Lessons Learned

A few weeks ago, Bill Bishop put an entry in LinkedIn’s The Official Toastmasters International Members Group on the following: Is it Toastmaster International official policy that contest judges are to remain anonymous? He actually put forth this question to research for Addressing the Opposition speech in the Persuasive Speaking manual he gave at one [...]

The District 30 Spring Conference will be taking place this Friday and Saturday at the Holiday Inn in Elk Grove Village.  In my 11 years in Toastmasters, this is the latest the Spring Conference is being held relative to the start of the calendar year, in part due to the loss of the Regional Conferences [...]

When a Contest Chair asked me suggestions on what kind of question to use for their Table Topics contest, I usually replied that it should be short one that everyone could answer and does not tilt for or against a contestant.  It should be a question that allows a contestant to answer a question in [...]

Two weeks ago, I decided after work to attend the North 44 Area Contest at the Lincolnshire Village Hall.  It was the first Area Contest outside of those of my clubs I attended since Spring 2007.  There were primarily a couple of reasons I attended, one was I planned to head back to the curling [...]

When Bruce Jin gave his speech about his name at the XL Toastmasters Club around the time the club chartered in 2001, little did anybody know that he was going to give the same speech last month at the 2009 District 30 Humorous Speech Contest and come in second place!  I still remember when Mei [...]

With the Fall Conference taking place next weekend, here are some things I’m thinking about as I look forward to some of the festivities: Looking forward to seeing many old friends and new faces as the last District 30 event I attended was the Spring Conference (I was out golfing during the Summer TLI). Definitely [...]

Page 23 of the most recent Contest Rulebook has Rule 6B under Timing in the Humorous Speech Contest: Time will begin with the first word uttered by the contestant. However, should the contestant engage in definite verbal or nonverbal communication with the audience (including the playing of music or other sound effects, a staged act [...]

Saw a recent entry in the ToastmastersPrime Google group that is very interesting about myths in contests perpetuated by those who were supposed to be respected, whether by a current district officer or a long-time Toastmaster.  When LinkedIn’s The Official Toastmasters International Members Group had an entry last month about general Toastmaster myths, I did [...]

Having done plenty of evaluations over the last ten years, you would think I am a master when it comes to doing that.  Well it turns out that I need to make some improvements.  And I hope to get my act together by the Northwest 4 Area Evaluation Contest on October 8th in which I’ll [...]

There were times in which I did not take some facts well and expressed them emotionally, like the more recent entries here such as changing the contest room or finding the results of a recent election unfavorable.  At the end, it was a set of facts that I accepted, whether I like it or not, [...]