Dec 21, 2021 Christmas theme: Are the holidays only about food and wine?

Are the holidays only about food and wine?  You might think so. Our glasses were charged as we toasted Toastmasters within our club, our guests Toastmasters Jessica M, Karen T, and D99 Program Director Richard M, who dropped in, and Toastmasters everywhere. Sgt at Arms Cherry C got us started by introducing Toastmaster Edith B, who in turn asked everyone to tell us about their favourite food/wine pairing.  Some “commemorated” people, places or events. 

We were treated to two speakers: 

1) Shiao X working on Dynamic Leadership L4 Elective - Manage Projects Successfully Part 1 - planning the project and Part 2 - executing the plan regarding “Create a kitchen garden.” It was certainly a family affair. According to Speech Evaluator Jessica, the speeches and her produce were well done, but wished we knew what dishes Shiao would make with her produce.  2) Eileen S gave her ice breaker speech under Visionary Communication “So this is Christmas!”  Eileen doesn’t seem to be phased by the Covid limitation of this Christmas again. I suspect it is because she is a grandmother, as is her speech evaluator Karen and this blog writer. We liked the “visionary” of seeing the toys she was giving to her grandkids. I guess it really is true “Who needs Santa when there is grandma.” 

Rhys D was Tabletopics Master asking some challenging questions related to Christmas, for the most part. Tabletopics Evaluator Craig B noted all the important parts were there in the responses. Cherry C won best Tabletopics  when she told us about her pursuit of finding a Christmas Eve church service in Hong Kong. 

Grammarian/Ah counter Cherry was not as busy with her grammarian role as she was with her Ah counter role or as Timer Dan Mc was. His red light was blinking as much as Rudolph’s red nose. 

We all wish everyone a very, merry holiday, regardless of how you celebrate it, and all the best in the New Year. We look forward to what Toastmasters has in store for us in 2022.  What Will it be? Perhaps leading a workshop in February on Judges Training. See you back on Zoom on January 4/22. 

Happy New Year from us to you, as our picture shows “Cheers.” 

Submitted by Edith Baraniecki, DTM

Dec 7, 2021 Workshop: Training vs Facilitating

We had a good discussion on Training and Facilitation at the Lingo Advanced Toastmasters meeting December 7/21.  Dan Mc with TM Cherry C’s assistance facilitated the discussion in referring to club officer training, Toastmasters Leadership Institute presentations, Pathways, etc as training and facilitating opportunities. While some of the discussion was done through chat, there were some takeaways.  Clear directions at the onset to set the stage, stick to the timing allocated and ask clear questions. The theme was a favourite of Speech evaluator Xiao X so she appreciated the whole discussion as it increased her “sagacity” on the subject.  There was time for only three Tabletopics and while we heard three good responses as they all acknowledged TT Master Cherry, had an opening, a body using an example and a conclusion, they each excelled in emphasizing one of these areas: Rhys D, the opening - a surprise, Doug K, a TM guest from Athabasca, the conclusion - get better by 5% each day, and Xiao, the body as she most directly answered the question.  Doug won Best Tabletopics. Thank you for joining us Doug. Timer Eileen S, Grammarian/Ah counter Xiao and Sgt at arms/Tabletopics Evaluator Edith  B all fulfilled their roles as experienced TMs.  Our next meeting is December 21/21 where we will end our TM meetings for 2021 talking about wine and food for the holidays. Stay tuned for enhanced Tabletopics, a toast (hopefully Dan will have his voice back by then) or two or more and fun. See you via Zoom at 7pm. Festive wear or props are encouraged as is your favourite libation/drink.  Submitted by Edith Baraniecki, DTM

Nov 16, 2021 Theme: "Idioms"

“It takes two to tango” and that is what Lingo Advanced Communicators and Fabulous Facilitators Toastmasters Clubs did on November 16/21 as we introduced ourselves with our favorite “Idioms.” Toastmaster of the evening, “Action Hero” Cherry C, announced a three way tie for the best idiom:  Oksana N, anything to do with time, e.g. time flies; Gary T, with “a Piece of Cake” which was also the word of the day, because he likes food; and Cam B, with “Raining cats and dogs” which may have been preferable to Edmonton’s weather then.

