Pradosh Nag

Toastmasters uses mentoring to help newer members to gain insight into the Toastmasters programme and also help seasoned members to keep up with the great progress they make in their communication and leadership endeavors.

The workshop last Thursday was conducted by Vice President of Education - Utpal Banerjee. This was a very successful workshop in that it allowed everyone attending to provide their input into what they expected from their mentors as well as well as how they expected to participate as a protege. This workshop set the stage for more workshops to come.

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I had the good fortune to attend the Division D Officer Training and Workshops. Taking away the precious time from a beautiful Saturday morning with my family is always a difficult choice but today’s workshop was definitely worth the time. It was wonderfully organized and smoothly run. Congratulations to Kevin and his totally dedicated team for a fabulously run event. Axel worked tirelessly as usual and Marie and Ruth covered the registration desks without a hitch or the usual lineups you experience at these events.

I attended two workshops - the first one was conducted by Rashpal. Her workshop was about Motivating Action Within Your Team. Rashpal runs her own coaching and consulting company PMPY: Powerful Mind Powerful You - a coaching and consulting company that provides educational programs aimed at accelerating professional and personal development skills in the service of organizational growth.

Rashpal captivated the audience with her poise and constantly kept the audience thinking and participating. Click here for the content of Rashpal’s handout.

The other workshop was conducted by Sahil Dhingra and Kevin Ong. They kept the audience at a peak of energy and participation. Both workshops were excellent and made me proud to be a part of Markham Sweet Talkers.

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How does participating in a club contest help you to improve your public speaking skills? Completing the regular speech manuals do help to transform you from being an unsure, hesitant and insecure speaker into a confident mature and a very good speaker. So – do you stop challenging yourself when you become a CTM, ATM, AC, or a “good” speaker?
What do you gain from participating in a club contest?

A) Confidence B) Challenge C) Overcoming Obstacles C) Winning D) All of the above.

The answer is (D) all of the above.

You may be a good speaker but participating in a speech contest will help to transform you from being just a good speaker to becoming a great speaker.

CONFIDENCE

Just submitting your name is the first step in gaining the confidence to participate in a contest. I remember the first year I joined Markham Sweet Talkers. I was intimidated but very admiring of the participants in the club contest.

CHALLENGE

A year down the road I took the challenge myself and submitted my name for the humorous speech contest. Just the intent of participation got my adrenalin flowing and something amazing happened – as I prepared harder and harder for the contest my nervousness turned into excitement!

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

In participating in the contest I had overcome the first obstacle in becoming a good speaker. I had gained enough trust in myself to go out there and do my very best. I even surprised myself - not only did I do my best - I had gone way beyond my own expectations - the judges had decided that I should represent the club in the Area Contest!

WINNING

When you participate in a contest – do you always win? Yes – each and every time. Representing our club was a new challenge for me - all over again. I was to perform in front of a slightly larger audience with other speakers who were winners of their respective club contests. Participating in the Area Contest was pulse throbbing with suspense and anticipation. As I stood in front of a packed audience my nervousness was contained in excitement. By the end of the evening I had delivered my personal best in any vernacular situation I had ever been in. It was not enough to win a place in the top three but it set standards for me far beyond any standards I would have set for myself had I not allowed myself the chance to participate. In my mind I was a winner!

The next time we have a club contest you don’t need to challenge anyone but yourself to overcome any hesitation or obstacles in your way to becoming a winner. Take the opportunity to transform yourself from being a good speaker to becoming a great speaker

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Todays meeting was especially enjoyable. It was my first meeting as President of the club and I had the privilege and honor to present Immediate Past President - Cheryl Ballard with her much deserved Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) award.

On a day when the theme of our meeting was appropriately - Success - we were extremely proud to acclaim that one of our esteemed members and Sgt. at Arms - Tessa Benn-Ireland was appointed by Attorney General Michael Bryant as Justice of the Peace.

Justice of the Peace Tessa Benn-Ireland was most recently head of the Children’s Department at the Milliken Mills Community Branch of the Markham Public Libraries. She served as a trustee with the York Region District School Board for nine years. She was a governor of Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology. She has been a member of the board of directors of the United Way of York Region and was on the board of the Markham Historical Museum. Justice of the Peace Benn-Ireland was also president of the Markham African Caribbean Association. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto. Associate Chief Justice/Coordinator of Justices of the Peace Donald A. Ebbs has assigned Justice of the Peace Benn-Ireland to Newmarket in the Central East region.

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As President of Markham Sweet Talkers I emphasize my acceptance speech theme for my tenure during 2007-2008:

L - A - F - T - E - R

L - Leadership (Encourage and emphasize leadership aspects of Toastmasters)

A - Attendance (Aim to maintain a high attendance through interesting meetings)

F - Fun Food and “Lafter” (Needs no explanation)

T - Teach (Teach others through mentor-ship, workshops, speech-crafts and YLP)

E - Evaluate (Evaluate to motivate - practice through workshops)

R - Reach (Reach out to the community and share what you have gained)

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Thank you for attending the Bar-B-Que at my place. For those who could not attend – there will be more to come in the year ahead. We had a great pig out with a champagne toast by our Past President Cheryl.

5 Take Aways From our Discussion:

1. Maintain the great pace and energy created by our existing leadership.
2. Extend leadership opportunities to other members so that they can partake in leadership activities and train for future opportunities.
3. Introduce mentor-ship workshops so that newer members know how to go about giving speeches based on manual objectives.
4. Create excitement and anticipation in meetings so as to improve meeting attendance – goal is to maintain at least a 50% attendance or 20 members per meeting.
5. Achieve DCP Goals keeping in mind core goals and competencies of the individuals without compromising the reasons for getting the goals.

Thanks to James who took these awesome pictures.

Cooking Up A Storm!

Special Invitees - The Division Bosses

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Here we go - what a great day! After reading so many interesting blogs and gaining so much from them I have finally decided to start my own blog.

I am starting with the main categories TM - For Communication and Leadership Development and Heatex - information on heat exchangers for folks who need them for their homes and would like to know more. I will be adding more categories as they come to mind.

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