Area L 61 Leaders’ Newsletter September 2016 Director’s message
"Life takes on meaning when you become motivated, set goals and charge after them in an unstoppable manner" Les Brown Welcome to our second Area 61 newsletter. The first quarter was a fantastic one for all the clubs in Area 61. We had our Area Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest on 1 Oct and our contestants are gearing up for the District contest on 15Oct. Congratulations to the participants and best wishes to the winners. One of the goals we had set at the onset of the year was to ensure more collaboration between clubs and exchange of ideas to help each other grow together. I am happy to see this through a barbecue evening with Tall Tales table topics, jointly organised by Harrovians and Watford Speakers, the Mayor's visit to Harrovians, Speechcraft organised by Watford Speakers and Harrovians, amongst others. We are also aware of the Youth Leadership presentation being organised by HOD and look forward to seeing many more. Let us now work together to set our social, development and speaking goals for the 2nd quarter (Oct16-Dec16). I would like to draw your attention to the 10 steps to achieving the Distinguished Club status, the 10 DCP points. We are all jointly aiming towards a fantastic year for our Area and this is only possible if each member strives to achieve their goals for this year. All of us including the VPE and Club Mentors are here to support each member on their toastmaster journey. Lastly, "Wherever you go, go with all your heart" Confucius Seema Menon Area Director L 61
Area Competition By Indra Sikdar We have successfully completed the Area 61 Table Topics and Humorous Speech Competition on 1st October. It has been quite a process from booking the venue at a discounted rate until the big day. I created a mailing list of participants and Presidents so that I was able to give news of developments without missing anyone. Presidents were contacted whenever I wanted specific or urgent requests. I learnt that printing out all the competition papers including the rule book and the meeting agenda in numbers is indeed really time consuming. Also, I held a pre-meeting of the main functionaries to iron out any last minute issues. A great deal of attention to detail is a must throughout the process until the competition is over and the certificates are printed accurately with the correct competition labelled together with correct spelling of the names of the winners. After the competition the names of the winners were handed over to the Divisional Director. My official duties were finally discharged when I had given a photograph and a write up to London Speaker and Area Newsletter. All in all, the Area Competition was a success and I am really glad that I navigated the whole process.
Competition Success
We are thrilled to announce that 4 of our members are progressing to the Division L Level of the Humorous Speech and Table topics Contest on Saturday 15th October at the London Business School. Sofia Geraghty of Watford speakers came 2nd in the Area Contest level with her speech ‘One Year of Adulthood’ and Mopani Mkandawire also of Watford Speakers was placed 1st with his speech ‘Fear’ in the Humorous Speech contest. David Phelops of HOD won 2nd place while Angela Lansbury of Harrovians was placed 1st in the Table Topics Contest.
Congratulations also to Gill Ornstein of HOD and Pam Attffield of Watford Speakers for winning the 3rd place in the Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests respectively. You all are stars!
Speechcraft By Naomi Tuttle Following the success of its first Speechcraft programme earlier this year, Watford Speakers have twinned with Harrovian Speakers to run a second Speechcraft programme, with support from TJX & HOD Speakers. Speechcraft is an opportunity for participants to develop speaking skills in a relaxed, friendly environment with the support of more experienced Toastmaster members. Starting on Thursday 29th September, the programme will run for 8 weeks during which time participants will have the opportunity to present 3-6 speeches, give evaluations and take part in Table Topics. Experienced speakers will also provide 7 educational presentations on various themes linked to public speaking. There is already significant interest in a third Speechcraft programme; indication that the programme format is proving very successful! Find out more about Speechcraft here: http://www.watfordspeakers.org/speechcraft/.