There were two speeches: 1) Gary’s L2 re Effective Body Language and its importance (don’t shrug your shoulders unless you really mean it) and 2) Xi X’s L4 elective: Managing an Online meeting re “Unconscious Bias” which I am sure everyone has either experienced or has been guilty one time or other.  It was a great discussion complete with breakout rooms and reporting back. Speech Evaluators Eileen S and Lochlan K gave good suggestions to enhance the speeches.

The evaluators, lead by General Evaluator Edith B, were diligent in fulfilling their roles: Peter H as grammarian/Ah counter, although speaking of body language, we saw him cringe when members said “Back to you.” Lynn B, who was flashing timing lights (although this time she was not sitting in the dark) as we tried without success to pack a lot into an hour, and Oksana as Quizmaster, who tried without success, too, to stump us.  All in all this joint effort had lots of “Food for thought.” It was “a piece of cake.”  

Fabulous Facilitators meets again on November 23/21 at 7 pm MST and Lingo Advanced Communicators on December 7/21 at 7 PM MST.  Zoom in for one of these or both. Peter H, DTM, Division C Director and 👑👑👑 award recipient reminded club officers of the first winter COT on Saturday November 20/21. 

Blog written by Edith B, VPPR for both clubs

Nov 2, 2021 Workshop: ReEngage, ReDisscover and ReIgnite

It was not all fun and games like our Halloween meeting, nor was it meant to be.  Lingo Advanced Communicators zoomed into our ninth(9th) year by presenting a workshop entitled “ReEngage, ReDiscover, and ReIgnite” your Toastmaster (TM) energy. Every member of the club and guest Violet were present to “rekindle” their TM juices. Sgt at Arms Edith B introduced our TM for the evening, Cherry C as a living example of how TMs helped her in her career to go from an accounting clerk to going after deadbeats.  Throughout the evening, besides “ReEngage, ReDiscover, and ReIgnite”, these words were heard several times and attributed to Toastmasters: “confidence and competency.”

We had three presentations to further connect the dots: Eileen S talked about “Why Toastmasters?”, Dan Mc, gave a presentation on the overall value of the TM program, and Estella M spoke on setting and achieving goals. These presentations were of varying lengths but Eileen won best Speaker with her 5-7 minute speech.

It was a full evening so we did not have Tabletopics but the evaluations were thorough as led by General Evaluator Xiao X. Rhys D evaluated Eileen’s speech, Craig B as grammarian kept track of the word of the day, and Edith was kept busy as timer. I do believe many were “reEngaged,” did “reDiscover,” and became “reIgnited.”  And with that we look forward to our next event on Tuesday November 16/21 at 7 pm where Eileen will lead the discussion on “International Day for Tolerance.”  Encourage a friend to zoom along with us.  Zoom link 858 0729 3647 Pass Code 342694.

Sent from my iPad. Edith Baraniecki (vacation at Orlando, Florida)

October 19, 2021 Why are Thanksgiving and Halloween fall in the same month?

Well discussing Thanksgiving and Halloween in the same Lingo Advanced Communicators meeting did not throw anyone off. However, if we could have “indulged” in Pumpkin Pie, it would have notched the meeting up even more.  TM of the day, Xiao X, set the stage asking us what exciting things happened to us in October, bringing out various responses.  🦃 🎃 🥧 

We had a full meeting with a Pathway Dynamic Leadership L3E speech: creating effective visual aids (white board and PowerPoint) by Cherry C. As her evaluator and since it was her second round doing this speech, I looked at where she had improved and she had. TM Xiao set up a great Kahoot.it game for us re the theme. New member Craig B came in first, Edith B second and Eileen S third. We won’t mention who came in last, but his initials are DMc. President Dan led the one agenda item business meeting, the induction of Craig B to Lingo. Welcome Craig, so happy to have you join us. 👏
TTM Edith B led two rounds of table topics with a variety of Thanksgiving and Halloween topics. Winners were: Eileen - round one and Dan - round two. All this kept Timer and Sgt at Arms Eileen really busy. Other key roles were Cherry, (grammarian and Ah counter),  Craig (TTE) and Dan (GE).  Now everyone, except the purple lady (EB) needs to get their costumes ready for Halloween, although, they have been wearing 😷 for months. 
Our next meeting/workshop is November 2/21 at 7 pm MST - be ready to “ReEngage, ReDiscover, ReEnergize.” See you on Zoom 

p.s. Happy 8th Anniversary 🎉 Lingo Advanced Communicators chartered October 23/13 and to Edith B and Rhys D Charter members for hanging in and the other six members joining us for the great ride.     Submitted by: Edith B, DTM           

