Lessons Learned

Toastmasters International recently put up a new webpage titled “Environmentally Friendly Meetings”, in which I mentioned a way the Arlington Heights club saves paper.  My comments were from the LinkedIn’s Official Toastmasters International Members group discussion that a staff member asked us “What steps has your Toastmasters club taken to become more environmentally friendly?” My LinkedIn reply was the following:

One of my clubs also eliminated the printed agenda since the end of 2008.  It was more because the agenda can change radically a few days before the meeting.   What we have is a big blown-up version of a printed agenda along with the description of each role, covered in plastic to write a marker over so it can be erased and used again at the next meeting.

At a previous discussion here, many who commented did not seem receptive to this idea, especially as we don’t even have printed agenda for guests to take home.  On the other hand we give the guests a kit that includes a description of all the meeting roles.  And our club is now over 30 members with more than 15 new members since July after hovering around 12-18 the last few years!

It was Michelle Wee, last year’s Club President, that came up with this idea of no more printed agendas.  Her employer encouraged employees to limit their use of paper and she thought it could be something we try.

My own International Director, Mike Raffety, disliked this idea as mentioned in his reply:

Personally, I think a printed agenda is very important.  It gives people a place to write notes, and something to take with them.  I’ve saved agendas going back nearly to the beginning of my Toastmasters involvement, and I would be sad to see any of my clubs abolish them.

I don’t see 20 sheets of paper a few times a month as being significant, compared to the benefits of having them.

Side note: What’s on the BACK of your agenda?   Use that blank space — DCP progress, officer list, list of web sites, upcoming meetings, mentor/mentees, etc.

Well there were several years in which the Arlington Heights club went through a dry spell in which very few members signed up for roles and many who did pull out the last minute for whatever reason, leaving another role blank.  In that situation, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to show a guest an agenda with only a few names listed and many roles open – it gives the guest an impression that there is something wrong with the club and may rather join a club that has more participation from its members.

As far as back of the agenda as Mike mentioned, we did adopt that when I was the VP of Education for the Arlington Heights club a few years back (and it was Mike at my officer training who told me of this idea).  It is still a good idea, but it was during that dry spell in which many members didn’t really care about upcoming events whether it was the club contest or the district conference, or the web resources and the Toastmasters Promise that were also listed in our previous agendas.  If we provided something for years that most members and guests didn’t see any value of, that’s a message indicating it isn’t working and we should try something different.

My advice to clubs regarding meeting agendas would be to go with what works with your club, not necessarily what every other club does.  If you’re struggling with getting the guests to join your club, consider looking at the meeting agenda among the plenty of areas your club can improve on to get new members.

My 11th year in Toastmasters should be an interesting and challenging one, at least when it comes to my skills.  Here are some plans I have for this year:

1. Submit a proposal for the upcoming District 30 Spring Conference to present a session on Social Media, in particular how LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter can benefit Toastmaster members -  in particular obtaining information not found by their club and district leaders, as well as publicizing the organization to their friends, connections and followers.  If the conference committee are not interested, I hope this would be considered for the next Summer TLI.
2. Plan to give more speeches as I only gave one in 2009 and that was for the International Speech Contest.  Some of the speech topics I plan to present are using Social Media, promoting Scott Berkun‘s Confessions of a Public Speaker book, the Tiger Woods scandal, and Curling, which is my new interest this winter.  I need to make use of the speech skills and experience I obtained throughout the years as I don’t have many opportunities to speak outside of Toastmasters, plus give speeches on topics that matter to me.
3. Avoid being a club officer after June 30th – I haven’t done much as the Arlington Heights‘ PR officer, so my goal should be the lay the foundation for my successor to build on.  The club is doing well with membership so we should not have a dearth of members who are willing to step up and become officers for the upcoming term.  While I plan to remain a dedicated Toastmaster member for my two clubs, my days of being heavily involved in the clubs should long be over and I need to move forward in becoming a more well-rounded Toastmaster member, especially with speaking.

