Fun At Club Officer Training 27 Jun 2017

Kavita Dulai who had prepared the Club Officer Training welcomed us, promising us it would be a fun evening. Each member of the audience stood up and said their club name and their role.

Those attending were:

CORNERSTONES ADVANCED
Coralie Francis

HARROVIANS
Kavita Dulai
Sarda Hirani
Angela Lansbury
Kristof Lenga
Seema Menon
Sushil Shal
Indra Sikdar
Frank Van Der Stok
Amparo Vilamil

HOD
Martin Doe
Stay Kartara
Angela Lansbury
Dennis Newman
Ade Onigbanjo
Gill Ornstein
Indra Sikdar

TJ Expressions
Ramesh Hali
Simon Naylor-Smith

WATFORD SPEAKERS:
Pam Attfield
Matt Auld
Kavita Dulai
Sorel Cunningham
Liz C?
Yohan Fernando
Michael Harper
Jean Flower
Coralie Francis
Bernie Podmore
Sonal Somala




The team showed us slides of forthcoming dates such as competitions. I took photos of the slides, to have a handy record.

Seema explained organisational structure with charts.

PREPARING FOR CLUB OFFICER TRAINING

Club officer training is essential. It gains the club points. It prepares club committee members.

Without training, they may fail to fulfil the role. The club membership drops. Leaving everything to the President means they may become so overwhelmed that he or she resigns.

If the officers miss training, they might lose interest, drop out of the committee role or get overwhelmed and leave the club altogether. You want them to stay focused on their duties, to know where to get help.  Good training helps them feel they belong, are vital, have a future, have new friends and a chance to network and find peers or seniors who can help. They are encouraged and confident so they do the job well.

Problem
How do you get people to attend the dull sounding Club Officer Training? Easy. At least Kavita made it look easy, by delegating. People had to turn up because she had involved them presenting.

Answer
Yes, Kavita's method was to give everybody a role as a trainer at the session. We were all involved with her, and each other.


***
Stories
You may be puzzled by the jargon the hierarchy of Toastmasters. What's the difference between a division and a district?

Seema and Kavita explained, using charts.

The Amusing Brainstorming Workshop
This was the most entertaining, creative and involving part of the evening and best for networking. Sushil, incoming President of Harrovians, told us were to brainstorm new ideas for clubs. Not alone but in groups. We all formed an entirely new, imaginary club, in a group with people we did not know. We had to think of two new ideas, and end with a name for our club.

International Languages and Exercise
My group's ideas were:
1 To meet at a different place every week,
ideally a restaurant or cafe with a different national food,
and have the national anthem, food, culture and language of that restaurant's theme and food as the theme of the evening;
2 To do exercise at the start and end of every meeting to offset the extra calories from eating out every time.
The name of our club was alliterative. The Fun and Frolics Club.

Ideas I took from other groups were:
1 To show the faces and roles of committee members on a large board so newcomers could identify everybody.
2 To have a board with the member's names in alphabetical order and columns for achievements, showing speeches done and  showing ribbons won, like a children's school or family board which shows gold stars.

Quiz
Gill explained where we all fit in, with charts. At the end she ran a quiz. I wrote down the answers. I remembered that the numbers I needed to remember were 7 (the start, the big districts of the world), which are divided into divisions, which end with a one, two numbers ended in 1 either 9 or 6 which is an upside down 9. The easiest one was that I am in area L, which I remember as standing for London. I wish she had warned us at the start that we would be answering a quiz. I'd have taken more care to listen and make notes.

Mentoring Planning
It didn't all go as planned. Kavita heard me give a speech about mentoring at a club. She asked me to run a session on mentoring.

Format
The traditional presentation session from the USA is based on slides about the advantages of mentoring. But mentoring in previous years had been a challenge at several clubs. Two different solutions I had observed were:

At HOD:
In Singapore: Mentors were assigned and pairs were photographed together on stage.

Kavita spent an hour discussing with whether to break up into groups or pairs, or whether to involve the audience by asking questions and writing their answer on a flipchart.

The time did not allow for a lot of setting up for three different people to use flip charts or the audience to keep moving chairs, forming groups, and different groups all giving feedback.

Who?
After an hour or so of discussion, we decided that the session would be split between three people. The three presenters, each only doing five minutes of the 15 minutes session, would be me and my two mentoring pairing helpers at the mentoring committee at Harrovians, Ruth and Lorna.

Unfortunately, both of them were away on the date, Tuesday ... June 2017. I asked them both to send their comments which they did. After that I was away on holiday in Romania for a week with no phone contact.

I thought I could find somebody else merely to read out the comments on their behalf - involving little preparation, so anybody could do it.

I suggested that Indra, who had been my original mentor, and had done two presentations with me on mentoring, should be one of the other two people. Kavita was keen to involve a third person from an in-house club.

Indra and Kavita got together.