‘Introducing a speaker’ – My Introduction to Introductions By Meena Nayar This month I carried out a mini workshop on how to ‘Introduce a speaker’ to the participants of the Speech craft course at Watford Speakers. At Toastmasters there are 2 different reasons to introduce a speaker to an audience. When you are introducing a member who is doing a ‘functionary role’ and when you are introducing a ‘prepared speaker’. When introducing a functionary role, there is usually a predecided theme throughout the whole meeting. It is important for you to ask the speaker beforehand what their views are on the theme so these can be incorporated into the introduction. This makes the introduction more personal. When you are introducing a prepared speaker you have more responsibility in ensuring the name, speech title, timing and the background to the speech are all communicated to the audience. Whenever you are introducing a speaker try to use the 3P’s – 1) PERSONAL – have something personal about the speaker in the introduction so it makes them stand out. 2) PREPARATION – your role is to prepare the audience for what the speaker is about to do and get them raring to go. 3) PLATFORM – finally you will be giving up the platform to the speaker, do this with a big round of applause and invite the audience to do so. Your role as the Toastmaster doing the introductions is to bridge the gap seamlessly between the speaker and the audience. Enjoy!
Harrovian Speakers’ BBQ By Jayanthiny Kanagatharan On 24th September the Harrovian Speakers Club held their first BBQ in collaboration with Watford Speakers. The BBQ was held at the home of Harrovian Speakers’ Secretary who is Biju Cherian. The Harrovian Speakers Club therefore would like to thank Biju and his family for providing his beautiful garden for our Club BBQ, which turned out to be a great success. The purpose of the Club BBQ was threefold. The first aim was to create a social event via which Harrovian members could get to know fellow club members and members from the Watford Speakers Club, to socialise and network. The second purpose of the BBQ was to provide the unique opportunity to Clubs in Area 61 to tell Tall Tales via the Tall Tales Table Topics Contest. The Contest, which was won by Steve, a family friend of Biju’s, was a good testing ground before Harrovian Speakers will organise the first Tall Tales Contest at their venue next year, not only as a Club contest but as an Area Contest because members from HOD, Watford Speakers and TJX will cordially be invited to take part. The third purpose of the BBQ was to raise some funds for the Harrovian Speakers Club. In that regard Harrovian Speakers Club was successful in meeting this goal as it registered some profit at the end of the BBQ. All in all, the event was well attended and the President of the Harrovian Speakers Club Jayanthiny Kangatharan would like to thank the Club Officers for their valuable help in putting together a magnificent BBQ, and she would like to thank everybody who attended the first Club BBQ.
Mayor's visit to Harrovian Speakers By Jayanthiny Kanagatharan
On 5th October the Harrovian Speakers Club held a very special meeting as they welcomed the Mayor of Harrow Rekha Shah and the chairman of the Harrovian branch of the Parkinson’s charity Raymond Turner. Harrovian member Amparo Villamil, who is the Club’s VPM and who has Parkinson’s, recently completed her first ten speeches from the Competent Communicator Manual. That evening Amparo received the Competent Communicator award from the Mayor of Harrow. The achievement of the CC award is an incredible accomplishment by Amparo, which will certainly inspire other speakers with Parkinson’s in Area 61 to challenge themselves to become great speakers. The meeting, which was hosted by TME president Jayanthiny Kangatharan, was made extra special by the theme of the evening that was ‘the benefit of giving back’, and by the fact that as a surprise guest Amparo’s mentor Kavita Dulai from Watford Speakers gave a speech to praise Amparo’s achievement before the CC award was presented to her. There is no doubt that this speech was indeed a touching speech generating heartfelt warmth that filled the entire room. After the award presentation, Rekha Shah spoke about how public speaking helped her with her career, while Raymond Turner told attendees about the activities that the charity has planned for this year. Similar to the Mayor of Harrow and the chairman of the Harrovian branch of the charity, Amparo is a keen supporter of the Parkinson’s charity. This meeting can therefore be considered successful in having raised much-needed awareness of the work done by the charity, the work done by its members like Amparo, and the work done by Rekha Shah and Raymond Turner. This meeting therefore was an excellent occasion to celebrate the
achievements of members of our Club, members of the charity, and members of the Harrow community. All in all, it was a beautiful meeting with many touching moments.
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