There may be more things I plan to do for this year, I’ll post updates throughout the year.  I’ll continue to update the blog on a variety of Toastmaster topics, including observations on District 30 and Toastmasters International.  So stay tuned…

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 Li and I went to Palatine High School to promote the idea of a Toastmasters club as mentioned in a previous entry, Bruce was one of the first to expressed interest in taking part of the club as he had been in Toastmasters previously as a college student in Milwaukee and already achieved his Competent Toastmaster award.  When the club was close to chartering and we were looking for members to step up as officers, Bruce was willing to take the role as the club’s first Vice President of Education.

Bruce (or Jinyu as he preferred to be called in the club – see the video below for an explanation) also gave his “My Name” speech as a target speaker the following Fall in the Northwest 3 Area Contest and the Southwest Division Contest (when I was the Division Governor there), and everyone cracked up at most of what he said.  I still remember Sporty King, who was the Toastmaster of the Division Contest, mentioning in jest at the start of the Division Humorous Speech Contest that “Bruce Jin has just entered the Humorous Speech Contest”!

Bruce also used his speech when competing for the Northwest 2 Area International Speech Contest in 2003, representing the Northwest Toastmasters Club in Elk Grove Village, where he lived at that time.  This was a club that all but disappeared from the District 30 map in 2001 as the club hasn’t paid their dues or submitted their officer list.  Both the Division and Area Governor for that club could not reach anyone who served in that club the previous year.  At the XL charter party in the Spring of 2002, as Area Governor I discussed with both the Club President and Bruce after the meeting to go over any possible educational goals that could be achieved for the 2001-2002 Toastmasters year.  Bruce mentioned that he was working on his 2nd CTM award and was giving speeches at his other club.  The District Governor and Lt. Governor of Education & Training were at the charter party and overheard that, so they went straight to Bruce and asked him what other club he belonged to.  Bruce gave them the names and phone numbers of a couple of people from that club who were running it, and all of a sudden the Northwest Toastmasters Club came back from oblivion and started participating in the Area and Division contests.  A week after the charter party I was at the Northwest 2 Area Contest and met the two ladies who stepped up to keep the Northwest club alive.  So in such a very short time Bruce made an impact in District 30!

Bruce and his family moved to Naperville in the Summer of 2003 and with that left the XL club as well as the Northwest club.  Sadly the Northwest club folded for good a couple of years later as the two ladies that were leading that club gave up on it after resisting help from District 30 to boost the membership (I heard they wanted to keep the club small for whatever reason).  I found out through the 2007-2008 District 30 Directory that Bruce resurfaced in Toastmasters with the Saturday Morning Workout club in Naperville.  In the fall of 2008, I heard he came in second in the Southwest Division Humorous Speech Contest and that was when I contacted him for the first time since he left the XL club.  He didn’t give his “My Name” speech but mentioned that had he given that he might have a better chance of winning.

I saw his name on last month’s Fall Conference program as one of the contestants and even put a tweet about not being able to see him give his speech.  After finding out from one of his club members that he was going to give his “My Name” speech (now titled “The Story of My Name”), I knew everyone was going to enjoy the speech and laugh hysterically, perhaps he could even win the contest.  Here is the video of the first part of the District 30 Humorous Speech Contest, with Bruce giving his speech starting at about 38:40:

Here is the second part, with Bruce being interviewed at 23:06, it appears he was representing the Beyond the C’s club, a recently chartered Advanced club that meets in nearby Aurora:

From what I remembered the previous times he gave this speech, he revised and refined it for this contest, thanks to those in his two clubs as well as others who have seen him compete in the previous levels.

The XL club invited him to give that speech at their Open House two weeks ago.  When he joined the XL club eight years ago, he was no different from the others who joined that club.  Now coming full circle by recently revisiting the XL club and having his speech shown online to countless others, he returned as a solid speech contestant known by many in District 30.

The Arlington Heights Toastmasters Club will have an Open House this Wednesday at the Arlington Heights Historical Museum, starting at 7pm Central time.  While we have been doing very well this Fall with 15 new members since July 1 and currently at 30 paid members, it doesn’t hurt to bring in more guests and add more members as we have a few who haven’t attended a meeting in a while plus members can have a sudden change in plans that prevent them from continuing their Toastmaster involvement.