The final shape was
a Advantages of mentoring: slides made by the in house club.
b Challenges - Indra talking about four people who had done mentoring or been mentees with him.
c Solutions - my giving the HOD and Singapore solutions, ending with offering links to my blog posts and my email.

On the night, thanks to Kavita's foresight, overall plan and preparation with attention to the detail, all went well.

The evening's session ended with Coralie Francis  DTM explaining the Pathways which will be the new personalised Toastmasters path for every Toastmasters, not all following the same first ten speeches and projects in the same order but choosing a more focused plan, leading towards a specific goal, for example of giving video presentations, or performing humorous speeches.

Any lessons learned?
One member went to the wrong venue. Maybe a reminder with the right venue - especially if it has changed.

Feedback forms showed that most people were very happy with the content, loved the workshops and were more confident. One person wanted a longer break for networking.  Another wanted the meeting to end strictly to time, and/or to be spread over two evenings. Another wanted more explanation of roles, especially the VPE role.

I took photos, unofficially. I think it would have been good to have a group photo, in the interval because one or two people had to leave early and we finished slightly late so people did not want to delay further.

Apart from that, a great success.

Angela Lansbury, member of HOD and Harrovians in the UK and Braddell Heights Advanced Club in Singapore.

Alan McMahon's humorous metaphor of himself and Coralie as contrasting cars

Alan McMahon and Coralie both achieved the rare rank of Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM for short). Kavita of Watford speakers organised a dinner in their honour held at Dona Teresa restaurant in Hatch End, Pinner.

Coralie on the right. Paul Carroll on the left.

I thought that maybe somebody would be called upon to give a speech about both of them. Instead, both spoke about how they had achieved DTM status, thanked those who had helped, and praised each other.

Coralie spoke first and gave a heartfelt, sincere, enthusiastic speech describing the joys of becoming a DTM.

I recorded Alan's reply. Here's the opening to Alan's speech: I recorded it afterwards.

Oops! I could not upload it directly. (Why is a tiny clip of under three minutes 'too big'. I'll try moving it onto my desk top and sliding it across. Persistence pays.)

If you can't watch the video, this is the summary of what Alan says. "Coralie achieved DTM in just six years. I took a decade. I think of Coralie as a Ferrari. Whilst I am more of a milk float."

Angela Lansbury: Advanced Toastmaster Gold; Competent Leader. 

Birthday Party Theme Speakers' Meeting at HOD Speakers' Club in Harrow and what I learned

Birthday Theme
Birthdays was the theme I chose when I (Angela Lansbury) was toastmaster of the evening at an HOD Speakers' meeting because that week was my birthday. I wore a badge which said Birthday Girl; I placed a larger stand up It's My Birthday badge on the table; I asked a member to hang my Happy Birthday banner across the pinboard behind the lectern and I wore a gold foil hat.

Birthday theme topics was part of my plan. Importantly I had prepared half a dozen topics on the theme of birthdays and written them on a sheet of A4 paper to hand to anybody at the meeting if I had to ask somebody else to do topics unprepared, even a newcomer. All they had to do was look nonchalant and read out the topic.

Looking back, I could have gone a step further by asking each person who came onto the stage to say their birth sign or birthday month and why they like it.

I could have said, "My month is March and it's daffodil month," and I could have brought my vase of daffodils. I did think of that. But I had banner and badges and cake to carry. No time to tip out the water, nor find an unbreakable vase.

It would have been quicker to have grabbed scissors and cut a couple of flowers on my way out through the garden to the car. Maybe next year. If we'd had only two speakers at the meeting I could have filled time with the ongoing chats about birthday months.

Panic, Problem - Keep Calm & Carry On
Panic could have set in. President, Tony Winyard, was unable to attend because he was the winner of another club's contest.  Three more backbone members of the club were absent. Gil Ornstein was a target speaker at a contest.  Founder member and meeter and greeter Mike was away on holiday.

So I was greeting, waving at newcomers, rushing forward to hand out badges and pens. I wanted badges with names written large - preferably felt tip pens, not biro or pencil, to help me remember who was who when calling them onto the stage.

If I could not read the badge at a distance at least thanking them by name and leading applause as they left. The name is important for the audience to remember if they want to vote for that person - in fact next time I'm Toastmaster of the Evening I shall say that, "Please help me give a rousing round of applause for our speaker - 'John/Joan Smith' - and note his/her name on your feedback form and tick his/her name on your agenda it or make a mental note if you think s/he deserves a ribbon."

The reminders about feedback and voting would also help me to remember to ask the audience to write feedback for one minute after each speech and to vote.

Alan was taken ill leaving un unfilled speech slot. President Tony had helpfully emailed members asking for volunteers to fill roles. Early in the week I'd had trouble logging into the club website. At one point I found myself on an old website, which delayed matters further.

