Ice breakers and toastmaster moments

Have you ever found yourself enjoying a public presentation when in the past, you would have done everything to avoid it? That is an example of a toastmaster moment.

Practice makes perfect. If you have been a member of a toastmaster club for a while, you are bound to improve your public speaking skills and overcome your fears of public speaking in time. Your toastmaster moments are in the making.

Toastmaster Bill chose the topic of toastmaster moments to reflect on his journey from being paralyzed by panic attacks at the thought of public speaking to someone who slowing learned to find his own smile and his own voice to share his story of survival.

This led to reflections on ice breakers, these dreaded exercises that are so important for team building. Belle presented “Ice breakers: an analysis.

Our guest Jon shared a lively power point presentation of his recent trip to Japan. I do not recall the title but it should have been ” Japan: a most fantastic destination.”

Traci led a lively round of table topics.

The word of the day was ” maelstrom”

Icebreakers initiate the breaking of the ice by forcing connections. Every time we meet, we break the ice and share our stories. In so doing, we seek and find our voices and conjure our past experiences from the dark corners of our past, to be brought to broad daylight where they may flourish or fade away.

We come together to find our voices, to tell our stories to the world.

Our next meeting is November 18th.

According to Toastmaster, Paula, in ” favorite foods”, ” favorite” comes first. What makes a food a favorite is as much the experience around it (who we were with, where we were) as the food itself. In the movies of our lives, there are a lot of food scenes that contain fond memories of love and food: grandma’s stewed pork legs, dad’s ” korean rice” or sweetened milk tea, bubble tea.

Three speakers presented speeches : Hui and Lori delivered their ice breaker speeches titled: ” Two life lessons” and ” Welcome to the new zone” respectively. Both ice breakers had a common theme: that of turning challenges into growth opportunities. The third speaker was a repeat presentation of ” A dog’s life” by Jovica. Presented from the perspective of Kiku, Jovica’s maltese, this speech was rich in details of the charmed life of a much beloved pet.

Belle led a solid round of table topics, Isabella kept the meeting on time and Cris was the Grammarian. The word of the day was ” delicacy”

Adi was the General Evaluator with Moises and Cris acting as evaluators.

Our next hybrid meeting is September 30th.

Toastmaster was Isabella who shared objects that represent aspects of her Chinese customs: fans of many kinds, pictures of traditional costumes, tassels etc. Three speakers presented speeches on the topic of identity and leadership. Belle presented ” My cultural background”, a reflection on inherited versus self selected religion, values and traditions. S.Af presented ” Gender Identity” and Cris, ” I was born to be a leader”. Jovica led the club in a round of lively table topics.

The word of the day was ” TITAN” and ” TITANIC”.

Our next hybrid meeting is on Saturday, September 16th.

Toastmaster Ahmad led the meeting which was punctuated with a variety of fun facts about books. Belle and Isabella monitored the time and the usage of grammar. The word of the day was ” Comprehensive”.

The three speakers were: Elliott presenting ” Communication Styles”. In three parts, Elliot described instances where his Initiator communication style was a strength and a weakness. Using lessons learnt, Elliot was then able to modify his style to fit his audience. A win-win situation!
Notable quotes: ” the more she retreated, the more I dialed up the volume into super initiator mode.”

Bill presented ” Pin Drop Listening”. This is a speech that Bill has presented a few times and is refining with each iteration. There are two types of listening: pin drop listening is survival listening. Non-pin drop listening is for living fully in the moment.

Notable quotes: “(non pin drop listening) is leaning in softly with the willingness of being changed by what you heard. ” , ” Slow the thought parade”.

Paula presented : The tattoos of my life”- humorous anecdotes about grown children with tattoos and thoughts on getting tattooed.

Notable quote: ” And that’s how the first tattoo walked across the road, into my house and into my life”.

Joseph led a round of spin the wheel table topics on selected books or book types.

Our next meeting is July 29th.