For publicity, we have a flyer for the event which we encourage members to post in a variety of places, such as eateries like Panera Bread and Potbelly’s.  We have a press release (with the help of the wife of our VP of Membership) that we sent to the local papers, not sure if they will be posted or published prior to the meeting.

As far as an online presence, we did update the club website to show the event, then afterwards we revert back to promoting the regular meetings.  In a June entry that I put in about becoming the VP of Public Relations, I mentioned “Find local websites to put a link to our club website” as one of the things we need to work on for PR.  Rich Hall, our current Club President, replied that he already implemented that for a while and has continued to do so for the Open House.  Here are some places Rich posted that can be easily accessed by our local folks:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/eve/1488832094.html

http://arlingtonheights.org/forum_posts.asp?TID=96976

http://eventful.com/arlingtonheights/events/does-public-speaking-make-you-nervous-/E0-001-026627961-8

http://chicago.kijiji.com/announcements/arlington-heights/does-public-speaking-make-you-nervous-arlington-heights-toastmasters/?ad=923600

http://www.adoos.us/post/9958333/does_public_speaking_make_you_nervous_arlington

http://www.when.com/arlington-heights-il/events/show/89450421-does-public-speaking-make-you-nervous-arlington-heights-toastmasters

http://www.freelistingsonline.com/?view=showevent&adid=2335&cityid=-14&lang=en&date=2009-12-09

If you belong to an open club, we encourage you to look at posting your club information and website at these places as well as your local-only event websites.  As Rich mentioned in his reply, it moved our club to the top of our local Google search.  It probably was a major reason why we’ve been attracting plenty of guests in recent months leading to the 15 new members!

Well this is Tim Bolger’s finest hour, over 12 hours of video from last weekend’s District 30 Fall Conference can be viewed here.  Most notable include both the Evaluation and Humorous Speech Contests, won by Rahsaan Brown of South Suburban #5534 and Bob Chikos of Crystal Lake #2724 respectively.  Many of the educational sessions can be viewed, including one by Ed Hearn, the 2006 World Championship of Public Speaking who was also the Master of Ceremonies for the entire conference.  Special non-Toastmaster guests include Illinois State Representative Lou Lang, whose district includes the conference site and presented the state proclamation at the Friday night festivities, plus George Van Dusen, the mayor of Skokie who was the 2009 District 30 Communications and Leadership award recipient.

One video that I enjoyed which I was not present for was the DTM ceremony.  As in a previous post, I was concerned about how they can fit 12 new DTM medal recipients in a short time.  Well they opted for the “high-five” ceremony where the new DTMs run down the front of the stage high-fiving the other DTMs as if they were introduced as starters for the Chicago Bulls!

Tim mentioned when I was there that he was planning to start putting videos up late this week, I replied that he should not make these promises public unless he’s definite that they’ll happen.  Well he supposedly not made any guarantees to the crowds unlike the last conference and he actually delivered his work very quickly.  Way to go Tim!

As mentioned in the last post, I was considering using Twitter to give my updates when I was at the Fall Conference.  Turns out that the conference committee was encouraging using the social media tool, asking us to use the hashtag #TMD30 when we send our “tweets” (click here for the most recent tweets).  During the conference, the volunteer desk sometimes had a display up that showed up-to-the-minute tweets, such as this one which I took a picture of from my phone.

Well as you see from this picture, that was what I did for a significant time at the conference.  Anything that I observed that was worth mentioning in my view gets posted.  It made an otherwise uneventful conference fun, and I admit that it made me want to get back to the conference site early Saturday morning instead of sleeping in.  Of course I got to meet with many old friends and meet some new ones, a few even mentioned that they read this blog.  The events I attended were OK, but they weren’t much different from past conferences I attended.

What is great about using Twitter is that I was able to enter what I feel like without any interference from others, without being part of someone else’s agenda.  That was a major reason why I’m no longer involved in District 30 and why I turned down being the Evaluation Contest chair for this conference as there are many in leadership here who are more concerned about their view of the world than letting those who volunteer at the event do their jobs and grow from it.  I went as far as pushing the limits of what I write by referring to the business meeting as the “bs meeting” (I admit it was intentional and not use it as an abbreviation) and mention the first sentence of this paragraph as my parting shot before I left the conference.  Not sure if the conference committee and D30 officers read what I wrote, they may be too politically correct to not want me to do this again or restrict or drop using Twitter, but it is worth a try.

