Colorado Springs, CO: 21st Century Toastmasters Club

Colorado Springs, CO
Meets 3 PM Eastern Time on Fridays
Attendance: (8 members and 2 guests)

Sometimes it's good to get an outside opinion. I have found that to be true in Toastmasters meetings, as well as the rest of life. One of the things I have enjoyed in my ventures to various meetings across the country is the opportunity to evaluate speeches. I like to think that I'm adding value along the way.

I had the pleasure of evaluating Mark's speech at this club recently. He had excellent eye contact in his speech about giving and receiving feedback and seemed very comfortable throughout. I also liked the stories he used at the beginning of the speech. To take this speech to the next level, I suggested to Mark that he consider weaving the points he was trying to make around his stories. I also advised him to open with a bang and end with impact. Mark had a good message and encouraged us to have growth mindset instead of being defensive when receiving feedback.

This is one of the clubs that does the Pledge of Allegiance at its meetings. That's the club culture. We don't do that at my home club. 

The General Evaluator Deb had good insights about the meeting in general. I really liked her observation to Speaker Bonnie Ann that she not apologize in her speech. Here in central Kentucky we use an acronym for that: INSANE - "I Should Never Apologize Nor Explain" during a speech. The principle behind that is that most of the time the audience doesn't realize if we have messed up or not. 

One thing the club could do better, in my opinion, is responding to inquiries from visitors like me. I first reached out to the club with an email to the person listed as the point of contact on the home page. I got no response. I then contacted the club using the "Contact Us" link on the home page and received a very quick response. It's useful to have at least two people receive these inquiries, in my opinion. 

One last thing about my experience at 21st Century Toastmasters: The grammarian (Deb) referred to herself as the Syntax Sentinel. I had never heard that before and I loved it. I'm a sucker for clever wordsmithing and alliteration.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rochester, NY: Toastitarians

Image
Toastitarians Rochester, NY Meets 12:45 PM Eastern Time on 2nd and 4th Sundays Attendance: 5 members and 3 guests Murphy's Law -- if something can go wrong, it will -- was in full force at the Toastitarians meeting on June 28 and one of the speech evaluators pointed that out.  The listed start time for this meeting is 12:45 PM, so Cynthia and I logged into the Zoom room around 12:35. Samir greeted us when we arrived and then told us that the meeting really didn't start until 1 PM, because people didn't show up until then. Because of that, Toastitarians and I didn't start out on the right foot.  Then when the meeting started, none of the speakers were there. Two of the speakers had canceled because of family emergencies and the third was a guest that no one had heard from. So I volunteered to speak, because I had a speech ready to go. They eventually were able to contact the third speaker and she was able to join the meeting and do her speech. The club did display adapta...
Read more

Rolla, MO: Ozark Orators

Image
Ozark Orators Rolla, Missouri Meets 8 PM Eastern Time on Fridays Attendance: (7 members and 4 guests) One thing I've learned along the way is that there's no one right way to do Toastamasters. The Ozark Orators club in Rolla Missouri chooses to do Table Topics, the impromptu speaking segment of the meeting, first and then the prepared speakers. At my club, Midway Toastmasters in Midway, Kentucky, we do the reverse. At Midway, we feel that gives the evaluators more time to work on their evaluations of the speakers. But that's just our opinion at Midway. At Ozark Orators, everyone participates in Table Topics. That's what is ingrained into the club culture. Doing it this way is a great way to get every person at the meeting involved. It does take more time, though. At many clubs, including Midway, they limit Table Topics to three or four respondents. One thing I truly appreciated about this club is the diversity of its membership. And there were several younger people in ...
Read more

Fargo, ND: Bold & Blue Toastmasters

Image
Bold & Blue Toastmasters Fargo, ND Meets 6:15 PM Thursdays Eastern Time Attendance: 16 members and 3 guests If you want to see Toastmasters done right, RUN -- don't walk -- to Bold & Blue Toastmasters in Fargo, ND. This club was hitting on all cylinders when my wife, Cynthia, and I visited on June 18.  When we arrived at the Zoom session about 15 minutes before the meeting, six members were already there. They greeted us warmly and took time to get to know us a little bit before the meeting. As a visitor, that felt really good to me. After the meeting started, they asked us and other guests to introduce ourselves. They made us feel very welcome. That doesn't always happen when we visit clubs online. I felt really at home at this club because they do things similarly to how we do them in my home club. One example is the communication or leadership Tip of the Day. They're also having an end-of-the-year celebration next week. We're having ours in July. Their meetin...
Read more