Training

Thanks to Bethe Bridges, we've had 4 officers trained in a whirlwind effort. Thanks Beth.

Anna Ho asked me to post these mi nutes of our lasdt August meeting:

RECORD OF REGULAR MEETING

OF FEDERAL TOASTMASTERS CLUB NO. 3508

Meeting Date:	Friday, Aug 25, 2006, 7:15 am	Location:	Denny’s, Blackstone & Divisadero, Fresno
Presiding Officer:	Tom Sims	Invocation by:	Tom Filer

Attendance: Tom Sims, Tom Filer, Doug Bloomer, Brian McCurry, Anna Ho

COMMITTEE REPORTS AND OTHER BUSINESS

Meeting Theme: Inspiration

MEETING ASSIGNMENTS

Toastmaster:	Tom Filer	Timer:	Anna Ho
Topicmaster:	Brian McCurry	General Evaluator:	Tom Sims
Word of the Day:	Surreal: unbelievable, fantastic	Grammarian:	Brian McCurry

SPEAKER (Table Topics)	SUBJECT*	EVALUATOR	TIME
Doug Bloomer	Never Give Up – “inFEDerable”	--	1-2
	Favorite Music – a little bit of everything		3-4
Anna Ho	Networking Skills – never eat alone	--	1-2
	A Respectable Person – a late-starter in career		3-4
Tom Sims	Something that You Have a Solution to	--	1-2
Tom Filer	An Activity I Have Passion in : Hand-shaking	--	3-4

Table topics participants:

Doug Bloomer, Anna Ho, Tom Sims, Tom Filer

AWARDS:

Best Table Topics Speaker:	Tom Filer
Best Program Speaker:	--
Best Evaluator:	--

NEXT MEETING’S ASSIGNMENTS: September 1st

Invocation:		General Evaluator:
Toastmaster:	Anna Ho	Speaker 1:
Topicmaster:		Evaluator 1:
Timer:		Speaker 2:
Grammarian:		Evaluator 2:

Upcoming Event(s): Welcome Back Special Meeting on Oct 6 (Friday) at 7:15am. Come, old and new

friends -- Breakfast on us!!

Meeting Adjourned at: 8:15am

Recording Officer: Anna Ho

Summertime

It is full blown summer in Fresno and that means that when the Friday comes, many of our members are already out of town. However, we have a weekly remnant and we are holding forth every Friday at 7:15 A.M. at Denny's downtown where Abby and Blackstone come together at Divisadero.

Not only that, we are hearing some of the best speeches of the year.

Drop in and see for yorself!

- Tom Sims

I have a couple of interesting links. The first is for a company in England that writes and sells speeches for multiple ocassions. I once had a book for pastors called, "The Saturday Night Special." It was a collection of outlines for preachers who came to Saturday night without any sermon ideas.

Speech-Writers.com

On the other hand, some of you could do this considering the great speeches I've heard.

My new colleague and friend Marcia Wieder is a leader in the areas of pubic speaking and dream coaching. She has appeared on Oprah and is endoresed by Mark Victor Hansen. She has a very exciting workshops coming in October. It is for those who are serious about becoming successful professional speakers. Click America's Dream Coach -Become an Inspiring Speaker for details. The conference will be in San Francisco.

- Tom

Guests

We had four (Count them, Mr. Tom (Math Crazy) Filer, 4 guests last week. Let's do it again!!!!!

Submissions

Club members may make submissions to this blog. Send me an e-mail at tomsims1@compuserve.com and I will give you the e-mail address for doing so directly.

Ah, Um, Er... A Toastmaster's Blog: Podcast 5.06 is up

Ah, Um, Er... A Toastmaster's Blog: Podcast 5.06 is up

Friday, April 7, 2006

What meeting. Melaney Shaum and Anna Ho both challenged me. Melaney got my attention with the name of her topic, "Paul Was Wrong." She explained that we don't really put away childish things because of our programming prior to the age of 5.

Then she told us how to put away old programming with three steps.

You should have been there.

Anna spoke defined "entertainment" for us in a fresh and meaningful manner settling on the possibility that love holds our attention more than anything esle in the world.

I was given the opportunity to prepare for tomorrow's speech contest and that was a big help.

Mel Cellini was a masterful first-time Toasmaster.

So ...

What other Toastmasters are blogging?

I found a few - actually quite a few, but I am only sharing a garden variety few here.

Sara Marks is a blogging Toastmaster. She is an instructional and reference librarian and has some excellent teaching materials of relevance to us on her blog. I especially liked her March 11 posting on Attracting Younger Members.

Blogspot gave me the Top 5

Toastmasters徒然草 updated 31 Oct 2005
Soundwaves Toastmasters updated 16 Mar 2006 District 37 - North Carolina Toastmasters update 28 Feb 2006
Toastmasters Carlsbad updated 22 Mar 2006
Titusville Toastmasters #3018 updated 4 Jan 2006

We may need Anna's help with the first on the list.

While not a Toastmaster's blog, Steve Pavlina lists Toastmasters as one of his reasons for getting up early. It sure works for us! He subtitles his blog, "Personal Development for Smart People.

Speaking of bloggers: Do you remember Guy Kawasaki of Apple fame? He is the guy (excuse the play on words, Guy) who introduced the concept of "evangelism" to the business world. Namely, you enlist your customer-partners (Never call them "consumers") as your best allies to tell your story everywhere. Guy has become one of the early prophets of the value of blogging for business. The big idea is that it creates two-way conversation between a company and its customers, beating focus group marketing by a country mile.