On the other hand if more Toastmaster members are aware of using Twitter, more could check out the feed when they’re unable to be there.  They can even get an instant announcement as to who was a contest winner, which I did for Friday’s Evaluation Contest (too bad no one put one for the Humorous Speech Contest in my absence).  Someone in the volunteer desk mentioned it can be a great way to tell if there were concerns or issues about the conference so the committee can learn from them, such examples that I entered include:

strange they’re asking someone from each 7-officer trained club to go up and shake the LGET’s hand and leave the stage w/ nothing!

and

main room seemed dead during lunch and c&l now it is packed for main educ session with the ID!

I was excited on using Twitter to report from the conference, even forward my tweets to my Facebook page.  Only four others used it during this conference, if there is more publicity on it perhaps we can get more to tweet in the 2010 Spring Conference.

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 will be at the Friday portion of the conference, definitely won’t be able to attend the Saturday night portion of the conference as my singles golf group has their dinner dance (and being on the board for the group that now takes precedence).  As far as during the day Saturday, I may attend parts of it just to meet more old friends as not much in the schedule or the educational sessions seems appealing.
• Both the Evaluation and Humorous Speech contests should be fun.  I already seen both the North and Northwest Division representatives, the Evaluation contestants are both relatively new to contests but have done great so far (the North contestant came from Master Speakers @ Baxter club, which only chartered in April!), while both Humorous Speech contestants have excellent speeches that can wow the audience.  If the other Division representatives are as good, it may be the best District 30 Humorous Speech contest in years – I’ll be missing that one though.
• Early last summer I was offered to be the Evaluation Contest Chair, turned it down for reasons mentioned in a previous entry, plus still have no desire to get back to active service in D30.  Never thought about what might have been if I did accept it.
• One thing I did find bothersome with the upcoming Evaluation contest, the Toastmaster is a current Division Governor who also serves as the District 30 Club Building Chair, while the Chief Judge is the Immediate Past D30 Governor.  Not sure they offered last year’s winner the Toastmaster role, which has been the tradition here, but regardless shouldn’t we give these opportunities to others without major roles and responsibilities?  Time to go back to this old entry from last year.
• I shouldn’t care because I won’t be there and don’t have any say on the quality of D30 events, but it’ll definitely be a challenge honoring last year’s Distinguished winners and the end-of-the-year winners within a 25 minute time frame.  I hope whoever emcees this won’t spend any time talking more than necessary especially about themselves – last year the IPDG not surprisingly did just that prompting someone to tell me “no wonder why it took her 4 tries to reach Top 3!”
• Same problem with the DTM ceremony, there are at least 12 new DTMs to be honored at the ceremony with their new medallions and receiving congratulations from the other DTMs.  At the last conference, there were 6 honored with the ceremony taking at least 6 minutes as shown in this video.  The upcoming conference will have 15 minutes and with likely more DTMs at the line congratulating the new ones, it could take longer than that.
• On the lighter side, District 30 put out a YouTube video promoting the conference, featuring the “faces of District 30″.  It doesn’t appear I’m among the faces, so I can definitely say I’m a “has-been” and proud of it!

Since I just joined Twitter after getting a new smartphone (HTC Droid Eris), I may use that to post updates from the conference, so check http://twitter.com/willhsiung next weekend.  Otherwise check my Facebook page for some updates or wait until I put in a summary in this blog.

Well after at least a couple of years in oblivion, the District 30 website is coming back to life!  Information for the upcoming Fall Conference is up-to-date with the most recent version of the schedule and list of educational sessions.  The menus are now simplified and most items are active as opposed to being “under construction”, which plagued the website since the last major revision in 2005.  None of the pages have “current” information that were last updated years ago, i.e. the district contest and year-end award winner lists were last updated in 2004 for many years on the website.   Basically the only thing I want to see changed are the pictures on top of the website – the first (which I appear) and third pictures are from the 2005 Summer TLI which was more than four years ago!

