Speech #2

I completed my second speech today, where the objective was to organize my speech.  I talked about the life of being a twin (I have a twin brother) and organized it into positives and negatives.  I was nervous before my speech, but not as much as I was before my icebreaker.  Overall, the speech went very well.  I spoke for around 5 minutes and forty seconds and the required time range was 5 to 7 minutes.  My evaluations said that my use of humor was great and that I looked more confident than on my last speech.  Some things that I needed to work on were my movement and eye contact with the whole audience.  I struggled with these on my first speech as well, so for my third speech I will try to focus on these two elements specifically.

Although my senior project is coming to a close and I will be giving my presentation next week, I will definitely stay in Toastmasters over the summer right up until I move out for college.  I'm grateful that ThunderRidge has this senior project program, because without it, I would have never gotten the courage or motivation to join a club like this on my own.  I will try to get as many speeches done as I can and I will continue to update this blog with my experiences and feelings as I continue improving my speaking skills. 

 

Improving my Speaking Skills

Today's meeting was full of members and the speeches that were given were all great in my opinion.  The first two were normal speeches from members working out of the speech books and the third was given by our club speech contest winner who was practicing for the upcoming district competitions. All three of them were experienced and I felt that I could learn from them to improve my own speaking, especially the way they used gestures and involved the audience.  This was one of the area that my first speech needed improvement in, so hopefully I can incorporate them into my next one.

Table Topics made me nervous beforehand, like they always do, but I felt that in today's table topic I gave my strongest one yet.  I had no knowledge of the kind of question that I would be asked, but I was able to quickly think of an idea and made a solid speech which both got a main idea across and answered the question.  Plus, I spoke for over a minute and met the time requirement.  This really encouraged me to be more confident going to future meetings about Table Topics instead of worrying and being nervous about them for the whole meeting.

I have a busy schedule coming up in the next couple of weeks.  Next Thursday I will be giving my second speech and on the 27th I will give a speech to a board at school telling about my senior project of joining this club and the journey I have made as a Toastmaster.

Getting Better at Table Topics

I have gone to two meetings since my last post, and I feel that I've improved myself from some of the experiences that I had.  I did the role of the "ah counter" last week and counted both speaking disfluencies and laughs generated by each speaker.  This forced me to pay close attention to each speech being given as I tried to listen for certain words or moments.  In the past I have sometimes just totally spaced out when people are giving speeches and I miss some key details and things that I could use to improve my own speaking.  By filling this role in the club for a week, I am more capable of being fully attentive during speeches, which will help me in the long run.

I also had the chance to participate in table topics for both of the meetings.  During the meeting a week ago, I got asked a question that I didn't see coming and gave a jumbled response, which discouraged me a little.  However, this week, I actually spoke within the 1-2 minute time frame for table topics with my speech being around a minute and thirty seconds.  I feel very proud of this because I am actually improving, little by little.  All of my previous table topics had been under a minute, but I finally overcame that challenge.  I plan to continue persisting and doing table topics every week even though they make me feel uncomfortable because I know I will keep improving.

In two weeks, I will be giving my second speech.  The goal is "Organize Your Thoughts," which I don't think I'll have a problem with because one of the biggest compliments that my evaluator gave me on my icebreaker speech was my organization.

"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.

Lions Club Speech Contest

Tonight's meeting was very different from the past Toastmasters meeting I have been to, but in a very good way.  Our club hosted the Lions Club High School Speech Contest and the members of Toastmasters judged each speech and determined the winners.  From what I understood, Lions Club is an international volunteer organization and therefore the topic of the speeches was to explain the changes that could be made in their community through volunteering.

There were six speakers, all in high school, and every one of them was an excellent speaker.  I was impressed at their composure and ability to deliver organized and meaningful speeches without many flaws.  It was great to have people in my age group there as well for a nice change because almost all of the members of the Ranch Raconteurs are much older than me.  This experience also helped me greatly to become a better evaluator, because I had to manually score each speaker on a rubric and then use those to determine a top three.

After the Lions Club portion of the meeting, one speaker was scheduled to give a speech and be evaluated in the normal fashion.  I was relieved that there was no time for Table Topics because of the contest.  The impromptu speaking is my biggest fear so far because I'm scared that I will get a question that I don't know how to answer and will embarrass myself in front of the group.  I usually need time to think a question through after it is asked and I tend to freeze up when I am put on the spot.  Hopefully I will conquer this through persistence and I will continue to go to the club and participate every week despite my fear.

First Speech Completed

A few hours ago I completed my first prepared speech in front of my Toastmasters club.  I was a little nervous at the start of the meeting and when I was walking up to the podium, but when I started speaking it came naturally and I became more comfortable.  Although my biggest worry was that I would rush through the speech and not meet the minimum time requirement, I ended up speaking for around five and a half minutes (the minimum was four).  I even managed to get the "word of the day" incorporated into my speech which impressed some of the members. 

 My evaluator did a great job because he gave me a lot of positive feedback in addition to some constructive criticism.  He said that I smiled through the whole speech which was great, my stories were very detailed, and that my volume and confidence were good.  One thing that needed to be improved was that I didn't know what to do with my hands and sometimes they were distracting.  Next speech I will try to incorporate my hands more into different gestures to engage the audience instead of dangling at my sides.

Overall, I thought my Ice Breaker Speech went much better than I expected.  I received a lot of positive and constructive feedback which I will use to make my next speech even better.  I was glad I was the first person to speak because I was able to get it over with and relax for the rest of the meeting.  I really appreciate all the positive comments from the members and I feel very supported by them.  I am ready to start thinking about my next speech and advance my speaking skills further.