Engaging and Retaining Millennials in Toastmasters

Submitted by Edith Baraniecki DTM

What a mind opener!  Lingo Advanced Communicators hosted a workshop on April 3/18 on Attracting, Engaging and Retaining Millennials in Toastmasters.

Co-facilitators Dan Mc and Eileen S presented an excellent workshop starting with exploring “Who are millennials?”  For those of you baby boomers (1945-1960) or Generation Xers (1961-1980), Dan shared that Millennials, born between 1981-1995, are often referred to as Generation Y kids.  They aspire for Freedom and Flexibility and are Digital Natives. Signature products are Tablets and Smart Phones and they communicate on-line and by text messaging. 

We had the pleasure of hearing from real life Toastmaster Millennials, Derek, Shauna, and Kamil when Eileen led a panel discussion. Millennial Jake also contributed.  They confirmed the above and discussed their first experiences with Toastmasters, such as 1) while searching online for a club as “everyone has heard of Toastmasters” being thrown by the 90 pins on the city map, 2) listening to Mom who told her about Toastmasters as suggested by a long time Toastmaster then searching online for a club or 3) being recommended by a boss. They stated that location and day and time of the meeting was the deciding factor in picking a club.

What kept them coming was the good energy and described it as “a good platform”. They liked the confidence booster feeling after attending a meeting.  The leadership part was appealing and Toastmasters presented the balance of flexibility and structure.   

The most mentioned skill learned was “networking.”  Toastmasters presents skills such as taking minutes, doing reports, being evaluated or being able to compare oneself against others.  Toastmasters offers things not learned in high school thus making it a good playground. The need for continual progress is important.

Suggestions for reaching Millennials is person to person contact and not just social media.  Word of mouth is important especially coming from another Millennial. (My thoughts are that Toastmasters can be spread like a disease but please do wash your hands or cover your mouth when sneezing).  

During the small breakout case study sessions, these topics were mentioned:  Enlisting celebrities, offering rewards, setting up a coffee meeting to discuss Toastmasters, using MeetUps (which does not require commitment), engage and involve early, and the importance of mentors. We enlisted the millennials as recorders (we learned quickly to involve them).  Their overall presentations were evaluated by Cherry during the general evaluation portion of the meeting.  

We were absolutely thrilled and thankful to have the millennial Toastmasters join us as well as three other guests in our senior residence meeting place.  We learned so much.  

Our next meeting is April 17/18, with President Melanie as Toastmaster, a further presentation by Cheryl P on Pathways   and the crew and guests from “Gilligan’s Island”* may end up stranded on Lingo’s Island. (*Millennials you may need to google this). It is going to be a jampacked meeting.  Stay tuned.

 

As Like Trump said "You are FIRED"

Submitted by Cherry Cheung

The theme for March 20, 2018 was a hot topic:   As Like Trump said "You are Fired"

11 members + 2 guests(Harry and Herrick)

It was a regular meeting turned into an extra-ordinary and educational meeting, this meeting consists of 

one prepared speech by Von  + 11 table topics speakers. 

Our all time witty Table Topics Master Peter took out 2 decks of cards called 'Jobstacles'.   Each TT speaker picked 1 card from each deck;  one deck were the job titles and the other deck were the reasons why they were fired.  

Each TT speaker then got a chance to plead  their cases why they shouldn't be fired:

TT SPEAKERS'JOB                         FIRED BECAUSE OF: 

Dan:  School Nurse - using company time and resources to plan his wedding

Rick:  Chiropractor - always spoke in rhyme

Herrick:  Talk show Host - lacked confidence

Matthew: Taxidermist - thought all of the worlds problem were about women

Harry:  Civil War Re-enactmentist - only has a short time to live

Melanie: Hollywood Agent - not yet convicted of murder

Seann:  Divorce Lawyer - can’t be trusted with over $1000

Eileen:  Uber Driver - needs her own private washroom

Cherry: Civil Rights Lawyer - gets motion sickness

Rhys:     Drama Teacher - set stuffed animals on fire as a kid

Peter:    Figure Skating Judge - needs to always be in the spotlight

To conclude the meeting with prepared speech evaluator Rick,   TT evaluator Dan spent 6 minutes who gave each one of us a thorough evaluation and rooms for improvement;   next was an intriguing Grammarian report by Eileen and a super creative Timer report by Harry.    Our timer Kerri-Anne was too busy timing and didn't get a chance to pick a Jobstcles card.   She deserved to be paid overtime with left-over cracker and cheese. 

Lastly, the Best Table Topics speaker was Rick, no surprise!!  But we each determined  to set a goal to beat him, one day. 

Lingo Workshop: Providing Effective Evaluation to English as Second Language Speakers in Toastmasters

On March 6, 2018 Robin Changarathil CTM and Kerrianne Koehler-Munro ACB, ALB delivered a workshop on Providing Effective Evaluation to English as Second Language Speakers in Toastmasters. Techniques and strategies for delivering evaluation to an English as a Second Language (ESL) speaker in Toastmasters were shared amongst the 19 attendees. Robin clearly defined what a non-native speaker and an ESL speaker is. He also spoke about accents versus pronunciation and recommended the manual, ‘Your Speaking Voice’ from Toastmasters International as a great resource. Kerrianne described the difference between advice and feedback and the importance of using the two evaluation techniques. It was a great workshop and the objective was met in that the attendees felt more confident in delivering evaluations to ESL speakers.