The reason why the website was stagnant for years was that District 30 depended on two members to be webmasters for a long time, one of whom has been in that position the last 9 years!  So when the district leadership finally came to their senses this year and get someone new, they had difficulty getting the old webmasters to let go of their work and let the new webmaster take charge.  It appears now that the new webmaster is now in control and hopefully she will keep the website up-to-date.

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 by
another person, etc.) prior to reaching the speaking position
and uttering the first word of the speech, the timer shall activate
the timing device at that point. If this results in the contestant
going overtime, the contestant will be disqualified.

The green signal will be displayed at five minutes and remain
displayed for one minute. The amber signal will be displayed
at six minutes and remain displayed for one minute. The red
signal will be displayed at seven minutes and remain displayed
until the speech is concluded. No audible device,
such as a buzzer, shall be used for the overtime period.

Please note the top paragraph regarding non-verbal communication, this could also apply to a sign or a PowerPoint slide with something written – the rules can be interpreted to mean that the timing can start even if such material was displayed during the minute of silence and/or prior to the speaker being introduced.

The winner of tonight’s Northwest Division Humorous Speech Contest had his speech title sign up during the minute of silence as the two Sergeant-at-Arms put the sign up on the easel the contestant brought.  As the Chief Timer, based on contest rule 6B, I started timing as the Sergeant-At-Arms left the speaking area and BEFORE the speaker was introduced.  Luckily for the winner, his time came out to be just over six minutes, including the extra time prior to being introduced.  Right after the contest, I told the winner about the rule and suggested that he flip the speech title sign board over to its blank side prior to being introduced at the District 30 Humorous Speech Contest on November 14th.

This was not the first time I dealt with this situation.  When I was Chief Judge for the 2004 Northwest Division Humorous Speech Contest, there was a contestant that set up her PowerPoint presentation to her speech title slide during the minute of silence and prior to her introduction.  A Past International Director was present at the contest and while he was not a timer, had a stopwatch and started timing the speech the moment the speech title was shown.  The contest timers did not start timing until the contestant came up and started talking.  She did meet the time based on that start and came in second place.  The Past International Director informed me that she should have been disqualified because with the additional time prior to her introduction when the starting slide was shown, she would have gone over the maximum allowed speech time.  He pointed out that specific rule, which was the same at that time as it is now, and I agree that she should have been timed earlier.

I learned that lesson at next year’s Northwest Division Humorous Speech Contest when I was the Sergeant-At-Arms and put a contestant’s easel and sign boards on the side prior to the start of the contest.  I told the contestant about this rule and made sure his first sign is covered, he only uncovered it after he started his speech.

I’m sure there are contest officials could interpret this rule differently and may consider a sign board or a PowerPoint slide with any information not part of the “non-verbal communication” listed in the rulebook.  But there are many that disagree.  If you are a Contest Chair, Chief Judge or one of the contest timers, in such a situation go with what can be the “worst-case” scenario and have the timers time a contestant’s speech immediately after that person’s sign board or PowerPoint slide with any information is displayed, regardless of whether the contestant was introduced or not.

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 reply with a contest myth:

One myth I was told about a year after I joined Toastmasters was that the District contest winners CANNOT compete in their respective contests the following year.  The truth is that they can, unless they won both the District International Speech Contest and the World Champion of Public Speaking in which they can’t compete in that contest again.

There was also a recent discussion in the LinkedIn board about taking steps to hide who the contest judges are.  Some people take that very seriously, one past District 30 LGET tried to make Chief Judges at a couple of Division Contests instruct their judges to NOT raise their ballots – personally I thought she was “sweating the small stuff” and was trying to make a mark with her role as she turned out to be very ineffective in any of the Top 3 roles during her time.

Many of these myths and directives are NOT mentioned in the contest rulebook.  I’d be more concerned about whether the rules are being followed or not than dealing with the other stuff.  Of course Contest Chairs and other functionaries should apply common sense and fairness for the contestants when dealing with things not mentioned in the rulebook – especially if it affects contest judging such as displaying contestants’ Toastmaster designation in the program  (which BTW was part of another LinkedIn discussion).