"Why Not?"

I was glad that I went to today's meeting; I listened to two great speeches, got the chance to do a table topic, and there was a very lively and fun atmosphere.  The theme of the meeting was to "step out of your comfort zone" and I related with it because just joining this club was a big step out of my comfort zone.  The first speaker's objective was to give a motivational speech and she did a great job.  She told the story of how her son never played sports after his early childhood and then he suddenly decided to play rugby during his senior year, one of the roughest sports there is.  When she asked why he wanted to start playing this dangerous sport, he just shrugged and said, "Why not?" and he had a great time.  The overall message was to not be afraid to try new things even if you have doubts going in to it.  The speech inspired me and it was probably my favorite speech that has been given since I joined Toastmasters.

The table topics portion of the meeting was very unique.  Instead of just one person getting called up and answering a question, we were called in pairs and we had to pretend like we were doing a TV talk show interview.  One person got the topic and had to think of questions to ask the other person who was the interviewee.  I was the interviewer (which was lucky because I didn't have to talk as much) and most of the topics were very humorous so it was easy to think of ideas and have a conversation.  This definitely helped me get "eased in" to table topics more because I wasn't up there all alone but I still had to talk in front of everyone and think on the fly.

All in all it was a great meeting and I plan to continue stepping out of my comfort zone in the future.

Speech Contest

Unfortunately, I was not able to go to meetings for the past two weeks, but today I got back into the swing of things and the Ranch Raconteurs held a club speech contest.  It was divided into Table Topics and Prepared Speeches, and the winner of each got the chance to move on to a district level competition.  I didn't sign up for the competition because I am so new to the club, but it was fun to watch.  I was involved in a minor way because during the Table Topics portion I had the role of guiding the contestants out of the room and sending them in one by one so they could not hear each others' answers and get an unfair advantage.

When I first got to the meeting, I was asked if I wanted to participate in the Table Topics as a contestant because two of the people that had signed up were unable to attend.  I declined, because I would have been really nervous and I doubted my ability to compete with people who have been in the club for years when I had only ever done a table topic twice.  I partly regret the fact that I didn't try for it, but what's done is done.  In the future I will try to participate as much as I can to keep improving my skills little by little.  One tip that was given to me by a member when I was there was that I can request to go towards the end of the table topics and then opt to answer someone else's question for the next couple of table topics that I do.  This would help me get more comfortable with standing up there before I have to answer an unknown question. 

Next week's meeting should be a good experience for me.  It is back to a normal agenda and I have signed up for the "Ah Counter" role where I will keep track of the number of "umms and ahs" and give a report at the end.  The only other roles I have done are timer and vote counter, so it will be a good experience to be in a more involved role.