Our next meeting is March 20, 2018 at Riverbend Retirement Living by Revera at 103 Rabbit Hill Court (Road) at 7 - 8:30 pm.

Robin in action!

Robin and Kerrianne

Lingo Club Speech Contest - International Speech and Evaluation

Thank you to all contestants, judges, contest volunteers, and guests who attended our Evaluation and International Speech Club Contests on Tuesday, Feb 20.  Big Thanks goes to our Contest Chair, Cherry Cheung for organizing this club contest.

Special thanks goes to our Test Speaker Mauricio Blanco from Fun Speakers Toastmasters Club.  Thank you to Rhys for inviting Mauricio.

The winners are: 

Evaluation:  1st place Rick Lebeuf,  2nd place Eileen Szakacs
International:  1st place Rick Lebeuf,  2nd place Eileen Szakacs

As per our Area Director,  Tolu Adelowokan, both winners Rick Lebeuf and Eileen Szakacs may both advance to the area contest as there are only 4 clubs in our Area B51.  

Area B51 Contest will be held on April 4, Location TBD

Congratulations to our winners and wishing them the very best as they advance to Area B51 Speech Contest and thank you to all the club members for participating!!

Rhys Davies, Cherry Cheung, Eileen Szakacs, and Rick Lebeuf

Workshop - Being a Chief Judge (Rick Lebeuf DTM)

     

On February 6th, guest speaker Kim Schreiner, member of the Telecommunicators Club who is close to achieving her ACG enthralled and entertained us with her fourth manual speech from the Interpretive Reading manual, by portraying characters from an excerpt from Act III of Visitor from Forest Hills by Neil Simon. American comedian George Burns once said, “I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.” Kim played both husband and wife of their daughter who was to be married and wouldn’t come out of the bathroom. Too afraid that she would end up like her arguing parents. In the end, their daughter did head down the aisle.

Rick Lebeuf, DTM presented a workshop on How to be a Chief Judge – perfectly timed for the upcoming Club, Area, Division and District International Speech and Evaluation contests. 

Rick’s Top three tips are:

1. Always consult with the Contest Chair and determine who is responsible for what ;
2. Get to contest early to set up; and
3. Contests are always about the contestants

Toastmasters Pathways Program

Submitted by Edith Baraniecki, DTM

Cheryl Persson, ACS ALB, Pathways Ambassador

Lingo Advanced Communicators Toastmasters are now enlightened on the new Toastmasters Pathways program thanks to Cheryl Persson ACS ALB Ambassador, who did a presentation at our January 16/18 meeting. Toastmaster/President Melanie K set the stage for us to embrace the future. Tabletopics master Eileen S asked questions to further stimulate our thinking about the new program. Peter K tried to sell us on the program by saying Toastmasters is moving through the decades to bring Toastmasters to present day where members want flexibility and the ability to follow paths on-line (of course he was very descriptive and animated in doing so). Ellen S thought the new program would challenge her and be a great opportunity. Rhys D without the help of the cat explained the difference between guide and ambassador.

Speaker Rick L took us through his Toastmasters Journey by dividing his journey into sections thanking those that accompanied him along the way. He strives to please most of the people most of the time. He said he took the giant step to DTM as he did not want to be “All by myself.” We were all mesmerized by his singing. Well done Rick.

General Evaluator Dave and team gave meaningful evaluations, which we were happy to hear will also be part of the new pathways program.

We were reminded about the upcoming TLI on January 27/18 and other COT sessions. Lingo’s next meeting is February 6/18, a workshop on Being Chief Judge by Rick L. With that lead in, Cherry C began soliciting members to be contestants for our speech contest February 20/18.

First Workshop of 2018 on Parliamentary Procedures!

Submitted by Edith Baraniecki, DTM

You probably “Wonder …” what excites a retired/distinguished toastmaster? Well, it is no ”… Secret”, it is meetings!!!  Bob Barker DTM presented an excellent workshop on "Parliamentary Procedure 101 - the basics" at the first Lingo Advanced Communicators Toastmasters Meeting for 2018.

Bob succinctly went over the chart of motions dividing the list in to Privileged (1-5), Subsidiary (6-12), the original main motion (13), Incidental (14-21) and Bring Back to the Assembly motions (22 - rescind and 23 - reconsider).  He reviewed a few definitions like by-laws, motion, parliamentary authority, presiding officer, quorum and standing rules and went over the common order of business and a few principles of parliamentary law.  Bob explained the six steps to handling a main motion and when to vote or not to vote.  

Thank you to Bob for presenting, his assistant, Patricia aka Vanna or yummy carrot cake/cinnamon bun server and guest Carol for attending as well as the nine members, who many of us need to hear this subject over and over again to get it. 

Our next meeting is January 16/18 at Riverbend Retirement Living by Revera at 103 Rabbit Hill Court (Road) at 7 - 8:30 pm President Melanie Kruger is Toastmaster and we look forward to hearing from Cheryl Persson about the new Toastmasters Pathways Program.