   

                                                                        

October 5, 2021 Workshop: Presentation Mastery

Our monthly Workshop on Oct 5 was all about Pathways: “Presentation Mastery” as in how to better master our presentation skills.  This time not only did we advertise this workshop on D99 fan page and Eventbrite, we also invited Fabulous Facilitators Club to join us.   Our numbers remained small but we were mighty as always. 

Sgt-at-arms Shiao X opened the meeting with positive energy & housekeeping details for Zoom meeting.  Toastmaster Edith B. asked everyone to give a mini opening speech with one tip to improve presentation, perhaps thinking back to a presentation or speech they may have given well or not at one time.  Then, she asked everyone to vote for the best opening speech speaker.  

Prepared speeches: Our first prepared speech speaker was a guest from Fabulous Facilitator Gary T. with his speech “Climate Change: An overview” filled with his thoughtful and effective power point slides along with his descriptive narration, it was very educational.  2^nd speaker Cherry C. gave us some hands on learning on Zoom Whiteboard using annotation key under view option and how to save/add new pages.   3^rd speaker Dan M. showed us how to use power point effectively, Dan asked questions and audience commented on Chat, not only was it interactive but it also connected to the audience, his session followed by an exercise in three breakout rooms. One person to handle creative writing, one to search internet for pictures and another person to get TM template. Then, they were reported back to the big group.   Lochlan K commented on chat that he loved the breakout room experience.  

Evaluations: Cherry evaluated Gary, Edith evaluated Cherry, Eileen evaluated Dan’s session.  

Winners: Best opening speech speaker was Peter H.,  best speaker Gary T., best evaluator Eileen. 

Again, it was a fun, learning experience, but that is what Toastmasters is all about. 

Our next meeting will be on Oct 19, our theme will be: "Why Thanksgiving & Halloween in the same month?"   It is between Thanksgiving and Halloween also it is another “Day After” municipal elections.  Wonder if Toastmaster Shaio will change the theme or not.  

Submitted by Cherry C, DTM 

 

Sept 21, 2021 Theme: The Day Aftere

This is “The Day After” after a great meeting of Lingo Advanced Communicators Toastmasters Club.  TM Eileen S. in her usual professional manner led the meeting and performed the grammarian duty. We had two DTMs gave speeches in the Dynamic Leadership Pathway: Cherry C with “Attributes and Styles” (L2) and Estella M with “Disagree agreeably using the Applied Principles of Dale Carnegie” (L1). Evaluators Dan Mc and Rhys D gave non-“ominous” evaluations. Tabletopics Master Edith B gave several scenarios where members were asked to describe how they felt the day after if they were in that position.  There was a tie between Rhys, speaking about the day and time after their twins were born and Eileen, gave her day after thoughts on winning a silver versus gold medal at the Olympics. We were happy to have Craig B join our club and do TT evaluations. Best evaluator for the evening was Rhys. 

Our next event is a workshop on the Presentation Mastery Pathway to be held on Tuesday October 5/21 at 7 pm MST. If you are working on this Pathway and wish to present, let Cherry C know and if it is a pathway you are interested in doing in the future, you won’t want to miss it.  

