Hello My Fellow Toastmaster,
Do you know what I like so much about our club and Toastmasters in general?
So many different people having different background, lifestyle, and daily routine in their life come to our meetings week by week with a common goal; they want to improve their public speaking and / or leadership skills. Their reason why they want to achieve it is also diverse and especially this diversity makes all the meetings so colorful.
Two weeks ago Daniel Kovari delivered his Ice Breaker with the title “Dicebreaker” and showed us his extremely social personality. Then Ilona Kocsar presented her 4th speech project about golf and revealed that this game is not as snobbish as most of us think it is. As a third speaker Barnabas Szilagyi (ACS) delivered his 1st speech project from the Persuasive Speaking manual. As an experienced speaker, he convinced his audience why it is worth taking loan from banks.
Last week, Katarina Banfi and Attila Rakos took a further step in order to become CC, as they delivered 7th and 8th project from CC.
When was the last time, when you have completed a speech project? In case it was earlier then 3 weeks, then check Easy Speak right now and book your upcoming speech slot!
What’s the question?
Jennifer L. Blanck, DTM, wrote an awareness raising article about the art of asking in the last edition of Toastmaster Magazine.
“The answer depends on how you ask, because the way we ask or frame the question, determines the kind of responses we get. Based on some experiments made in schools, it turned out that students were much more open and willing to answer a question like “Can you help me understand what happened before class this morning? “ as opposed to “Why are you always late?”.”
Toastmasters is also a good place to deliver such an experiment or just practice the art of questioning. Leading the warm-up round as a Toastmaster you can make your own experiment and check the way of answers you get from the members.
As for me, I can also prove you that questioning is the alpha and the omega in several field of business. One of my trainers advised me, that the reason why we have two ears and just one mouth is easy. We need to listen twice as much as we speak. “You should not ask a question unless you are willing to listen and engage.” – as Jennifer also stated.
Last but not least as a friend I can tell you that sometimes it is worth to stop for a while and to consider whether your communication and way of you ask your questions happen in the best appropriate way. Do you really ask what you want to know and do you really listen to the response?
Area – Division – District
As we left behind our hilarious area and division level humorous and table topic speech conferences, it is time to head to Frankfurt to take part in something magical, in Toastmasters 95 District Fall Conference 2014.
I have my own 95 reasons to be there. Just a few of them;
- I love the spirit of TM conferences.
- Frankfurt is a beautiful city.
- Best place to socialize with your fellow Toastmasters from all around the world.
- Workshops presented by the best trainers in the TM community.
- It’s just unique!
In case you have at least 3 reasons to be there, then do not hesitate to book your ticket and hotel, as I did yesterday!
I wish you a successful week and keep the lesson of the week in mind:
“Progress, not perfection!”
See you on Monday at CEU 6.30. p.m.
All the bests,
Judit and Your Budapest Toastmasters Executive Committe