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.