Submitted by Edith Baraniecki VP PR

Sept 7, 2021 Workshop: How to prepare Humorous speech

Well members weren’t falling out of their computer chairs but hopefully they were enlightened on how to prepare and deliver a humorous speech. TM Cherry C started the evening with humour and then asked us about a funny thing that we experienced. What stories! Edith B then gave an Engaging Humourous speech about “Miss Edith’s Neighbourhood” followed with a presentation derived from a session on the Magical Power of Humour which was presented at the 2021 TI Convention (notes available). This was followed by a video shown by Dan Mc of Craig Valentine, past World Champion, who recommended using these approaches 1) character dialogue, 2) inner dialogue, 3) projected dialogue, and 4) actual audience dialogue. Eileen S asked four members a variety of Tabletopics (TT). Cherry won best TT with her response as to whether she would rather be the funniest or the smartest person in the room. How do you think she responded?  Evaluators Rhys D (Speech #1) and Xiao  X (TTs) both demonstrated good listening skills and offered advice for improvement. The biggest deficit was that there were no guests. That needs to improve. Our next meeting theme on September 21/21 is “The day after…”. What do you think this is all about? Come and find out  

Submitted by Edith B VPPR 

 

Aug 18, 2021 Last Joint meeting this summer

What a great idea! (thanks Cherry Cheung) This summer four Toastmasters Clubs, Lingo Advanced, Fabulous Facilitators, Riverbend and Golden Mountain, combined their meetings to have better attendance (a full screen of 16 tonight), experience different clubs, speakers and evaluators, meet new friends and have an enjoyable time. Check on all of these. 

Tonight Golden Mountain, with Harry P as Toastmaster, hosted our meeting on “Animal Rights and Wrongs.” There were no “scruples” (WOD) in naming our favorite wild animal. Many animals were suggested from huge elephants and giraffes to tiny snakes and turtles. The two speeches were on opposite spectrums. Kal S gave an insightful speech about managing “depression” and Katie W enthralled us about her “exciting but short vacation.” These speeches were evaluated by Rhys D and Craig B. Trudy B Tabletopics Master asked some challenging TT questions. Cam B was voted as giving the best response to his question about hunting. However, we heard about snakes climbing drapes, a princess yorkie and a Tasmanian Devil plus more. Edith B won best evaluator for her evaluation of Tabletopic responses. Dan Mc led the evaluation team, who were all attentive to their roles. Thank you to our two guests, Alisse and Rani, for joining us on this fourth successful adventure. See you next Tuesday at 7 pm. MST. Let’s all strive to gain more members so we will need two screens to accommodate all next year. 

Submitted by: Edith B VPPR (Lingo/Fab Fac)

July 6, 2021 Joint Meeting Extravaganza

In discussing our Theme: ”release from captivity,” 15 of us gathered from four toastmasters clubs: Lingo Advanced Communicators, Fabulous Facilitators, Riverbend and Golden Mountain.  What a release!  led by TM Cherry C.  We had two new and improved speeches (their repeat speeches in Level 1 Pathways project 3).  Anisha R (Riverbend) spoke with a good strong voice on “Why Diversity and Inclusion matter now?” and Gary T (Fabulous Facilitators) spoke with humour on his trifold “Second Shot” (vaccine, video game, and TM). This is actually the second shot at toastmasters for both of these speakers, you could tell.  

With being released, we were challenged by Club Growth Director Dan Mc to personally contact 25 of our acquaintances to tell them about Toastmasters, much like you would tell a friend about a good book and a fantastic restaurant that you like.  Best Tabletopics was won by Hope in discussing what she missed the most this past year, of course friends/family. While all the evaluators had suggestions for improvement with speeches and Tabletopics, we were to “deter” (WOD) using the term “back to you" & "without further ado"  these pet peeves as per Division C Director Peter H.  General Evaluator Rhys D (also Area B51 Director) commented on how we did “gel” as a group within the meeting, it would have been useful with Zoom to come early and informally introduce ourselves.  There were lots of lessons learned from these trio and the rest of us. 

Our next joint summer venture will be hosted by Fabulous Facilitators on July 20th 7 pm MST when we will be discussing “a new skill.”  Do you have a “prowess” (WOD) in a new one learned this past year? 

