Monday night our sister club in Murphy, NC filled out their ‘Application to Organize’ to be officially recognized as a new forming club with Toastmasters International. The new “Smoky Mountain Leaders and Speakers Toastmasters Club” is well on it’s way with half the required Charter members already signed up. Congratulations are in order to them for all their hard work and to Gem City Forum for their sponsorship and continued support. Great jobs fellow Toastmasters.

Last night at our own Gem City Forum meeting, to say a great time was had by all would be a MAJOR understatement.

Nancy Porter was the perfect Toastmaster and all of our participants did a fine job in first describing their role and then performing them flawlessly.

Our two speakers Michele Hubbs and Liz Willard gave speeches that set a new standard of achievement.

Michele taught us that a speech can be a lot of laughs with one of the advanced speeches from the Humorous Speech book. She skillfully assembled and delivered a 6.5 minute string of puns with appropriate expressions and with numerous props to accompany each quip. The audience was mesmerized with laughter at her presentation, some even got a little squirt at the exactly appropriate point in her speech.

Then Liz delivered an “Ice Breaker” speech about a time from her past and a trip to NYC that included a very special memory of a chance encounter and conversation with Muhammed Ali. It was obvious to all that Liz has done some speaking before as she very skillfully used her facial expressions and her vocal variations to draw pictures in our minds of her encounter. We were all there in the hotel lobby as Liz graciously turned down an invitation to a private party and then explained to us why it was a good choice! Before closing with the autograph he’d signed for her at that time. Wow!

We again had several guests and I’m pretty sure that they will be coming back after the exhibition of speech mastery and smooth as a Swiss watch flow of a well organized and exceptionally well run meeting. Kudos all around.

If you missed it, be there next week and see what I’m talking about.

If you’d like to learn more about being a Toastmaster, try out our upcoming workshop throughout October “Speaking as a Critical Skill for Your Job” starting on October 5th and continuing through four weekly meetings and ending on the 26th. We’ll be mentioning this more in the coming weeks.

See you there!

Jim Alvord, CC
Dist. 37, Div.A, Area 11 Governor
Gem city Forum Toastmasters Club # 296

It’s election time this week at Gem City Forum. If you would like to hold an office for the new year, be there Tuesday night and put your name in the hat.

The positions of President, VP of Education, and VP of Membership are already known to be open for new candidates. Myself, Barbara, and Kathy have all decided to move into other areas of service. So here’s your chance – take your ideas for ways to make the club better and run with them!

July first starts the new officers year for Toastmasters Int’l as well. At the recent District 37 Toastmasters Leadership Institute (TLI) in Charlotte, NC I got the chance to meet and work with the new District and Division Officers that will work with us over the next year. They are a dynamic group and I see nothing but good things ahead for all of us. Here’s the Incoming District 37 Officers that will lead the way:

District 37 Governor Sharon Anita Hill DTM	Lt Governor Education Bryan Walsh DTM	Lt Governor Marketing Naomi Tekeuchi DTM	Division A Governor Glenda Teams ACB

With leadership like that, the 2010 – 2011 Toastmaster’s year is looking very bright indeed!

See you Tuesday Night!
Jim

“Pictures used in this post were reused from Toastmasters International and District 37 websites.”

John Becker /  Bald Head” Speaks to EXIT Regional NC/SC Agents & Owner Brokers in Charlotte NC

 Thanks to all my Gem City Forum Toastmaster Colleagues… and their great encouragement and coaching, I was able to do this engagement with confidence!

It was a beautiful, crisp, clear day in Charlotte as EXIT agents, and Broker Owners from NC & SC  gathered for training and  to receive awards for stellar accomplishments in real estate for 2009!  John Becker – Bald Head was one of  three speakers on the roster for the event.  The others were Bob McKinnon, and Key Yessaad, both EXIT Trainers and experts in the profession of real estate. Bald Head spoke about the “Power of Belief and Application * Your Path to Success or Failure in any Market”.  During his talk, John Becker / Bald Head shared some timeless truths that have been passed to him from the standard bearers that are mentoring up ahead of him in the real estate profession.  Mr. Becker said that we are blessed to be able to stand on the shoulders of these Champions and to glean wisdom and know-how from  their priceless experiences in real estate.  John shared examples of how one’s belief system is directly responsible for their destiny and how to change it, should one not like what they see coming to pass. Approximately 125 people attended this event and were truly challenged by all the speakers to “kick it up a notch” as regards their personal development and business systems, with the end goal in mind, to better serve their customers and clients with extreme excellence. John received an EXIT award for being one of the Top 10 Producers in real estate sales for the entire state of North Carolina for the year of 2009.

