Hola mis companeros de Toastmasters!
At our last meeting we held our club Table Topics and Humorous Speech contests and even managed to fit in two entertaining presentations.
Jennifer Chan our club (Presidente) opened the meeting and welcomed both of our guests, Eamonn Shaw and Jeremy Courage.
Jeremy is a member of my home club, Bryant Park Toastmasters and he stopped in to present an advanced speech on interpreting poetry. Jeremy is working towards his Distinguished Toastmaster - DTM designation. He read a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer titled “The Invitation” (La Invitacion).
The Invitation begins with these beautiful and inspiring words: “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.”
For both contests, perhaps due to the Summer season we only had 2 contestants, myself and Kenneth Oehlkers.
Humorous Speech Contest:
Contest Chair: Julian Hernandez Chief Judge: John Schaffer
Kenneth was the first contestant. He presented an entertaining speech titled “Days and Nights of the Living Dead” He shared a funny story about receiving a consolation letter from Discover Card services about his recent death. Apparently, there exists a Death Master File where 22,000 people were erroneously listed as deceased within a 2 year period. It took Kenneth lots of patience and the ingenuity of bringing to the Social Security office a recent picture of himself at a Toastmasters event, obviously alive and well. Kenneth summed up his experience by letting us know that it takes about 4-8 weeks to be brought back to life on paper and that his Toastmasters participation literally pulled him back from the grave. Bravo Kenneth! All of us at Fiesta and I’m sure in all the circles you travel, are happy to have you here with us alive and funny.
Yours truly was the 2nd contestant and it is very difficult to be objective about my own contest speech. The title of my presentation was “NY - A State of Minds.” My speech was about the strange/bordering on insane things people sometimes do in the big apple and about how direct we tend to be in our communication. I had a great deal of fun sharing mini vignettes about incidents I witnessed or read about. For instance, while waiting on the check out line at a local CVS, I listened as a disgusted and agitated cashier said or shouted to the only other customer in the store “Mister! I can’t give you Viagra!...No...You have to go to a doctor....I don’t know any doctor! As I mentioned in my speech, it’s sad that the Viagra company slogan is “This is the time for Action!” Clearly at 8pm, on a Friday night, with no prescription, you can count only on - no action! I shared a couple more stories about Steven Slater, the flight attendant hero and a bagel brawl at a Manhattan Starbuck's. I concluded my speech with the realization that NY is a state made up of enthusiastic, direct, often connected and at times not so connected minds.
Table Topics Contest:
Contest Chair: Karthik Paladugu Chief Judge: Julian Hernandez
Kenneth was the first contestant so I did not get a chance to hear his response to the Table Topics question, which was: tell us something we don’t know about where you come from?
Since I can’t add Kenneth’s answer I think it is only fair to leave out my own.
Next up, the ballot counting during which Betty Pickett presented Speech #4 from the Competent Communicator manual.
Betty’s speech was titled “Heat Wave” (Sol de Infierno). It’s always great fun to watch Betty present. She has such a big wonderful smile, that lights up her face and lifts the spirits. Betty made some significant improvements since her last presentation. She introduced us to another character, Rosa and in her speech Rosa was the Spanish speaker so that blended beautifully with our new approach to use both Spanish and English in our presentations. Betty’s speech was about the hot Summer in August of 1866 where 10 days of a heat wave killed 1,300. Although that is a morbid fact, Betty gave us much to enjoy. Bravo Betty!
Next was the speech evaluation which I volunteered to give. I noted all of the strengths in Betty’s speech. The character, the language balance, the energy, enthusiasm, colorful content and solid organization. For improvement, in future speeches we will see Betty give us even more eye contact, perhaps she will try memorizing a few of the Spanish lines so she can feel free to use body gestures to reinforce her message. The last recommendation would be the use of pauses for making effective transitions.
I want to extend a special thanks! (gracias!) to all the members that helped run the contest. Jennifer, Marcia, Brad, Julian, Karthik, John, Jeremy and I hope I’m not missing anyone.
Lastly, I have the honor and pleasure of representing Fiesta Toastmasters club at the Area contest on September 9th at the Goldman Sachs building downtown.
May you all enjoy the long weekend ahead!
Hasta luego,
Marina
VP, Education
Fiesta Toastmasters
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