On 6th of July 2019, I got a chance to visit Burning Brunch Toastmasters in Busan, South Korea. I joined Toastmasters in Hungary in March 2019 and one of the main reason I joined was that once I am a member, I can visit any Toastmasters club all over the world. As I was travelling in Korea, I aimed to visit the local Toastmasters club as well.
In Busan there are many clubs, but only one could fit into my schedule. The name is Burning Brunch Toastmasters. Through the main TM website I could find the date and place of the meeting.
Preparation
One of their member writes down the roles and who undertakes them on the board. They also write the guest’s name as well. That way it’s easier to remember the name of the guests. The participants also receive the agenda in where they know who undertook which role and the informations about the club such as facebook name, email address, venue of the meeting and the members of executive committee.
After they finished with preparation they started to ask me who I was and throughout the meeting I was a guest that had their attention. As we talked it turned out I was from Vietnam, a member of a Hungarian TM club and I participated in a Korean club which was in English (No confusion). They were interested in how Hungary was and gave me suggestion what to see in Busan.
The meeting
Usually a meeting consists of three parts: prepared speech, impromptu speech and evaluation. Every meeting has around 2-3 people who prepare for a speech that they will present in front of the members. Then the impromptu part is when the speakers get a random topic and have to talk about it in 1-2 minutes. Of course I was one of the nominee and got a question about how the summer was in Hungary. At the end is the evaluation, where the evaluators evaluate the prepared speeches. What was good and what needs to be improved. During the meeting there are different role such as host, timer, ah counter etc. Every role helps you to improve your speeches and gives you more confident in life.
The difference
The difference of Burning Brunch TM club is that in the beginning they have a slogen that everyone reads out loud:
„We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.”
Then they introduce the role takers. In Hungary the question of the day is asked to everyone attending the meeting. But in Korea only the role takers answer it while introducing themselves.
At the end they have a quiz part. Which means the quiz master will ask questions about the actual event relating to what the speakers, role takers said. This is unusual but fantastic as it requires the audience to pay attention to the speakers. Some participants even take notes so they can make sure they win the quiz as the prize is 1000 KRW (~250 HUF).
During the evaluation and feedback, all the records are written down on the board. The time the speech lasted. There is no clicking for the Ah counter. They write down who said how many ’ah’.
I, as a guest, was asked how the meeting was and I could express my feeling and experience to them.
Useful trick
An useful tricks that I learnt about how to prepare for the impromptu speech is using LTOS form. ’L’ stands for ’listening’. Listen properly what the topic and instruction is. ’T’ stands for ’thinking’. There is 30 seconds before starting the speech so it’s suggested to take an advantage of it. ’O’ stands for ’organizing’. Organize the speech so it has opening-body-conclusion. Finally the ’S’, ’speak’. There is no speech without speaking, so taking the action is the most important.
Before leaving the Treasurer gather the room fee that everyone who attends the meeting pay. It’s not included in the membership fee like in Hungary. This was surprising for me but still the event went down with a good ambiance. I asked them to take a group photo so I can show it to the members in Hungary to which they gladly cooperated. The whole meeting ended with a lunch that was optional.