UM Masters Meeting - 11th June 2014 - Father's Day

Today we learned the qualities a father should have and that sometimes tough love is necessary when raising children. Our toastmaster for the day Randy chose the theme “Father’s Day” in honor of the approaching holiday. Our grammarian, June, presented us with the word of the day “tough love,” which was used proficiently throughout the meeting as we introduced ourselves and shared stories about our fathers.  

Our speaker for the day, Dinesh, educated us on how to stop chain emails in his speech “Break the Chain.” We learned through Dinesh the danger of chain emails and how we can prevent their survival in a society that is immersed in media communications. Maimouna led us in her first session as Table Topics Master, where she presented us with the prompt: Everyone can be a father but what makes a dad? Colin quickly responded with sacrifice as an important ability in a dad. Our next table topics participant was Laura who told us about the worst gift she has ever given her dad on father’s day. Our meeting wrapped up with evaluations for another successful gathering and the quote: “Children have more need of models than of critics.”

Blog by: Danielle 

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

If you would like to take part in a UM Masters meeting, we’re located in Winnipeg at the University of Manitoba. Our meetings are held every Wednesday from 12:05 –12:50 PM in Room 111 at St. John’s College (which is part of the University of Manitoba).

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 Catherine Plouffe at Catharine.Plouffe@umanitoba.ca   

UM Masters Meeting - 4th June 2014 - Opportunities

“Opportunities:  what challenges are we facing right now?”

The theme for today’s meeting was “Opportunities:  what challenges are we facing right now?” Dianne stepped in as toastmaster at the last minute and led us in another successful meeting. As grammarian, Mohsin chose the perfect word of the day “fungible,” meaning two things that are equal and can be substituted for the other. As we did our introductions we discovered some of the challenges that our members are facing and striving to turn into opportunities. Our scheduled speaker and gold star award winner, Ali, enlightened us as he told us how to throw a stress free dinner party for our friends.

               Cathy demonstrated the meaning of Table Topics as she stepped in as Table Topics master minutes before presenting questions to the membership. Her prompt was:  opportunities and problems are not always fungible, tell us about a time that they were; Colin and Yu Chen eagerly responded as they had been selected as contestants. To wrap up the meeting we completed our evaluations and closed with the quote “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Blog post by:

Danielle Mocker

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

If you would like to take part in a UM Masters meeting, we’re located in Winnipeg at the University of Manitoba. Our meetings are held every Wednesday from 12:05 –12:50 PM in Room 111 at St. John’s College (which is part of the University of Manitoba).

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 Catherine Plouffe at Catharine.Plouffe@umanitoba.ca  

UM Masters Meeting - 28th June 2014 - Motivation

Today, UM Masters had a great meeting with three (3) guests.  Our Sergeant-At-Arms, June, started the meeting by introducing the Toastmaster of the Day, Charith, who chose the theme “Motivation”. Amy, the grammarian, presented the word of the day, “Inertia”, which was appropriated with the theme of the meeting and willingly adopted by many in attendance. Colin, one of our guests shared a humorous story with the audience.

Randy gave an excellent speech on "Salaries of Soccer and Baseball Players".  He used great vocal variety and caught attention of the audience. As it was the last meeting of the month we had another great speech from June about "What drives her crazy". She had an excellent body language and it was an interesting speech with great humour.

Mohsin and Dianne evaluated Randy’s and June’s speeches respectively.  Both of them provided excellent feedback while using the sandwich method. Zenon, the Ah-Counter and Amy, the grammarian presented their reports. Dinesh (me) was the general evaluator, who presented the Gold Star Award to Randy for his fantastic speech. 

Overall it was an excellent meeting and everyone did a great job.

Blogged by Dinesh

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

If you would like to take part in a UM Masters meeting, we’re located in Winnipeg at the University of Manitoba. Our meetings are held every Wednesday from 12:05 –12:50 PM in Room 111 at St. John’s College (which is part of the University of Manitoba).

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 Catherine Plouffe at Catharine.Plouffe@umanitoba.ca