Summary written by Andrea:
Speech-a-thon! This is a great opportunity to hear 5 speakers in a row. Normally, our meetings include a lineup of 3-4 speakers and a table topic session (responding on your feet). What I love about speech-a-thons is that we learn not only speech styles, but topic content from various speakers, while discovering their passions. I often take what the speakers present do some further research on the topic. Today there were topics that peaked my interest.
Dave opens the meeting
Dave E was our Toastmaster for the day and provided amazing guidance as we went thru our meeting. Dave is our more experienced speaker and often gives us an opportunity to see and take notes on an experienced Toastmaster style as well as handling last minute changes gracefully.
Our first speaker, Mark W, is another amazing and experienced speaker. I always learn a great deal from him in terms of speech style & specific topics. Today, Mark gave an overview of how we process heuristics and respond with a confirmation bias. Instead of trying to teach us a college course on psychology and sociology, he used David Ortiz, a Red Sox baseball player, to explain these themes. Honestly I had no idea who Ortiz was, but after the speech which included the use of visual aides, I realized who he was and learned how we can better respond to certain situations.
Mark explains confirmation bias
Our next speaker, Vincent H, opened with an Icebreaker speech on foolishness. He introduced the topic of game theory as well as how some individuals tend to react to situations with “confident ignorance”. He even brought pieces of Mark’s speech on David Ortiz to further explain some technical concepts while including his own personal experiences of foolishness. For his first speech, I thought he gave us a great overview weaving the general theme through various stories.
Vince gives his first speech
Aanya L, our 3rd speaker, presented her theme of engagement, courage, and motivation using the topic of “having” a cup of coffee versus “getting” a cup of coffee. She shared her personal experience on seizing opportunities. Aanya explained that she often received tremendous guidance when she was “having” a cup of coffee with fellow colleagues. She explained how she took the time to converse while advocating for herself on the next steps of her career. She reminded us that we can often be in a hurry to “grab” a cup of coffee when we really need to slow down to “have” a cup of coffee.
“Grab coffee vs. have coffee”
Chuck C shared how we can engage in ecommerce by asking us, “What is so great about bit coins?” He explained how bit coins was started by an individual who wrote a math paper in 2008 discussing how a peer to peer network actually has allowed a virtual currency to become significant value, a revolutionary idea in the history of commerce. He also mentioned that there are Amazon coins as well, but valued a little differently. (I had no idea it had existed.) This was another great opportunity to learn about economics.
Chuck describes BitCoins
Our last speaker, Brian H, shared another personal story, which really opens another layer of who he is. He mentioned his dislike to lose which probably came from having 2 older brothers where all 3 were always competitive. But over the years, he has reflected on how playing in team sports is about understanding team dynamics where losing and winning doesn’t fall on 1 person alone. Most of us have a tendency to place blame on 1 or 2 people for a team losing a game or winning. Brian shared that it is not about one person, but a whole team who contributes to entire game. When you win, you win as a team and when you lose, you lose as a team. Additionally, the successful leaders on the team focus on keeping the team dynamics from shifting away from trust, respect, and encouragement, factors contributing to a victory and tested during a loss. Brian provided the audience with a different perspective on what losing and winning is really all about.
Brian discusses teamwork
Again, a line-up of 5 speakers gave all of the Toastmaster family a chance to learn about various topics. The 2nd half of the meeting was reserved for fellow Toastmasters to evaluate the 5 speakers. All the evaluators gave thoughtful and supportive recommendations to improve. I think the best part of Toastmasters is understanding that we all want to improve and are able to make suggestions in this safe environment. Imagine how our workplace environment would be if evaluators (managers, leads, directors, etc.) were this supportive.
By the way, our evaluator winner was Steve W. Although he must have been cold because we only found his jacket when we presented his award.
We award best evaluator to Steve’s jacket
I also want to thank our timer and grammarian for their roles in keeping this meeting moving along.
Thanks everyone for a great meeting!
Next week’s topic – The Modern Family.
That picture of Steve is absolutely brilliant.