Is our constant use of acronyms absolutely bananas?

One of things that we can easily forget at Toastmasters is that when we’ve been there a while we suddenly slip into speaking a whole new language without being aware of it, or that by doing so we are creating a barrier of entry for our newer members and guests.

The people who are eager to improve their own communication skills suddenly find themselves in a room full of people they have sought out as experts sounding as if they are randomly selecting noodles out of a big, steaming bowl of alphabet soup.

I am of course talking about our use of acronyms - to demonstrate that our use of acronyms is totally bananas I want you all to meet Cocoa D, Monkey:

Cocoa is eager to improve his communication and leadership skills and has arranged to visit Jungle Fever Toastmasters Club - at first it goes really well, and he’s having a great time:

Cocoa has seen some great speeches and even participated in Table Topics. Now he’s enjoying a snack with some of the Jungle Fever Toastmasters:

Then suddenly he overhears two members discussion, knowing that one of them is club President he keeps an ear out to listen, and hopefully learn something useful:

As Cocoa sat down for the second half his head was reeling with all the terms he had heard, wondering what the heck they meant and then he heard the monkey at the lectern say “As with all evaluations I will use the CRC method…” Cocoa felt completely lost...

To avoid your guests having the experience poor Cocoa D Monkey had we have created a quick and easy Cheat Sheet for you to print out and put in your guest packs - or perhaps as a reminder to avoid using them as much as possible.

Download the cheat sheet for your guest packs

Click this link: Toastmaster Terms - Cheat Sheet

Many thanks to Owen Winter Area E6 Director for this post.

Welcome Police Toastmasters!

Just before the Christmas break, Division E received an early Christmas present - a new Toastmasters club!

A group of Wellington Toastmasters - Erin Rose, Mark Casson, Christine Wren and Rose Wyse - have been working to build a Toastmasters club at Police National Headquarters in Molesworth Street. With support from Five Crowns Toastmasters club, especially President Kinnie Vermeulen, building the club has been "a fun journey", says Erin. The club has been meeting regularly since July, and by December there were enough members to officially charter the club with Toastmasters International.

When starting a new club, one of the biggest challenges can be filling all the meeting roles. Erin and Mark were very pleased to have roles in early meetings filled by Toastmasters keen to help out, including Peter Scholtens, Owen Winter, Denis McCord, and Mary Clarke.

At their final meeting of the year, the club enjoyed summer-themed table topics and a speech from Division Director Gael Price welcoming them to the Division. Gael's speech was competently evaluated by brand-new Toastmaster Kirsten Newman.

Police Toastmasters at their first meeting as a fully chartered Toastmasters club, December 21 2015.

Rose and Erin say the new club is in good shape and excited to be joining the Toastmasters community.

"Everyone is working through their manuals and learning about the program," says Rose. "Next we'll start thinking about club speech contests!"

Chartering a club is an exciting time for everyone involved. Erin and Mark have been working hard as sponsors to get the club chartered, and now they can begin to move into the background as the mentors take over. In mentoring the club, Christine and Rose take on the role of supporting the new committee and helping them understand the world of Toastmasters. Mentors must work with their new club for at least six months, but some mentors choose to stay longer.

By sponsoring and mentoring Police Toastmasters, the four organisers have all become eligible for credit toward their Advanced Leader Silver (ALS) awards. The ALS is one of the most difficult awards in Toastmasters, and building a new club forms a significant part of it.

More important than the educational recognition, though, is bringing Toastmasters to more people. The 18 new members at Police now have the opportunity to enjoy Toastmasters in their workplace - all thanks to the hard work of the experienced Toastmasters who got the club underway. Well done team!

5 public speaking resources

2016 – The start of a new year & that time when we resolve to make positive changes. What goals have you set yourself to achieve?

Perhaps you have a list similar to this:

1. I will replace “ums” and “ahhs” with pauses.
2. I will complete the current manual I'm working on and start another.
3. I will remember to breathe properly.

And maybe you want to broaden your knowledge through reading and research. Here's five excellent jumping off points to browse. I hope you enjoy them. Here's to an eloquent 2016 for all of us.

*If you've got favourite resources please share them via the comments box below.

1 Six Minutes

Andrew Dlugan – six minutes – Andrew is a Canadian Toastmaster and compiler of a vast number of interesting, informed public speaking resources. You'll find analysis of speeches, guides for better writing, delivery, powerpoint presentations and more. In short enough to keep you occupied for hours and hours and then some.

