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Posts tagged Toastmaster
Project 8: Effects of Global Warming (use of visual aids)
Jul 28th
Effects of Global Warming
Phew it’s been a long and hot day. The days are getting hotter and hotter.
We are living in a world where we are experiencing Global Warming. A short def on what is Global Warming? Global Warming refers to an average increase in the Earth’s Temp. Which in turn causes changes in climate? A warmer earth will lead to changes in rainfall pattern, a rise in sea level and a wide range of impacts of plants, wildlife and humans.
Now coming to the Effects of Global Warming?
The concentration of GHGs i.e. Greenhouse Gases such as methane and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere are a result of the fossil fuels that we use to do things in our daily lives. In generating electricity, fuel to run our cars, production of consumer goods and also large amounts of carbon monoxide is exhibited from airplanes.
The current concentrations are about 380 parts per million.
I'm Speechless
Mar 27th
Toastmaster Speech 3 :: Competent Communicator Manual
I’m Speechless
I hate to say this, but I feel like quitting Toastmasters. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the meetings – on the contrary, I look forward to them with eager anticipation. So why this sudden change of heart?
I’m not blaming anyone! I volunteered to give a speech. I had chosen a topic months ago and was looking forward to displaying my command over words. So when I finally sat down to set my thoughts on paper, I expected them to simply flow onto the page. But what happened? Nothing!
No problem, I thought. I’ve just chosen the wrong topic. I wrote a snappy introduction for an entirely different speech. And then, nothing!
I was becoming just a bit apprehensive, but I forged ahead and tried another topic. The blank page told exactly what was in my mind. I felt the Goosebumps rise as the horrible realization crept up on me and suddenly grabbed me. This was to be my third speech, but by some cruel quirk of nature I had been born with only two speeches in me.
What a fool I am! I should have guessed last meeting when I floundered at Table Topics. All this time I’ve been passing as normal among Toastmasters who progress through their 10 Manual speeches and earn their C.T.M. badge, then they go on to obtain A.T.M.s and D.T.M.
How long would it be before they discover I’m just a 2 Speech Toastmaster? Oh, the shame and embarrassment! What is a person like me doing in a Toastmasters Club?
Hold on, I thought, Maybe I could go on bluffing a little longer if I could squeeze out something – anything – that sounded like a speech.
I grabbed a fresh page. At the top I wrote the title of my speech. I underlined it. Then I drew a box around it. I decorated the edge with scallops. I filled in the “O” and the “D”.
Underneath I wrote my shopping list.
My phone rang and it was some call center executive, spent some time bugging him!!
As I looked around the house for inspiration, I dipped myself in perspiration. And found something I couldn’t imagine, the postman had offered a reprieve. I took the latest “Reader’s Digest” from the letterbox. Ah, surely I’d find inspiration there. Each article would have made a great speech. If only I had thought of it first. But what can you expect from a 2 speech toastmaster?
I spent the afternoon reading the Digest.
Next morning I looked at the crossword in the paper. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? Crosswords stimulate the mind and improve the vocabulary. But this was evidently a trick crossword. The clues were easy enough but it didn’t have the right number of squares for my solutions.
So what I thought, it’s just the written thing. Maybe I don’t have the writer kind of personality; it’s also possible that my two speech toastmaster ship is coming in the way of my greatness. I realized that I can come up with something if I have a more visual approach so I turned the TV on and after flipping channel for almost an hour found what I was looking for the age old…ahem.. Knowledgeable classic ‘wheel of fortune’ but I should also have guessed then that being just a 2 speech toastmaster this might just be my wheel of misfortune…
My wits were rattled just to guess the word ‘relationship’ but hey isn’t everyone’s brains rattled around those? As the show went on I forgot all about my cares and felt sorry for myself because I kept running out of squares to fill in the words I guessed. There were empty squares sometimes which I worked out must be to show pictures as hints or maybe the idiot who runs the show put some extra boxes so that people like me can feel as if the word we chose is wrong and thus should span more boxes.
Now I was really worried. Not only had I used up all my speeches, I was also running out of words.
And as pat sajack and vanna white said farewell for next time I pictured your faces telling me the same when I tell you that I am going to quit.
Frantically I reviewed my 2 speeches. If only I’d known, I could have spread them over a longer period. Uhh … If I’d just used one a year I could have masqueraded as a Toastmaster for 2 years! And look at the topics I’d chosen. I had squandered my birthright on frivolous subjects. I should have made every word count.
It’s not fair! Someone should have warned me. There’s no mention of such a possibility in the “Competent Communication” manual.
I reread the manual right through. The basic outline of a speech sounds quite simple – for normal Toastmasters.