Well, Guy's January 18 entry was an addendum to an article on how to get a standing ovation. He puts in a guarded good word for Toastmasters as point number three:

"Toastmasters. Can't say I know much about them, but I hear nothing but good things. My father was a member in Hawaii, and he was a great speaker."

The link within the link is a first class ticket to the Toastmaster's International site.

One more resource is Bert Decker. According to his Amazon bio, "Bert Decker is the chairman and founder of Decker Communications, Inc. A major figure in the communications field, he has been featured on the Today Show commenting on the presidential debates of 1992 and 1996. He is the author of the best-selling book You've Got to Be Believed to Be Heard and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and on ABC's 20/20. He lives with his wife in San Francisco, California."

Bert was in Fresno several years ago promoting his study, Speaking with Bold Assurance." I attended his workshop and sat with a judge and a few other high-powered somebodies. Publkic speaking is a hot topic and Toastmasters is on the cutting edge.


Speak with Bold Assurance

Meeting 3-31-2006

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day, but there was little foolishness at our Toastmaster's meeting this morning. The club hummed under the toastmastership of Tom Filer (pictured below with Me Cellini and Doug Bloomer) .

Doug Bloomer challenged me with his speech, "You've Come a Long Way - Maybe." While alluding to Virginia Slims commercials from the 60s, he traced the development of our humanity and the never ending goal to keep on growing.

Perhaps, instead of greeting one another with a friendly, "How goes it?" we should ask, "How grows it?"

Mel Celini expaned our awareness of wine making - especially the issue of how good wines are topped off. To my surprise, I learned that use of the cork is not the best method for preserving the best wines.

I did an impersonation of Mayor Byron T. Simpleton of Polecat Hollow. It was a little rough and in the form of a news conference. I learned from the evaluation to state my main idea, even in a story, more clearly at the begining and to vary my voice a bit. I was quite loud and doing the vocal impression put my voice production in the soft palate - bad technique on a good day.

A little more on the inappropriate use of the soft palate is found at this page at the University of New South Wales: Vocal Track Acoustics. As a voice teacher, I know better, but the use of the palate to produce sound has become more and more of a norm because of the popularity of pop music and the mouth sounds that acompany the genre.

The bottom line of vocal production is that sound is produced in the vocal cords - even vowels are formed there. Many thanks to George for helping me remember this and my apologies for the physical pain I inflicted. Toastmaster's is such an excellent venue for learning and growing. I value it more every week.

It was a fun meeting, Miss Anna Ho (see the picture below pictured with Melaney Shaum) did a superb impromptu job of introducing interesting and entertaining table topics around the subject of pajamas. George Muller made us blush a bit with his thoughtful response, but all added to the lively spirit of the meeting.

Of Interest ...

The missing link has an entirely new meaning these days. Without links, we have to do way too much typing to navigate the turbulent waters of cyberspace.

Of course, your key link in this ocean of information is our club's very own turbobase.com .

It is password protected and contains a wealth of information including contact data for club members, club schedules, and .... well, those are the two most important things.

Then there is your LIVE link! For that one, you need to show up at Denny's on Friday mornings at 7:15 (7 if you are serious, earlier if you are dead serious) for our 1 hour meeting. It will be the highlight of your week. Visitors are welcome! Denny's is at the convergence of Blackstone and Abby at Divisadero near downtown Fresno. I'll volunteer my phone number for directions. It is on until I walk into the meeting: 559-647-2203 .

FYI - I am out of the house by 5 AM Friday mornings and offline from 6-6:30. Other than that, if you need something last minute - CALL ME.

Yet another vital link for Toastmasters is our Toastmasters International web site. There are mounds of information there for anyone to rake through. I have found some wonderful resources on that site.

Here are some other links on public speak I found by browsing the Internet:

How to Conquer Public Speaking Fear by Morton C. Ormond M.D.. Yes, he is trying to sell a book, but in the process, he gives some wonderful free information.

Here is another semi-commercial site with a free e-zine: Advanced Public Speaking Institute . There are some fantastic articles there.

Another is School for the Campions.

McGraw-Hill has a site. That's right - the publisher.

A fellow Toastmaster has a site called A Research Guide for Students . Not bad stuff.

That should keep you busy for now - but in case it doesn't, try this link: PastorTomSims.com . In today's entry I recomend a very important new book on blogging for business with some great web sites.

- Tom

The Power of One

Much has been written about the power of ONE. Here I want to reflect on the power of one sheet of paper placed in one location by one Toastmaster.

Last Friday, in my capacity as VP of Membership, I handed out some flyers - just flat flyers flagrantly flagged to facilitate fraternal furtherance of Federal Toastmaster - invitations to our meetings.

Everyone left with a small stack. Someone placed some in a real estate office and that afternoon I received 1 phone call from a woman looking for a Toastmaster's club. Our time doesn't really work for her, but she may visit. However, she WILL join a club somewhere in Fresno.

That was the result of 8-9 members taking several flyers each and passing them out.

Now - what if we continued and multiplied that effort and added persons invitations to the mix. Our results would multiply and we would - no WILL - find people for whom our meeting time and place is perfect - people like us who enjoy the camaraderie of am organization like ours and value the opportunity to learn and grow.

One leads to another one and to another one and another and another.

See How Much Fun Blogging Can Be

We can come here and post our thoughts. We can announce our events. We can even comment to each other. This is going to be great.