Profile from previous page (They have superb evaluations.) With iToast I tend to be more somber and educational. I am not necessarily myself when I am there. With the Pro Achievers I am myself, and as an advanced club their evaluations are helpful, sometimes to the point of hurting, but in an appropriate way. They are not vindictive, just more insightful and geared to different type of audience. I tend to be the professional and give more instructional speeches there. But that is their goal. Choose your club with an open mind. They all have different ideas and modes of learning and usefulness. What advice do you have for new members? I love new members. I remember being one not very long ago! My advice would be threefold, first GET ACTIVE!!!!!!!! You can’t learn to drive by sitting in the back seat of the car. Get active, go to meetings, volunteer for any job needed. Visit other clubs. Go to the TLIs even if you are not an officer. Second: Learn by doing. This goes hand-in-hand with the first bit of advice. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. There used to be an artist on IPTV—Bob Ross. He said that we don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents. I strongly believe this. Last but far from least…LISTEN. This sounds easy, but probably is the hardest for a “newbie” to do. We tend to act like we are listening. We do not hear what is being said, but most importantly, we do not hear what is not being said. A good part of each conversation is nonverbal. As Toastmasters, we need to focus on the nonverbal as well as the verbal. Go back to the car. Dad taught us how to steer the car, look both ways, what the lights and signs meant, by never saying a word. We probably knew all of this by the time we were 9. We could no more drive a car down I-80 at 4 pm outside Iowa City than we could walk on the moon. Until we got behind the wheel of that car, we did not
realize what all we had to do to drive that car. From adjusting the mirror, seat belt, getting the seat in the right position for our comfort and safety. Not to discount the need to be sure that we had gas in the car, air in the tires. From hearing, listening and learning from an older (figuratively) more experienced person we learned to drive a car. A Toastmaster probably knows before he or she ever sits in the first meeting that a speech needs an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. We know how to fill 5-10 minutes with talking. But they do not usually know the nuances that Toastmasters teaches us. You see, each of us is a mentor whether we have the title or not. We are mentoring everyone we speak to, Toastmaster or not. Leah Cox, ACB, CL Division C Governor. (Less than 2 year member)
Boost Your Mentoring Program By Lauri Hughes, Area 34 Governor
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irkwood Keynotes #1564 (Cedar Rapids) is spending the month of January promoting the club’s mentoring program. The club started off with an “introduction” at its regular meeting December 22. As Toastmaster, I talked about the M&M candies, shared a few with the group, and told the members interesting facts about them. Toward the end of the meeting, I suggested another thing to think about when eating these candies, our own club’s MnM, or mentor/ mentee program. Now each week this month, we’re sprinkling facts and fun about our MnM program. On January 26, we’ll wrap it up with a meeting entirely focused on the mentoring program (TM, speeches, table topics and evaluation feedback), we’ll formally introduce our new “logo” for the program, and end the meeting with a quiz to gauge their learning. The winner receives a gift bag of M & M’s chocolates! For more information, contact Lauri at lhughes@ kirkwood.edu.
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