Humorist Speech Contest - Taking Chances

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    At the first mention of the upcoming Humorist Speech Contest and a call for volunteers, I felt myself look away as if to put a wall up between those words and myself. Without consideration, I sidestepped the request. Weeks passed, more requests for volunteers were made, but I ignored them all thinking I would be in the audience watching the poor schmuck attempting to entertain me. But, the joke was on me. As it turned out, I would be the schmuck attempting to entertain. A month before the club contest, I received a request from Chandra, our club President, to which I wrote an email declining the appeal. Before I sent that email I remembered Mark Twain's words, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.” It's the reason I joined Toastmasters. There is only one way to overcome fear and that is to confront it.

    I felt the butterflies in my stomach as I accepted the request. I was now competing in the Humorist Speech Contest. I expected my venture to begin and end there. To my surprise, I made it to the area level and then the district level. With each speech I gave I was acutely aware of how right Mark Twain is. Having courage does not mean the absence of fear. It is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Fear was present each and every time. Never late, in fact, sometimes it was early. But, if there is anything that I learned, it is that I always pull through unscathed and intact. Although, it is always nice to receive an award you can display on your mantle, it is even better when you learn what it truly takes to overcome fear.

"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic." --Unknown

Quite an Achievement by Sonia

Dear All,
  Just came back from the Division C contest and I should say it was a fun-filled night. With 24 clubs in contention representing more than 500 members, I would say our club had a very high % of participation. That is always a good news.

For the evaluation contest, our own Ute kindly stepped forward to be the test speaker and of course it goes without saying, as for any of Ute's speeches, that all the attendees were in for a treat. She gave the speech on " It is not what but how you eat matters!" and all the evaluation contestants appreciated the speech and provided some valuable positive feedback. Thanks to Ute for stepping forward.....

Coming to the humorous speeches, yes, we were really laughing and rolling on our backs literally. All the speeches were of very high quality loaded with laughter. In my opinion, they were all pretty good and our own Sonia was placed top 6 of the 500. It is a tremendous achievement, in my opinion, for Sonia considering the fact that she was with toastmasters for a little over 6 months and, moreover,  this was her first ever contest. Congratulations to Sonia for bravely stepping forward and yes, she cleared at least 2 hurdles, the club and the area hurdles during the process. To put in perspective of her achievements- many, myself included :), haven't gone past the area level even after a few attempts - that itself speaks a lot! Sonia clearly matured as a speaker where her speeches embody vocal variety, body language, stage presence etc etc, the very hard things that take time to develop, and Sonia does seem to do it effortlessly now. That is quite an achievement in such a short span with Toastmasters. Sonia, now you know where to set your sight at?  Division and District :) You may hear more from Sonia about her experience.

Congratulations again to Sonia and thanks to Ute.

My personal thoughts: contests are fun, you learn a lot, you progress faster by taking much bigger steps than the normal process and you meet and interact with people from different clubs......

This is my new mantra : Never ever miss a chance to participate in a contest, You never know where it might lead to?

Chandra

Rain or Shine We Rock

Dear Eagles,
This past week was very fluid. We had members sign in for a role and had to drop out in the last minute to address to the situations the life throws at us be it either good or bad, be it sad or happy, be it any. On top, today was especially gloomy with Sun being in hiatus for most periods of the day and, to add to it, we had downpour of rain right around our meeting time. With these events in the backdrop, I was dreading about the member turnout for the meeting and more importantly about the safety. Surprise, surprise, we had a full agenda, we had a great meeting, we had a great turnout with 20+ members including 4 guests, and one guest, Carlin, even signing on the dotted line. That is amazing, thanks to all of you, and it atones to the fact that " Rain or Shine We Rock". Also, please join me in welcoming Carlin.

Sonia, first time in the role of a toastmaster, did a great job today. She handed out agendas to everyone at the start of the meeting and at the end she even encouraged everyone to take on the roles they haven't tried yet! Thanks Sonia.

Joe was our table topics master with the theme as "spice". Joe cleverly rephrased the old saying of "variety is the spice of life" into "spice is the variety of life". We had fun and lots of laughter, and on top we had Hollie, one of our guests, give a shot at the table topics. I thought Hollie was a natural speaker as she was able to deftly include the props of the previous table topics speakers in her narration. That was neat and super cool.

We again had 4 prepared speeches starting with Hyunsoo, who spoke on "blue Monday" clearly demonstrating with great personal examples and scientific data showing no evidence for Monday to be no different than a Tuesday or a Wednesday or a Thursday, with a slight change in perception, rightly so, for the weekends. Hyunsoo has a very unique style in her narrations and she does it with a pleasant smile. I especially liked her conclusion where she told us to not to let the "memories play tricks on our mind".

Rich spoke about the "American night and the American dream", about a play he recently watched at Yale, where the play covered the American history and how people come here from far far lands with the single purpose of providing a better life for themselves and their kin. Rich shared a story of a family from Ecuador who have come here in search for a better life but are currently facing the wrath for not having all the legal documents.... Rich highly recommended the play. (Rich can you please share the details of the play with us?)