“Your speech must have a purpose” it says. Capture their attention and lead into the topic. Hmmmm…. I read on.
The body of the speech should have 3 points. But my mind is in such confusion, I don’t know what the 3 points are!
Can any of you tell me what the 3 points are?? Maybe I should pass on chits to all of you and then just pick any three and use them as my 3 points! Or I can just pick 3 points off my body and use them in my speech.
I’ll just have to confess that I’m a 2 speech Toastmaster. I thought I’d get your attention by saying I feel like quitting. Then I’d explain that the reason is because I’ve made this awful discovery. Next, I’d tell how I tried to get around it, and then I’d tell what I’ve decided.
I’ll conclude by saying if you don’t mind having a 2 speech toastmaster in the club, I won’t quit just yet. At least not until I’m due to give the next speech!
What we have here is a failure to communicate
Mar 27th
My Toastmaster Speech, gave it about an year ago, thought for all future speeches, will post them here so I can get reviews and comments before I speak.
Toastmaster Speech #4
- “What we have here is a failure to communicate”
Imagine doing your annual review with your boss. You think you did a decent job for the past year and deserve a good raise. Your boss thinks otherwise. The two of you talked about this at length and tried to justify your positions, but no agreement was reached. At the end, your boss said: “What we have here is a failure to communicate”
Mister Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, and welcome guests:
Was that really a failure to communicate? You made your intentions clear and your boss did likewise. Do you think he would suddenly agree with you if you try to tell him the same thing all over again? Whenever a dispute arises, our instinct is try to talk things out, to clarify our position. We would say: “What we have here is a failure to communicate”. The idea that conflicts can be resolved through better understanding is so ingrained in our way of thinking that we hardly question it. This approach works in some cases, but it is just as likely to backfire by causing frustration and resentment. Poor communication is not necessarily the cause of an argument, and to understand this we must be able to distinguish “misunderstanding” from “disagreement”.
What is the difference? Simply put, misunderstanding is a difference in the perceived facts, while disagreement is a difference in opinions derived from the facts. In an argument, misunderstanding can be easily corrected given there are mutual respect. To settle a disagreement however, one must resort to persuasion and be prepared to compromise.
Let me give you an example. India’s most controversial dam project, the Narmada project, was first envisaged in 1940s by the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The multi-million dollar project involves the construction of some 3,200 small, medium and large dams on the Narmada River. NBA activists say the dams will submerge forest farmland, disrupt downstream fisheries and possibly inundate and salinate land along the canals, increasing the prospect of insect-borne diseases. Some scientists have added to the debate saying the construction of large dams could cause earthquakes. They say that in a country as disorganized as India, it is likely that the necessary maintenance of these dams may suffer.
But those in favor of the project say that the project will supply water to 30m people and irrigate crops to feed another 20m people.
In what was seen as a major victory for the anti-dam activists, the World Bank withdrew from the Narmada project in 1993. Several other international financial institutions also pulled out citing human and environmental concerns. The construction of Sardar Sarovar dam itself was stopped soon afterwards.
The dispute was not in these facts; they are in the differing views of the authority and the general public: From the authority’s perspective, stopping construction was out of the question, and it was easier to dismiss the cause of opposition merely as a lack of understanding. In other words, they chose to believe that once the public became better informed, they would agree that building a hydro power plant was the best solution.
This is a belief that deep inside, we all agree. There is no disagreement, only misunderstanding. This is what Dr. David Siebel called “The Great Myth of Hidden Harmony”: People who prescribe to this thinking believe that if we only understood each other better, we would agree. In the case of the hydro power plant, the authority took on a twisted version of the myth: If only the public understood us, then they would agree with us.
If this mindset strikes you as patronizing and self-centered, it may also strike you as being familiar. How many of you go into an argument thinking that the other party will agree once they see what you see? I have seen numerous examples of people projecting their mindset onto others; rather than putting themselves into other people’s shoe, they try to put others in their own shoe. With this mindset, even if the dispute could be resolved through better understanding, the perceived lack of respect would drive the other party to shun further attempts at communicating.
So when is greater understanding an answer? You can use the following question as the litmus test: “Would the problem disappear if we understood each other better?” In other words:
- Do you think the other person will change their mind if you explain yourself better
- Is the argument caused by the other person’s need to be understood?
- And most importantly: If you can fully understand the other side, are you prepared to change your mind?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then you have a dispute that can be resolved by better understanding
As you can see, poor communication is not always the problem. By identifying the type of problem, you identify the type of solution. In the case of misunderstanding, the solution is better communication and greater understanding; in the case of disagreement, as I have mentioned earlier, one must developed a strategy to persuade, and be prepared to compromise.
Mister Toastmaster
