Winnipeg Toastmasters: Striving to focus on the present

Well we are very happy to welcome back our wayward traveler Dianne Winser, who was missed for sure!

She had a lovely time in Hawaii and came back looking well rested and dare I say Mindful?

Actually Dianne was our Toastmaster and she choose a very fitting theme in light of how busy January and February can be.........Dianne reminded us to be "mindful"

I loved to hear the stories as we went around the room during introductions. June and Bev shared some helpful strategies as to how they stay mindful. June takes a few minutes everyday to just sit and clear her head, I believe the word she used was contemplate.

If it is wrong I can guarantee June will correct me at our next meeting! 

And Bev shared how her family adopted an introductory phrase when speaking to each other after a busy day....the Doern's begin with a question, so the speaker knows right from the get go, if their questions is answered they know they are being heard and will continue....I like that!

I love coming to Toastmasters as there is always a surprise...Bev was a talk show host today and asked me to come up and be her guest. Wow, that was FUN!! She had it videotaped by Haley and I'm hoping it will appear here on our Toastmasters Blog.

Bev put me, the guest,  right at ease by asking me questions about my own blogging experiences and then turned up the grill by asking me some tougher questions with regards to security etc. etc...so then it was my turn to practice composure.

Andrea's Table Topics was great, she went "off the cuff" in light of our segue on security, and Haley and Tiffany had no problem speaking for 2 minutes.

I also have to congratulate Haley for "kicking it up a notch" by being our General Evaluator, which I believe can be the toughest job!! She was organized, relaxed and had great voice volume matched with thorough content. Way to go Haley!

With all the activity and interesting topics of yesterday's meeting I didn't get a chance to chat with Dianne and hear about her trip to Hawaii...hmmmm maybe I'll get to hear about it in a speech???? (just a

thought)

Have a great week everyone, see you all on the 22nd.

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 Dianne Winser at dianne_winser@umanitoba.ca

Join us at UM Masters!

UM Masters, a Toastmasters club located in the University of Manitoba, has a long and celebrated history of helping people develop confidence in their speaking and improve their listening, thinking and speaking skills. We continually encourage and support one another to be the best that we can be.

With a dedicated executive, I am confident that our club will once again excel in achieving the highest status as a President's Distinguished club.

Ralph Smedley, founder of Toastmasters International once said "we learn best in moments of enjoyment". I always come away from our noon meeting inspired and full of enthusiasm. I have made many friends along my journey in Toastmasters and look forward to many more moments of enjoyment.

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 Dianne Winser at dianne_winser@umanitoba.ca

A Toastmasters Winnipeg Club Celebrates The Season!

For those of you who missed the last UM Masters meeting, our local Winnipeg Toastmasters club, this is only a recap of the meet and there is no replacement for being present. Merriment filled the room starting with Mike’s joke “Where does a Penguin do its banking?” He stumped us on this one! “Where” someone asked? “In a snow bank!”

Today our Table Topic Master Dianne Winser dazzled us with her table topic selections and kept our Winnipeg Toastmasters Club on our toes with creative approaches to improv speaking.

Andrea’s Toastmasters theme “Celebrate the Season” fostered hilarious anecdotes for Table Topic Speakers.

Cameron bestowed “Diffident” as Grammarians Word of the Day upon us mere mortals to challenge our depths of spontaneous and creative speaking. Put all these together and mix well with several Table Topic Speakers and “Presto” you have hearty festive soup for all. 

Our group was definitely in the festive spirit today. We each disclosed holiday musings we anticipated at this time of year. 

Notable mentions are: the night I found who’s actually Santa, the year I got the ultimate gift I ever wanted. It was the huge Black Beard Lego Pirate ship with all the gizmos, it had just come out on the shelves that year, it was the best gift ever! 

Great presentations, thank you to all and to all a good night. Don’t forget to share a little joy to those who need a little extra help this holiday.

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 Dianne Winser at dianne_winser@umanitoba.ca

Winnipeg Toastmasters Talk Mentorship

“Ninety percent of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.”

This quote by Sydney Harris set the stage for another intriguing meeting by UM Masters - a Toastmasters Club in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The theme was Unforgettable Mentors and Dianne, our Toastmaster, got us thinking of who in our lives have left an impact.

The word of the day was appreciate – a fitting word to use as we shared in our introductions the mentors we valued in our lives.

Our club President, Andrea, presented an educational on Mentoring and how integral it was to the toastmasters program. We enter as new members and are guided by mentors.  We in turn pass on our knowledge to others.  The Toastmaster way is to pay it forward!

In our impromptu speaking segment, our Table Topics Master Cathy got us thinking of what advice we would pass on as Dear Abbey (or Albert).  Our new member Julien and our guest Julie had excellent advice to share!

The meeting wouldn’t be complete without evaluations. Our evaluators, Deb and June, gave insightful feedback on what they liked and where they would encourage members to try something different.