We had another great evening this past Tuesday at the Gem City Forum Toastmaster’s club! To start, Lacey Crowe introduced the theme “A Big Change by Small Steps.” Her theme centered on impacting the earth by making small changes in how you dispose of your trash. She explained that the national average per person per day is five pounds of trash! Lacey gave us some good advice on how to lower our daily trash average through use of recycling bins in our homes. Her talk was quite informative and she made sure to cement her position by offering a handout at the end of the meeting. All participants were prepared and ready to give a trenchant example of their roles. In fact, the grammarian, Andrew Robertson, presented the word of the day, “Trenchant.” We had first-time timer, Dwayne Phillips, who was steady in his duties and an “Ah-Um Counting General Evaluator,” Phil Drake, who displayed poise and proficiency with his dual roles. Finally, the Joke Master, Jim Alvord, had us all laughing at his reverse blonde joke!

Kathy Clifton challenged us with some interesting objects for Table Topics volunteers. She presented small, medium, and large objects concealed in bags. The large item was a Galileo thermometer – Jim nailed his explanation of how it works. Next, the small object was the “shrunken head” of fellow member, John Becker. (Evidently, John has some toy figurines of himself lying around the office!) Nancy Porter explained that the head would be useful on an occasion when John is absent because he is always great talk too. Finally, the medium object was a packaged Hormel Chili meal. Loretta Newton, explained that she wouldn’t be likely to eat this meal because her husband is a champion chili maker.

Our only speaker for the evening, Bill Hanger, gave speech # 9 from the Competent Communication manual. The goal of the speech is to persuade the audience to adopt your point of view. His speech was entitled, “The Biblical Cannon.”

Bill was motivated by some friends to research the five aspects of the bible which give it authority. It was apparent that Bill was very comfortable with his subject and his research. He gave very smooth gestures and presented his list of points with ease.

Overall, it was another successful meeting – When I see our members improve and try something new, it keeps me motivated to keep coming back week after week. It is apparent that as communicators and leaders, we are making big changes for ourselves by following the small steps recommend in our TM manuals.

Barbara Cook

VP Education | Gem City Toastmasters Club # 296

For our meeting this week, I selected the theme of “Toastmaster 101.” I felt it would be a great refresher for our established members and a timely introduction to our two newest members, Loretta Newton and Andrew Robertson.

We also had a guest, Maureen Alvord, who is the wife of Gem City Forum’s president, Jim Alvord. It was wonderful to have Maureen with us as we always welcome visitors!

To begin the meeting, we discussed the history of Toastmasters. Here are some of the interesting details:

Toastmasters is 85 years old It began in the basement of the Santa Ana, CA YMCA It is a nonprofit organization Toastmasters has nearly 250,000 members in 106 countries We also examined the flow of a Toastmaster’s meeting and what it offers participants: Toamasters offers a proven – and enjoyable! – way to practice and hone communication and leadership skills. It is a learn-by-doing workshop – members are assigned roles, so we can all practice the different aspects of communication There is no instructor – We all take turns as evaluators and administrators. Besides making speeches, TM develops skills in listening, giving feedback, decision-making, delegating and mentoring There are two program paths to earn award designations– Communication and Leadership – and you can do both Programs are self-paced and rewards are offered at different level

Gem City Forum welcomes all visitors who would like to learn more about Toastmasters. Come and watch/ participate in one of our meetings – we meet every Tuesday at 5:30 PM at the Macon County Library. Meetings last approximately 60-80 minutes.

Observe and you will see a well-organized and welcoming atmosphere – from our friendly smiles as we approach the lectern to our handshakes as we leave it, our members strive to represent Toastmasters fundamentals.

Barbara Cook

VP Education  |  Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club

The last Toastmaster’s Meeting for March of 2010 was a real side splitter!

I was the Toastmaster for the evening and it was a real privilege to run the meeting when such talented speakers are entertaining us. Since this was the last meeting before the Easter Holiday I decided on a theme of “Easter Memories”. I introduced the theme with some background information about the reason the date of Easter Sunday changes and a few of my childhood Easter memories.

Our Grammarian for the evening, Phil Drake, gave us a challenging but well liked and used word, Magniloquent, meaning speaking in or characterized by high-flown often bombastic style or manner.

Our Table Topics Master, Dan Adams, did a great and creative job with table topics, selecting 3 topics and placing them in plastic eggs, letting each volunteer pick their egg.

This was followed by two extremely fun and entertaining speeches, given by two accomplished speakers, Michelle Hubbs and Barbara Cook.

Michelle went first speaking out of her Advanced Communicator – Humorous Speech Manual, giving a speech entitled “Don’t Mess With A Girlie Girl”. This speech had the audience laughing so hard some even turned purple her evaluator said. I have to admit I was in tears I was laughing so hard.

Barbara was up next with a speech from her Competent Communicator Manual on Vocal Variety, her speech was entitled “Egg Pecking”. She gave a speech on her families Easter tradition of egg pecking. This is a complex game with rules and strategies in which you try to crack your opponents egg, with your egg without cracking yours. Barbara did a great job using props to demonstrate how this game was played and gave us the “secret” to good egg pecking. You could definitely tell this game was SERIOUS business in her family.

We also welcomed new member, Andrew Robertson to our club during this meeting.

The meeting was a great success and we all had a ‘side splitting’ good time.

Lacey W. Crowe  CC
Member | Gem City Toastmasters Club # 296