U.M. Masters July 10th meeting

There may have been a small number of people who attended, but there were many interesting and exciting moments during this week’s meeting.  This week’s Toastmaster was Dianne, and the theme this week was “Be open to opportunities”.  Maybe it was the lack of members, but it seemed that at least two people listened, because both Randy and Nicole (the writer of this post) took on roles that they had never done before. The roles they took on were Speech evaluator (Randy) and Table Topics Evaluator (Nicole).  

This week’s speaker, Charith, also took advantage of an opportunity in that he took the opportunity to do his last speech in the Competent Communicator manual. Congratulations, Charith!   His extensive speech on Moral Values definitely gave everyone a lot to think about.

Our Table Topics Master this week was Laura, and she definitely picked a very creative way of picking speech topics. The idea of having Table topics speakers pick an object out of a bag and talk about it for a minute to two minutes was very unique.  Danielle and Zenon, this week’s table topics speakers, were definitely faced with a challenge when it came time to talk about their respective “object”.  While there were more vacancies than filled positions when everyone arrived, we somehow managed to fill the necessary positions to go through with the meeting and I hope we will improve on that in the weeks to come.   I hope we can all remember to be open to opportunities in our everyday life.

Written by Nicole Milani

UMMasters - June 12 Meeting

June 12, 2013

This week’s Toastmaster was Cathy Plouff.    Cathy had a theme of ‘Remember the 80’s’ which allowed everyone to share their 80’s memories of big hair, big life events, rad music, or no memories at all for some of our younger members. We heard an impromptu speech about the benefits of getting out of our comfort zone from Bev. And we had some thought-provoking Table Topic questions from Teagan, which were answered with a wishy-washy answer by myself and a math lesson by Charith.  The meeting closed with  Area Governor Ingrid Piper handing out pins to all our members for their achievements, which reminded us of all that our club has accomplished.

We had three guests (including our Area Governor), with one guess signing up as a new member. The meeting was not held in the regular room but thanks to the sign on the door everyone figured out where to go and arrived on time.  I actually enjoyed  the meeting being in a different room; it made me feel like I was on a bit of a scavenger hunt when I show up.

See you all next week,

Blog submitted by Laura Murray

A Cheerful Winnipeg Toastmasters Meeting at the University of Manitoba

Today we had a bright and cheerful meeting despite our dull and grumpy weather.

Charith was our Toastmaster, and his topic was “Challenge Yourself”.   Charith was smooth and confident as he lead our meeting in a timely way. One large challenge during the role of Toastmaster is to keep our meeting on time and Charith was successful.

Dianne enlightened us with a joke about the behavior and language of crows! …….And Bev Doern gave a moving speech about her daughters and how the challenges of being a mother has molded her into the adult she is today. Bev was very animated as she talked about her experiences and really drew her audience into her speech with candor and the love she has for her girls.

Tiffany took on the role of grammarian and Table Topics Master, word of the meeting was “arouse” and her questions posed in our Table Topics session were quick and concise and we were privileged to hear from Christian and Jordan, who both spoke for over 1 minute. Way to go!!

Nicole evaluated Bev and was very courageous as she challenged herself to stay at the podium while she collected her thoughts and delivered a thorough evaluation for Bev.  Nicole also provided Bev with a growth point and suggestion. Way to Go Nicole!!! We were all so proud of her.

Dianne was our Table Topics Evaluator and was encouraging and positive as she shared her suggestions for Jordan and Christian to grow as confident speakers.

We had 3 guests who explained that they were very happy to attend our meeting and that they would be back next Wednesday. I look forward to seeing them all next week, when I will be your Toastmaster.

Have a wonderful week and remember to create your own sunshine and never stop challenging yourself.

If you are in Winnipeg and are interested in dropping by and visiting our club, we meet Wednesdays from 12:05 – 12:55. We meet in room 111 St. John’s College at the University of Manitoba; 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 Selena Randall at 204-891-1287 or email randall@umanitoba.ca.

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

UM Masters Boot Camp

                                               

Club 4866 UM Masters

Speechcraft Bootcamp 2013

This year, UM Masters was given an opportunity that seemed too good to pass up. We were approached by the Internationally Educated Agrologist Program and asked if we could run a program for their students to help them with their public speaking skills.

