Liberty Village Toastmasters Toronto

Basics! basics! basics!  The meeting began with Toastmaster James reiterating the importance of mastering the basics. For example, a few basics of public speaking include vocal variety, use of pauses, and gestures. Master these core elements, coordinate them together, and voila!

There are fundamental elements to any skill but above it all, the first step to mastery is to GET STARTED.  James concluded that all winners were once beginners.

This week’s meeting was exciting yet efficient.  We had 4 speakers:  Mike, Adrian, Catarina and Wes.

We started with Mike’s Ice breaker.  Mike gave his perspective of growing up. We learned a few things about him, some of which were a surprise to us, like English is not his first language and he is Greek. He mentioned that he has an eye for detail and we also would add that he has a great sense of humour.

The next two speakers worked on the second project – organize your speech. Adrian promoted corporate social responsibility.  He explained what the concept is and what it can do for us.  To summarize, corporate social responsibility benefits all parties involved: corporate, customers, and the community.

Our third speaker, Catarina gave us an outline of her current PhD project, which could possibly transform the world.  She described her steps in dealing with our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world.  Solving our problems come from our brains, brawns and guts.  Who knew we all have it within us to change the world?

146 billion. That’s how many emails we send a day!  Our final speaker, Wes presented project 8 visual aid (the final project from his cc manual).   Despite of this significantly enormous number, most people do not know how to write a proper email. But don’t worry, as a VP of Education, Wes is here to educate. Just like his speech, he kept it simple, professional and effective.  A few things we learned include polite command, specific subject/dates, and organized list using circular bullets (or square?).  Follow Wes’s advice and you will get a higher response rate, or at least your emails will be read (vs. not deleted or blocked).

Congratulation Wes for completing his competent communication manual!

Despite of our full schedule, were able to squeeze in a Table Topic session, which was hosted by Alex. Alex challenged us to go back to the basic starting with listening  The winner is our guest Anshula.  Congrats Anshula!

Are you ready for the summer?  Before you plunge into the summer, Toastmaster Olga warned us to get some swimming lessons.  Don’t ruin your summer or life just because you don’t know how to swim.

We had two speakers, Andre and Louise.

It was Andre‘s first speech.  We got to learn where he came from and what he hopes to achieve from Toastmaster. He was sent away to live with his aunt and uncle at a very young age, hence he became very self reliant.  Through his independence, he has learned that his life is fully under his control. While most people are still indecisive with their life, Andre knows what he wants and not want (i.e. career in Mechanical Engineer).

When was the last time you visited the Royal Ontario museum? Our second speaker, Louise, spoke about how ‘problems become opportunities when the right people come together’.  She told us about the 2 blue whales that died and were washed ashore on New Foundland and Labrador.  Just like what her project demanded, she described the story very vividly, as if we were there, waiting in muck and slashing away the blubber.  Certainly, most of us would not volunteer to do such thing but we are now enticed to go the ROM to learn more about this fascinating blue whale species.

Love it or hate? Sarah told us to hate it in our table topics session. Andrew won with his passion or rather hatred against Iced Cappuccino.