2 Speaking About Presenting

Olivia Mitchell – speakingaboutpresenting.com . Olivia is a New Zealander, who with her Toastmaster husband, Tony Burns runs effectivespeaking – a company delivering presentation training. They offer superb “how tos” and tips covering multiple topics including gems like this:

7 tips to ensure you're understood when speaking to a foreign audience.

3 Ginger Public Speaking

Ginger Public Speaking – UK based Sarah Lloyd-Hughes runs Ginger, her company dedicated to bringing public speaking empowerment to all and sundry. As she says on her site: we turn communicators from nervous wrecks into public speaking leaders. You'll find links to videos, TED Talk material and a host of other useful material delivered with tongue-in-cheek humour like this one on the wisdom of picturing your audience naked.

4 The Eloquent Woman

The Eloquent Woman – Washington based Denise Graveline's blog. It's great for the frequent posts examining famous speeches and because she addresses the specific needs of women speakers. Try this as an introduction: Top 10 posts & guest posts on the Eloquent Woman 2015.

5 Patricia Fripp's website

Patricia Fripp is an American multi-award winning speaker/trainer specialising in keynotes, sales … Her freebie resources page offers videos, webinars, articles, and podcasts with ongoing links to more. Patricia was the keynote speaker at the Toastmasters International Conference in 2015. Click keynote speaker to find out more about her and her presentation.

Summer training available for club officers

Happy new year to all! Although the sun is still hot, many of us are getting back into work mode and starting to make plans for the year ahead.

Image source

Within your club, a great way to start off the new year is by attending club leader training (CLT). This training is an opportunity for you to reflect on how your Toastmasters year is going so far and to plan for the second half of the year. Sessions are open to all club officers and anyone who is interested in being an officer in the future.

In December, more than 70 club officers from around Wellington attended early pre-Christmas training sessions. Here are some of the new things they said they're going to try as a result of their time at training.

• Start organising a nominating committee
• Update guest packs
• Use Spirit of Success awards
• Survey members
• Succession plan
• Social activities
• Get feedback from guests
• Instigate reserve speaker
• Organise a Moments of Truth session
• Track CL progress
• Set up Facebook page

Do you know what all of these mean? Come to CLT to learn more about them! Since December is a busy time, the same training is being offered again in January and February to make sure everyone has a chance to attend. Your training opportunities are:

Division J sessions (email Gregory for more information)

• Saturday 30 January, 9.30am-1pm, Petone Baptist Church
• Sunday 31 January, 1-4pm, Lands Trust Masterton Education Centre (click for map)
• Saturday 27 February, time TBA, Linden Community Centre

Division E sessions (email Gael for more information)

• Tuesday 16 February, 5.30-9pm, Wellington Girls' College library (click for map)
• Saturday 20 February, 9.30am-1pm, Wellington Girls' College library
• Lunchtime CLT (must attend all three sessions to receive credit): Monday 15, 22 and 29 February, 12.15-1.15pm, St Andrew's on The Terrace

If you're a club officer, attending training will help your club to achieve recognition in the Distinguished Club Program. Each club needs at least four officers to attend training twice a year for recognition. If you want to see how your club is doing, check out the Toastmasters International dashboards (you can navigate to your Division, Area and club in the main body of the page, or enter your club number in the search box at top left to go straight to it).

See you at CLT soon!

Celebrations at Capital Breakfast club

Christmas is a time for clubs to celebrate - and this Christmas, Capital Breakfast had more to celebrate than most. At the club's final meeting in December, long-time member Nicki Mann received her long service award in recognition of 25 years' continuous membership of Toastmasters in New Zealand.

Nicki first joined Toastmasters in June 1990, making her the 13th-longest serving member of Division E.

Club Growth Director Sarah Bate (left) presenting Nicki Mann with her long service award.

Club members went all-out for their Christmas meeting, dressing up for the occasion and bringing festive nibbles to share. The extended Table Topics session had everyone scratching their heads as the chair produced one image after another of countries' flags for people to identify. Many speakers took a creative approach to their answer, ensuring that nobody left without a good laugh!

Capital Breakfast members dressed up for their Christmas meeting. Nicki Mann, centre front, holds her long service award.

Thanks, Capital Breakfast, for the opportunity to share in your celebration!