15 students came to 2 of our weekly meetings to see what Toastmasters is about and 8 of them were really keen to learn more. The students have all come to Canada within the last couple of years from across the globe and have a range of experiences. All are searching for jobs in the agriculture sector.

With District 64 encouraging us to run a ‘Bootcamp’ and with a ready prepared program we felt we should seize the chance to really test ourselves. A willing team of five club members made it happen taking on multiple roles each week (Coordinator, Table topics master, Table topics evaluator, educational speaker, speech evaluators and Timer), and developing their own skills – particularly evaluating. We ran the bootcamp over 6 weeks in a 2 hour session in early evening, following the session plan set out in the Speechcraft manual. The timing has been tight, but we have kept to time each week.

And what fun it has been. Our students have all worked hard on their assignments and have delivered the most interesting array of speeches – usually without notes, which has been really impressive. Our Toastmasters have all developed their own skills and they too have worked hard each week. Our students ‘graduated’ last week and we had a guest speaker and a well-earned celebration.

Selena Randall

VP Membership

UM Masters

UMMasters Club

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

We had a very successful meeting today with the theme “For the love of pets”. Everyone shared little stories about their own pets at home.

Dianne as always did a great job as our toastmaster of the day. She offered toastmasters pins to 3 new members. Congrats Christian, Eranga and Laura!

Al was our Grammarian. He explained the word of the day and also some correct use of English grammar.  He is a student in linguistics; many members were interested in talking to him even after the meeting to learn proper use of different terms we speak every day.  Al will definitely be a great resource for our club.

Eranga,a new member who joined this month did his Ice Breaker speech. He was courageous enough to do his very first speech without using notes and explained why he joined Toastmasters and, explained details about his interests and personal  background. Tiffiny evaluated Eranga’s speech and gave some valuable growth points for his future speeches. 

Laura was our Table Topics master. She asked a question regarding pets. She called me and our guest Durdana  to answer to her question why ….? Oh, I forgot her question so I ended up talking about answering questions :) Durdana  was very enthusiastic and answered to her point very well.

Ehsan as Table Topics evaluator explained how he enjoyed the table topics session, he also gave tips for each speaker – points to grow.

Nichole had carefully counted Ahs and Ums for each member during the meeting. Our timer Christian did a great job as Timer for the first time. 

Cathy did the general evaluation of the overall meeting and offered the Gold Star award to Eranga for his Ice Breaker speech.

3 more weeks to our 15th Anniversary Celebrations. Hope everyone will join hands to make this event a great success!

Blogged by Charith Gunasekara

Wednesday - January 16/13 - meeting

UM Masters had a great meeting on Wednesday, January 16^th.  June was the Toastmaster and her theme was “Put to the Test”.  June chose the word “Persistence” as the Word of the Day.  Nicole did her Ice Breaker speech (my favorite speech to listen to).  She shared with us three aspects of her life that have shaped who she is today.  There are school, music and skiing.  Dianne as her evaluator was impressed with Nicole’s organizational skills and improved eye contact and encouraged her to present a speech in the near future.  Dianne presented Nicole with her Ice Breaker ribbon.  Kelsey led us in an exciting Table Topics session where she asked Dianne to speak on one aspect of 2012 that was challenging and how she over came it.  Dianne talked about her new business and how she was attempting to put together her website.  She has decided to hire someone to assist her.  Kelsey then challenged one of our many guests to speak and Durdana gave a very inspiring talk on how she overcame asthma by turning to meditation and spirituality.  We all wanted to hear more so we are hoping that she joins our club in the future.  Al, one of our guests took on the role of ah-count and showed us that he has good listening skills.  Christian, who just became a member at our meeting, did an excellent job as Table Topics evaluator.  We are thrilled that Eranga, who joined last week will be doing his Ice Breaker speech next week – so exciting.  Eranga received his Toastmaster’s pin at the meeting.

If you are in Winnipeg and are interested in dropping by and visiting our club, we meet Wednesdays from 12:05 – 12:55. We meet in room 111 St. John’s College at the University of Manitoba; 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 Selena Randall at 204-891-1287 or email randall@umanitoba.ca.

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

Dianne Winser

Vice President of Education

UM Masters Toastmasters Club