Dawit made us aware of the subtle, albeit important, difference between Sustainable Vs Renewable - the main difference being "sustainable" with all the pollution can potentially have a long term bad consequences, whereas "renewable" can replenish without hurting the environment. Dawit speeches are always nice as he provides us stats and shows the direction we need to proceed forward.

As the 4th speaker for the night, I shared my only encounter with Gandhi, I mean Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi and also the 7th Prime Minister of India. It just happened that the day I saw Rajiv Gandhi sadly was also the day he was assassinated. My mom with whom I went to see Rajiv Gandhi on May 21st, 1991, was totally devastated on the news of the death of Rajiv and after 20+ years, I understand my mom's remorse back then.

Some more good news: Congratulations to Sonia and Rich for finishing their 1/2 CCs.... 5 more to reach the finish line. You guys can do it....

Finally, as I always say, we are doing well, we had another fantastic meeting and please sign up for a role and let the momentum continue....

Goodnight and see you all in 3 weeks on Nov 5th.

Chandra

Hearty Congratulations!

Dear All,

Can you believe it? We won two awards at the humorous speech contest at the area level - Sonia came in 1st and Rich came in 3rd.

Hearty congratulations to both Sonia and Rich.

Sonia will advance to the Division level. I was there, and Sonia's speech execution was flawless and fabulous. Sonia, I think you can set your sight on the District level. You were phenomenal, and in a zone of your own tonight.

Life is like a box of chocolates, truly. Rich kindly agreed to replace Mike at the last minute, and he came back with an award.... This is awesome and incredible. Congratulations Rich!

The Division contest is on Oct. 23rd at Northeast Utilities at 6.30 pm. Please come and cheer Sonia.

Regards,
Chandra

Let us take a moment to celebrate

Dear Eagles,
We finished first quarter of 2012/13 calendar years in flying colors. Three months into it, we have already accomplished 4 goals or 40% of the target for the year as our VP of education stated. All the officers gave their quarterly reports and all of us feel that we are doing good. We also published our first newsletter for the club capturing all the highlights and achievements thus far; our intention is to have a quarterly newsletter. Special thanks to Sonia for designing and editing. All these things suggest we are doing great and we should take a moment to celebrate.

We had a great meeting tonight with almost a full house including 4 guests and of course entertained and enriched by 4 fantastic speeches.

Richard shared the following quote on failure - "failure is not falling down, failure is not getting back up," - Anonymous

Ian was the table topics master with the theme centered on membership and organization. It was great and fun as usual which also had Mike our guest had a go at the table topics. Believe me, Mike convinced most of us including seasoned toastmasters that he actually indeed is a member of toastmasters for a long time even though today was his first toastmasters meeting ever. Lesson - if you want to "Bluff", please get a tip or two from Mike :)

Ute was smooth, clear and lucid as a toastmaster and explained all the roles to our guests. She also played a cameo humorist role.

Coming to prepared speeches, Shari started the prepared speeches section with her speech titled "breaking the ice", where she told us about what she does, what she likes, what kind of food she prefers and what kind of person she is. She told all these things with a natural smile on her face and I felt that her speech had a nice rhythm and ring to it. She even had a prop for icebreaker which is very very unusual and sort of cool. Great job. More than that her favorite color is Orange, which is same as my daughter's. That is extra cool :). I want to congratulate Shari for giving her icebreaker speech with in 2 weeks of becoming a member....awesome!

Jessica narrated us why "reality shows are not real". She is a natural storyteller with such comfort and ease, you would not believe that it was her second speech at toastmasters. She told us why she got into watching TV, primarily for improving language, which transformed later into keeping up with the local celebrity gossip, which finally got fixated into like rest of the country " keep up with Kardashians". Jessica brings subtle humor to her speeches and she ended with a quote saying "watching reality shows, one would learn less history than you learn from watching Titanic movie" ..... That clearly and succinctly sums up the message.

Kate shared with us the folk tale of "the golden touch" where how king Midas learnt through a hard way that gold has its value but it cannot replace the value of life, the value of seasons, the value of change, the value of the aroma, the taste, the value of growing up, the value of pleasure in simple daily things and occurrences. Kate did a wonderful job in bringing story to life, the gestures, the body language, the vocal variety and yes the whole package....and she picked a great manual (story telling) that fits her style and delivery.... Watch out for more speeches from her..

Finally, Sonia gave a practice speech on "boost your street cred" in preparation for her area contest and got feedback from all the members. Her speech gave details on how to improve on the street credibility by the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you walk, the bling, the glasses, oh yes! Everything. All the members rated the speech very high on the novelty and the content, the humor is there, Sonia brings in the mannerisms needed and it has all the pieces needed for it to be a serious contender at the area level. It all comes down to execution and we all believe that Sonia has it....... Sonia, GO FOR IT........

All in all, it was a great meeting and a great night. Please sign up for roles and see you all in 2 weeks on Oct 15th.

Goodnight.

Chandra