renate sparks the club. It can be exhausting watching her running around. She must have all this energy because of the doubles tennis matches she plays every week!

I had no qualms about recommending her to be Area Governor, and she did a great job. We will be doing a Youth Leadership course in a local elementary school soon, and I am pleased to be working with her because I know it will be a great success.

Visit the Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park and volunteer Renate will give you the whole story of red wolves. She does manatee watch at the Park, going out on a kayak and counting manatees. Additionally, Renate contributes to our Wildlife Puppeteers at the Park by singing songs, writing and performing with puppets.

When contests come up, Renate competes, just to “keep in shape.” She is the kind of person who personifies Toastmasters: caring, enthusiastic, smart, and dedicated. I am proud to know her as a friend and fellow Toastmaster.      

Advantages of Advanced Toastmastering By Peter M. Gordon, DTM

Are you an experienced Toastmaster looking for opportunities to improve your speaking skills?  Perhaps you’d like more detailed evaluations to help identify your strengths and weaknesses?  If so, you might want to visit an Advanced Toastmaster Club.

Last year I joined with a group of Toastmasters in the Orlando area to found Orlando Advanced Toastmasters (OATS – 2781741).  Our members’ educational achievements ranged from CC to DTM, but all of us had one thing in common – we wanted to get better, faster. From the first meeting we felt we were getting great results while still having a great time at the meetings. How good were our results? One of our founding members, Monty Ray Davidson, made it to the finals of the International Speech Contest.  Monty said, “a key part of my success was the quality of the evaluations and support I received from OATS members.”

Every manual speech by OATS members is evaluated by at least three people, using the tried and true Toastmasters “what I heard, what I saw, what I felt” criteria. After the formal evaluations, other members provide comments, and the speaker can ask specific questions about any point in the speech. Manual evaluations provide credit for every speech. We also evaluate Table Topics, to sharpen our impromptu speaking skills.

OATS meets two Saturdays each month for two and a half hours.  The longer meetings enable us to schedule four to six speakers, depending upon the length of speech, and still have room for evaluations and table topics. Our members are busy, so two meeting dates increases the opportunity that members can attend at least one meeting. The length of our meetings enables us to accommodate members who want to give longer speeches from the professional speaker’s manual and/or offer workshops. Last November I took advantage of our longer meeting to present a one hour presentation I created for a job interview. The feedback I received enabled me to make a strong impression on the interviewing panel.

Since our goal is to enhance everyone’s Toastmasters experience, we require members keep their home club membership, which means every OATS member is in at least two clubs. Members and officers from our members’ home clubs have repeatedly said OATS members provide a great example for both new and experienced members, and are sought-after mentors.

I’m talking about OATS because it’s my advanced club. Before we launched, our first President and first VP Education, April Holtzman and Jack Dillon, visited other advanced clubs around the state to find the best mix of practices that worked for us.

If you can’t join OATS, there may be another advanced club near you. Why don’t you check it out?  If there isn’t an advanced club in your area, District 84 can help you start one.

Don’t wait another minute to sample the advantages an advanced Toastmasters club can give you.

           

  

Toastmasters in Thailand by Christine Duez, ACS, ALB

In early July of 2013, Richard Hoar ACB, ALB, and current Area Governor for Area 53 and Christine Duez, ACS, ALB, and President for Villa Toastmasters visited Bangkok, Thailand.  During their stay there, they visited two Toastmaster Clubs. 

The first was an open club, The Bangkok Toastmaster Club.  They  were warmly greeted by club President, Arun Lipirujatum, ATMB/CL.  Bangkok Toastmasters have a multinational membership using English as their meeting language.  Both Richard and Christine had an opportunity to address the group.  Richard presented information about Area 53 and District 84 while Christine talked about her experiences fulfilling various club roles.

Their second visit was to a new club being coached by Bangkok Toastmasters members.  It was a closed club whose purpose was to help members of the Nakornthon Hospital become more fluent in English.  The President of the club, Sawarut Noppawong Na Ayudhya, CC, was excited to have native English speakers present to offer support, encouragement, and advice.  Richard again presented Area 53 and District 84.  Christine offered a speech on overcoming communication barriers when working between languages.

The entire trip lasted for two weeks.  Both Richard and Christine were excited to see Toastmasters Clubs and took pictures with the Toastmasters Magazine while sightseeing.  

I Have A Dream by Wendy Stone

                What makes Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech a great speech, not from a historical context, but from a technical standpoint?  What can we as Toastmasters learn to make our own speeches memorable? 

                Anaphora is a rhetorical device where words are repeated in successive sentences.  Dr. King repeats “I have a dream” in eight consecutive sentences.  He also repeats phrases such as “one hundred years later” and “Now is the time.”

                Repeat key theme words throughout your speech.  Dr. King repeats Freedom twenty times, We thirty times, Nation ten times, and America or American nine times.

                Use quotations and allusions to increase credibility.  Instead of saying “One hundred years ago” Dr. King says “five score years ago,” alluding to the Gettysburg address.  He also refers several times to the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the song My Country ‘Tis of Thee.

                Use specific examples to ground your arguments.  Dr. King mentions several states by name, including Mississippi four times.  He also uses phrases such as “slums and ghettos” and “villages and hamlets” to make his message more inclusive.

                Dr. King uses wonderful imagery as metaphors to highlight concepts.  Phrases such as “Joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity” and “Transform the jangling discourse of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood” paint pictures in the mind of the audience.

                Analyzing history’s great speeches can be a valuable resource for Toastmasters to improve their own speeches.