Written by Edith B (Lingo and Fabulous Facilitators)

3rd Annual Pecha Kucha Night

On May 4, 2021 Lingo held our 3rd Annual Pecha Kucha Night.  Toastmaster Estella M opened the meeting explaining what Pecha Kucha was about.  Welcoming all guests and introduction around the room.  1st speaker Dan M., Title: Together We Will Build Back, 2nd speaker Cherry C., Title: 17 Science-Based Benefits of Omega-3 Fatty Acids, 3rd speaker Austin K.(guest from Northern Light) Title: How not to get burnt out and 4th speaker  Edith B., Title: What the Heck.  All four speeches were followed by Evaluators: 1st Eileen S, 2nd Estella M,  3rd Shaio X,  4th Dan M,    General Evaluator: Rhys D.   Best Speaker fell into the hands of our guest speaker Austin (so professionally done) Best Evaluator  Eileen S.    Tonight, we had 16 participants and 2 guests had to excuse themselves prior to the end of this Japanese Pecha Kucha game.  Our hand gestures symbolized 20x20 (20 slides x 20 seconds each) in the picture.

Submitted by: Cherry C

March 2, 2021 And the Nominees are...

Toastmaster Estella opened the meeting with a question about what we liked about the Golden Globes Award. Comments varied from attire (ladies colour of the year appears to be pink or yellow), the introductions, how the awards inspire us to either prepare by watching the nominated shows ahead of time or putting them on our to watch list. There was even a bit of envy for JLo’s dress. Accolades (word of the day) goes to Eileen for doing triple roles (timer, grammarian and ah counter) and to Rhys for his quizmaster questions and ballot counting. 

And the best nominee is ......”Mamma Mia” as presented by Edith. While the movie was a hit, the technical glitches failed big time; however, speech evaluator/Sgt at Arms Shiao was dancing in her seat. Other nominees were Dan’s Canadian production “Trotski.”  His passion for the movie was felt by his evaluator Yeshu, who won best Evaluator.  Bonnie brought the movie “To Kill a mockingbird” back to life in pointing out the positives and negatives of this movie, which Estella evaluated. 

We all enjoyed the evening and suggested that we do this again, opening the program to guest movie presentations - wonder if Meryl Streep or Pierce Bronson are busy that night. 

Submitted by Edith Baraniecki

1st workshop of year 2021 - Engaging Humour - Your Royal Invitation

 

Lingo Advanced Communicators aka the Queen’s staff and a guest engaged in humour the evening of January 5/21 as they were acknowledged by her Majesty the Queen/TM Edith virtual style at Buckingham Palace. Before this occurred, each member and guest Sandy Z from Toronto were asked “what made you recently laugh out loud?” We heard that all appreciate a good joke and were willing to share one. The evening concentrated on “engaging humour” as we heard what makes this Pathway different from the others, basically incorporating humour into each project.  Estella M in her speech “Are you born with humour?” noted why humour is important.  

 

Using WOD "witticism", Majesty/Edith addressed her Royal subjects saying a few words about this past year and their dedication to her. She then invited each staff person starting with guest Sir Elton John aka Dan, in fashionable glasses, to say a few words about what he wishes for the future before the two minute bell rang. Then “improv” style each staff person continued with the story. This included: Press Secretary - Cherry, noting how early she has to get up, Private Dresser - Yeshu, revealing some royal secrets, Royal Chef - Xiao, commenting on the number of meals she has to make and the staff needed, Royal Butler - Eileen, English accent and all with her loyalty, Royal Hairdresser- Estella, in maintaining the Queen’s perfect hair, Royal Dog groomer - Bonnie, noting the number of dogs the Queen has had and the Royal Historian - Sandy making notes on all.  Unfortunately guest, Boris Johnson was not available. 

 

Speech Evaluators Cherry and Xiao, Table Topics Evaluator Eileen, having dropped her English accent, and General Evaluator Dan, without his glasses, gave helpful evaluations. Timer Yeshu, using technicolor, had lots to keep track as did Bonnie as Ah Counter/grammarian but not so regarding the use of the word of the day “witticism.”  Yeshu and Eileen won best Tabletopics, Why? They both have the ability of making us laughing in tears but they themselves were as calm as cumcubers.

All in all we had a humorous and Royal time and look forward to our next meeting January 19/21. 

Submitted by Edith Baraniecki, DTM