Our meeting closed with a thought from John Crosby, “Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.”  If you need a push in the right direction, try UM Masters

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 Dianne Winser at dianne_winser@umanitoba.ca

A Winnipeg Toastmasters Club and Remembrance Day

Our meeting this week  in our WInnipeg Toastmasters club, UM Masters, was an innovative hit thanks to creative ways to master roles starting with Jessica as Toastmaster for her first time. She spoke confidently throughout her role. Her chosen theme of “Animal Companions” prompted pet experiences shared by each member and most welcomed guests. We could all relate to animal companions. Tom shared a most memorable literary experience during his travels in Swahili which helped him choose a name for his family pet. They chose Jambo Piki-Piki which translates into English as Hello Motorcycle. Who would have known? Thanks Tom.

Our enthusiastic speaker of the day Cathy P. once again astounded us with humor to convey the importance of fulfilling Toastmaster Role Projects. She described Competent Communication as the Soup and Competent Leadership as the Sandwich which make a complete wholesome lunch. Leadership without clear communication means “No soup for you”. She encouraged us to challenge our projects to progress through the steps to confident leadership. “While you have your soup remember to take a bite of your sandwich.”

Table Topics Master of the day Dianne creatively prepared notes ahead of the meet listing five unrelated words to challenge the Table Topics Speaker of the day, Mari-Ann. In response Mari-Ann successfully crafted a masterfully expressive speech on the fly including both as animal companion theme and “Remembrance” word of the day.

Bev’s speech evaluation for Cathy P. noted Cathy’s clever ending “Now that you’ve all has lunch how about dessert?” It left us with thoughts of food. After all we meet at lunch. Bev finished her evaluation ingeniously phrasing “Sharing food gives us something to dig into.”

This week’s meeting was well presented, creative and intuitive. Our Grammarian of the day, June, left everyone in our Winnipeg Toastmasters club, UM Masters, with one last thought about “Remembrance”. November 11 is Remembrance Day and “Lest we forget”.

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 Tiffany Lui at  tpylui@hotmail.com

A Peek Inside a Winnipeg Toastmasters Meeting

We had another great meeting at UM Masters this past week, with the theme of “Magical Memories”!

Members had a good time discussing fun, significant, and even embarrassing memories from their past.

The toastmaster this week was Bev Doern, one of our distinguished Toastmasters as part of our Winnipeg Toastmasters club.

The grammarian was Cathy Plouffe who chose the word “reminiscence”. This word was hard to pronounce, but everyone managed to use the word while speaking!

Our main speaker was Selena who gave her 4th speech of her Competent Communicator designation. Her speech called “Remember, Remember the 5th of November” was very well done, and we got to learn about an important day in British history that none of us knew very well!

A speech very well done and very educational - the best of both worlds!

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 Tiffany Lui at  tpylui@hotmail.com

Inside a Winnipeg Toastmasters Club With Doctor Phil

The act of giving can grow a person in many ways.  It fosters good will, spreads joy to others and overall makes your day feel better knowing you did something nice for someone.  Bev’s theme of giving reminds us all at toastmasters just how important it is to continue to give.  This was wonderfully demonstrated during our introductions where everyone shared one way that they gave to others, whether it is as simple as directions to someone lost, or something more, like spending time with people to calm them in difficult situations or teach them skills to better master an activity.  Everyone showed just how easy it is to give to one another and what a change it can create.

Andrea gave a very persuasive speech to the group, “What If I Were To Tell You”.  She opened our eyes to the truth about the health of our bodies and how facts about obesity are really played out by the media.  She concluded to us saying we should be aware that the whole truth is not always going to be given to us and like the things we see and hear in the media, the things we read should also be taken with a grain of salt. 

As we entered into our Table Topics session, “Doctor Phil” led us on a whirlwind of an adventure with his time machine.  As Satwinder travelled back in time, his job was to explain to the people of the past some of the things we have in the present day that have benefitted people worldwide.   He expertly pinpointed how important medical research has been in combating so many diseases we have in the world.  Selena then did a follow up trip to the future and came back to tell us what some of the things we would lose in the future.   She found that our energy resources have depleted and so we should find alternative means to keep our machines running as soon as possible.  A round of kudos to both Satwinder and Selena for becoming our newest toastmasters members and exploring the table topics so well for the first time and to Phil, a returning toastmaster, to provide us a most intriguing adventure that kept me on my toes. 

Coming out of the meeting left me thinking back at the things we give to others and the world and of the things I get back as well.  I am reminded of the movie “Pay it Forward” and how our actions often cause rippling effects to the world.  Toastmaster is similar in that what we put forth towards our toastmasters meetings in energy and commitment; we get back in learning and experience to better our skills.  As Bev challenged us at the end of the meeting to try and give at least one thing every day, I will start with giving thanks to all those who spend the time to read this and to those who are always there to encourage me with my speaking.  I personally like to give by caring for animals and cooking for the people I love… so who wants cake?

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 Tiffany Lui at  tpylui@hotmail.com