I also had too many photos from toastmasters meetings worldwide on my laptops, phones and icloud storage. I knew that I would have computer trouble later in the week. I offered to give up the role of Toastmaster to somebody else who had access for phone and laptop and website, but Tony told me to carry on and said he would get David to send me login details and he (Tony) would email members and try to fill the remaining roles.

The evening before seemed like a total disaster looming, as I had been out all day and had no laptop access at all and very little an intermittent phone coverage. Tony and I agreed that 'it'll be all right on the night'.

Luckily I had printed off one copy of the agenda with mostly empty roles the previous week. I had thought of doing what I'd seen done in a club in Singapore. Set up my laptop, or somebody else's, either to project on screen, or to read off it as a reminder.

Three of us arrived an hour early, David, Peter, and me - thanks to Peter, our Sergeant at Arms (the person who often has the key to the venue as well as setting up the room/s, banners and lecterns and chairs). I wrote onto my agenda the names of people as they came in through the door and volunteered them.

Stand-in President was former President David. Coralie, president of another club and former Area Governor (managing five clubs) could be relied on to do a major role. She wanted to be an evaluator as she was to be an evaluator later in a contest.

When I was driven to the meeting by Peter, our SAA, extra time talking together was a great help, because I was able to persuade him to give a third speech. As meeting organizer it's my policy to always have a minimum of three speeches to be sure that you can present prizes, which are not awarded when the meeting has only two speakers.

First speaker - 'Lucky' Kuldeep
Out speech session started with an Icebreaker, the first speech in the Toastmasters speech manual, by Kuldeep, whose name means light. His title was 'Lucky'. His punchline was, The harder you work the luckier you get.

Second speaker - Bijan enjoying 'Happy New Year!'
Bijan on Happy New Year, the Persian Muslim New Year which marks the vernal equinox. He explained that the vernal equinox is when the days and nights are the same length in the northern and southern hemisphere. He also showed the set of foods eaten then, which all begin with the letter S in the Persian language.




Third speaker - Peter on 'Belief - or Relief?'
Peter's speech featured a drama, imagine you are in the Lake District following a group, it gets foggy, you lose the others, and fall, hurting your ankle and tumbling over the edge of a steep drop. You call and perhaps pray for help. When your group leader or friends return to rescue you, do you feel belief or just relief?

Table Topics - Birthdays

What was your last/best birthday gift, given or received?
Richard Baker said he got pneumonia in the evening, after a great birthday.

Describe your best birthday restaurant.
Angela Lansbury: Magic restaurant - door handle hidden in a wall of door handles. Magician throws scroll on table which turns out to be the menu. Restaurant now closed. Previous years we went to Fellini and other Italian restaurants in Hatch End dim lights and bring the birthday boy or girl a cake slice topped by a candles which has a flame a like firework rocket, which you blow but it goes out and relights. Happy Birthday music fills the room.

Break time Birthday, Beetroot and New Year Date
I had brought birthday sponge cake. Bijan's mother offered her confections of dates in pastry. (See later post for more pictures.) Robert Baker brought beetroot and chocolate minicakes.

Evaluations
Peter had no evaluator so he conducted an audience Evaluation of his speech.
Coralie praised speakers for triads (sets of three), deeper, steeper, longer.

Evaluator David congratulated Bijan on 'impersonating a clock'.  (The countdown hand on TV/radio going tick tock, Bijan's hand left right left.)

General Evaluation
As we did not have a general evaluator, we asked the whole audience to act as general evaluator of the whole meeting. Toastmaster Angela, was commended for verve and theme. One suggestions was to have a printed agenda, although some people said they'd enjoyed the more informal meeting just for once for a change, like a holiday, or Friday. Another recommend: welcome guests by name at the start and invite them to introduce themselves.

I think the Toastmaster's in HOD has too much to do. In other clubs the President or VPE prints the agenda. The Toastmaster's main job is to set the theme, plan introductions to speakers and guests, and check everybody knows what to do in their roles. So I think the VPE, President or another helper should do the printing and find the GE, timer, and other last minute roles to fill.

Speakers: Peter pointed out that at least two people stood casually with a hand hidden in their pocket. Amusingly Peter said, mentioning no names, then mentioned their names.

Prize Winning Speakers

Peter won the best speaker ribbon, presented by President of the night, former President David Phelops.

Best Speaker ribbon went too Peter Jacques for his speech on Belief and Relief
 Best evaluator ribbon went to David.

Best Table Topics speakers

Best table Topics speakers were Angela and Robert Baker.

Coralie asked how many people had brought their manuals to the meeting and got their role evaluated? I'd brought my manual but not had it filled in for the Toastmasters role. (Can somebody now do that, please,  Coralie?) Coralie asked who had read the entire manual.
A heckler shouted, "Are you going to test us?"
"Yes," enthused Coralie, "read your manual and I'll test you at the next meeting! Manual test - ten questions!"