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.
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