Winnipeg Toastmasters Are Happy for No Reason!

Today's UM Masters Toastmaster's meeting was a challenge for our new members who might have been tempted to sit back and observe on another day. With many of the more experienced members absent, newer members seized the challenge of the unfilled roles - and boy did they do a good job to give us another fantastic meeting.

Dianne was Toastmaster and she introduced today's theme 'Happy for no reason' inspired by a course she and her daughter are following with dramatic effect. She encouraged us to think about what makes us happy.

Charith in his first time as grammarian introduced the word of the day - capricious and encouraged us find ways to tell us about times when we have acted on impulse or done something unexpected. Charith is always so cheerful, and this always rubs off on me!

Matt, a new member introduced humour to the meeting with a clip from a paper that showed how differently men and women approach problems - which had us all laughing and relaxing, before we introduced ourselves and told the other members what makes us happy. There was definitely a sub-theme in today's meeting as everyone seemed to be happy outdoors and enjoy the natural world.

Speeches followed, and we had 2 today. First, Selena gave speech number 7 with a speech titled 'What's wrong with Lake Winnipeg anyway?', telling us about the water quality problems in the lake, work going on to solve it, and giving us all some hints and tips to take away on things we can do differently. This was followed by Mike, who gave an awesome ice-breaker speech on 'the road travelled' to explain how he got to where he is now.

Dianne did some juggling of the Agenda to give Mike time to prepare his first evaluation of Selena (multi-tasking), and Charith gave his grammarian observations with a smile of course. Mike's first evaluation was great. He used the sandwich method to great effect giving Selena positive observations from his perspective with a point or two to grow. Then Matt gave his first evaluation of Mike's ice-breaker and did a fantastic job for a first time - two excellent evaluators in the making.

Matt was also trying to time everything - truly multi-tasking, what a volunteer! He fully deserved the Gold star from Dianne who filled in as general evaluator.

We had two guests today in our Winnipeg Toastmasters Club, who gave their feedback, and I hope they will come back and join in the fun next week!

If you are in Winnipeg and are interested in dropping by and visiting our club, we meet Wednesdays from 12:05 – 12:55.  We have currently “moved house” for the summer to room 125 St. John’s in the University of Manitoba but please do drop by and see what our members are up to next week.

If you're in Winnipeg and interested in sitting in on a club meeting to see if Toastmasters is right for you , please feel free to contact Dianne Winser at dianne_winser@umanitoba.ca, phone 204-256-7550.

Toastmasters – the proven way to grow your communication and leadership skills. 

A look into a Winnipeg Toastmasters Class

It was another exciting meeting at UM Toastmasters this week.  The word of the day given by Matt was ‘procrastinate’ which is definitely a word I can describe myself for doing all the time.   

Our humourist for the day was Charith, and instead of the standard quick joke, he delivered a full on stand up act describing the woes of the English language at the airport.  “Why do they keep telling me to get on a plane when I would be much more comfortable in a plane, it is less windy there.”  Charith showed great observations into how funny and contradictory English can be at times when we speak.  

After many laughs, Bev provided the group with a very informative speech on how to use the stage we are given in the form of a timeline.  She described to us that we can move across a stage as a form of visual transitioning through the past, present and future and even demonstrated the impact it provides in a speech.  Even if we don’t have room to walk around, Bev told us a simple hand wave to the right side, in front or left side of us can also direct our focus and association to the past, present and future.   

After Bev’s speech was first timer Table Topics Master Trevi who did a great job in using the meeting theme of ‘watershed’ and asked the members of the meeting what we thought of public and private information.  

The meeting went by in a flash today but for good reasons.  Today was also the day we voted for our new executive.  A great round of congratulations and applause to our new executive team for the upcoming year!   

I myself truly enjoyed the role of Sergeant at Arms this year and had lots of fun trying to come up with new ways of opening and closing the meetings.  

A final shout out as well to our two newest members who joined today and last Wednesday, a warm welcome to our club from me to you. 

If you are interested dropping by and visiting our club, we meet Wednesdays from 12:05 – 12:55.  We have currently “moved house” for the summer to room 125 St. John’s in the University of Manitoba but please do drop by and see what our members are up to next week.

If you're in Winnipeg and interested in sitting in on a club meeting to see if Toastmasters is right for you , please feel free to contact Dianne Winser at dianne_winser@umanitoba.ca, phone 204-256-7550.

Toastmasters – the proven way to grow your communication and leadership skills.