Is your club planning a celebration or special event? Email Gael to ask for it to be featured on Eat Your Crusts.

Club officers: time to refresh your knowledge!

Image source

December is a time for celebration. Time to recognise the successes of the old year - and time to prepare for a new one.

In Toastmasters, December is halfway through the year and a great time to take stock. How is your club doing? Are you making progress on your goals? How's your membership level? What new things could you try come January?

For club officers, the December-February period brings an opportunity to refresh your knowledge. When you first took office in July, you attended club leader training and learned about your role, leadership, and the wider world of Toastmasters. Now that you've had some time to apply that knowledge in your clubs, we invite you to come together again and debrief. What's going well? What needs tweaking? What are other clubs doing that you might try?

Attending club leader training this round will complete your club's training requirements for the year. By getting at least four officers trained in July and at least four in December-February, your club receives recognition under the Distinguished Club Program, Toastmasters International's standard for a successful club.

To make it extra easy for your club officers to get trained this round, we're offering two sessions of club leader training before Christmas (more will be offered in the new year). They are:

Thursday December 10, 5.30-9pm

Upper Chamber, Toi Poneke

61 Abel Smith Street
Parking available on Abel Smith Street (metered till 6pm).

Saturday December 12, 9.30-1pm

Wellington Girl's College library
8 Murphy Street
Some parking is available along the driveway off Murphy Street - the library itself is at the end of the driveway.

As well as club officers, please invite anyone who is thinking about becoming a club officer in the future. This session will give them a chance to learn more about the roles and what it means to serve as an officer and help a club achieve success.

See you at a club leader training soon!

All the news from Blenheim

Did you know that holding a pen in your mouth can improve your mood?

That was just one of the tidbits of information that were on offer at District conference in Blenheim. On the first weekend in November, just over 300 Toastmasters from all around the country gathered at Marlborough Convention Centre for a weekend of learning, networking, and fun.

The conference organisers had a fantastic schedule ready for us, with keynotes and educational workshops from all over the spectrum of communication and leadership. In the space of two short days, attendees learned about telling their stories in speeches, improving memory, mastering Table Topics, coming across as a leader, and even how to take control of their lives and be more productive. That tip about the pen? That was thanks to trainer Roydon Gibbs, who shared the insight that forcing your face to make a smiling shape can trick your brain into feeling happier - and a pen in the mouth is one way to do that!

Contests are the centrepiece of a District conference. The Table Topics contest on Saturday, and Humorous contest on Sunday, were both won by speakers from Division C (Otago/Southland). Table Topics champion Christine Livingstone spoke with passion and humour on the benefits of recognising diversity through public holidays. Humorous champion Bruce Caughey had the audience in stitches with his cautionary tale of what happens if you let a your tin of condensed milk boil dry.

Table Topics Winners - 3rd - Peter Scholtens, 1st Christine Livingstone, and 2nd Stephen Budai.
Photo credit: District 72 website

Division E contestants placed in both contests, with Peter Scholtens (Statistically Speaking) placing third in Table Topics, and Ella Kahu (Island Bay) coming third in Humorous. Congratulations, Peter and Ella!

At the business meeting on Saturday afternoon, club representatives had the opportunity to ask questions about the District's budget and financial performance, as well as the work going on to build new clubs and support members in achieving their educational goals. A change to the District Procedures for budgeting got everyone engaged in the debate, and the meeting finished almost exactly on time. (Minutes for the business meeting will be available on the District website in due course.)

The Saturday night dinner was great fun for all, with plenty of dancing and some new friendships being formed. The dinner theme of "Colour your world" gave everyone inspiration for their outfits, with some turning up in brightly coloured wigs or clown costumes, while others stuck with colourful dresses and suits - there were even a few fascinators left over from the Melbourne Cup.

As the conference wrapped up on Sunday afternoon, delegates spilled out of the Convention Centre into a blindingly hot Marlborough day. The Blenheim town square was full of stalls selling ice cream and other treats, and many people stopped off there on their way to the airport - where an impromptu Toastmasters meeting was held in the terminal, complete with a CC 6 speech, evaluation and Table Topics! Toastmasters never pass up a speaking opportunity!

L-R: Simon Lin, Rob Barton-Howes, Gael Price, Mike McKee, Kai Chan - admiring the scenery en route from the airport to the convention.