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ALPHA- ENDEAVOUR TOASTMASTERS CLUB | Brisbane Q

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Brisbane Toastmasters offers you the “Alpha-Endeavour Club” based in Petrie Terrace. The Brisbane public speaking community recognise our club as one of the most experienced available to give you ways of improving your public speaking and leadership skills.

  • Want to be able to speak with confidence in meetings at work?
  • Want to be able to put your point across eloquently?
  • Looking to boost your career prospects?
  • This is the place for you.

We are a friendly, supportive club with a mix of experienced and new members to help you develop your voice and skills.

Each meeting there is an opportunity to speak whether it is part of an impromptu two-minute slot or a five-minute speech. For every speaking time, there is a person designated to give feedback on how well you did and some points for improvement. Of course, all these feedback sessions are opportunities to speak.

All this is done in a friendly supportive atmosphere.

We are not just about Speaking. Toastmasters creates opportunities for you to gain leadership skills. This can be with giving feedback; running the meeting or even planning a speech contest. How much you want to do is entirely up to you.

What we ask of you is turn up, participate and, above all, have fun.

Venue: The Paddo. 186 Given Terrace, Paddington Queensland 4064

Time: Every 1st and 3rd Tuesday from 6:15 pm to 8:30 pm.

There’s a combined charge for dinner and meeting of around $20. You can turn up or send an email to Contact Us so we can be sure to have the red carpet out.

Write, Edit, Practice. Repeat. | Tips for turning your thoughts into a speech.

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Capture ImageBy Gangadhar Krishna, DTM

Evan Esar, an American humourist, once said, “Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.” The idea of standing in front of a room and delivering a prepared speech, complete with appropriate pauses and humorous phrases, may seem an insurmountable feat to newcomers. Good speakers make it seem so easy. But they have a secret: They prepare ahead of time and craft their speeches on paper and in their heads before delivering it to a group. I call it the “Write, Edit, Practice” method.

Write, Write, Write

Good speeches begin with a thought. Go pour all your thoughts on paper. As you start putting those thoughts into words, your first draft will start taking shape. First drafts don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be written. As you write, you will find new ideas and angles popping up. Write them down. Just the process of writing has a way of clarifying an issue. Worry about paring down later.

Edit and Sharpen

Having zeroed in on the topic and exhausted all your thoughts, begin to focus on the objectives of the speech.

Evaluate your words. A good rule of thumb is that a five- to seven-minute speech should be around 800 words. Like a great sculptor who chisels on a block of marble until a beautiful shape is created, you now need to take that rough block of written ideas and give it some form. Think of your central idea and then reread what you’ve written. Cut whatever isn’t necessary to what you are trying to say. Be ruthless. Break up long sentences and use simple words to make it easier to internalize and deliver.

Use visual reminders to guide your delivery. Having pared down your speech to the right amount of words, read it as you would like to deliver it. Tailor your fonts or use symbols to give you visual cues on your speaking tone in different spots in the script. Decide where you want to speak ~softly~ and where you want to speak loudly. Leave some space … if you want to give a pause. Use question marks or exclamation points for further reminders.

Be aware of time constraints. One aspect of a good speech is adhering to time limits, so pay close attention as you practice. While it is important to convey what you wish to say, it is equally important to say it within the allotted time. Respect the agenda. If you’re allotted 10 minutes for a presentation, people will grow annoyed if you go on for 20 minutes. On the Toastmasters side, it can be devastating to deliver a great speech in a contest but get disqualified because you exceeded the time limit by a few seconds. I once witnessed the disqualification of an otherwise outstanding speech when the speaker went too long over the allotted time.

When I went over my time limit on a speech, my mentor, Vincent De Tholath, reminded me that while it’s important to get your message across, time is also important. He told me to simply “focus on the objectives.” You may have four points to make, but if you don’t have time, it’s better to take the two main points and convey them meaningfully.

Practice

Practice your speech until you are comfortable with it. Once you have the words in place, you can add the desired expressions and emphasis on particular words. Mix in pauses and eye contact as you imagine an audience in front of you.

It’s best to practice your speech out loud in a place where you’re comfortable and have some privacy—the car, your bedroom, even the shower or bathtub. You must speak loudly enough to be heard, clearly enough to be understood, and slowly enough for your audience to keep up.

Finally, internalize your speech—get so comfortable with it that when you are actually in front of your audience, you only have to focus on them rather than on your speech. Let it flow from your heart and your head.

Internalizing doesn’t mean memorizing. Ed Tate, Toastmasters’ 2000 World Champion of Public Speaking, in his book Speaker’s Edge said, “Internalizing means that you own the material and it’s a part of you—it’s in your head and your heart. It’s visceral. It’s in your gut. As a result, you come across as real, authentic, and genuine.”

Although at first it may seem overwhelming, the “Write, Edit, Practice” method will soon become simply a part of any speech you prepare. Before you know it, you’ll feel comfortable and confident delivering a speech to any audience.

Gangadhar Krishna, DTM lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He is a member of the City of Gold Toastmasters and HR Connexions Toastmasters clubs, both in Dubai. He is the author of  “Delighting Customers” Find out more at http://delightingcustomers.com/

University Students- Join Us to improve your Soft Skills to land that job!

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If you are in your closing University years, you will need to look at your “soft skills” to have a leg up on competing against other career applicants during interviews. An effective way of developing these skills is joining Toastmasters International.

While hard skills are important in boosting a job application, LinkedIn’s 2018 Emerging Jobs Report found that soft skills, including oral communication, leadership and time management, make up nearly half the list of skills with the largest skills gaps. An effective way of developing these skills is joining Toastmasters International, the global organization devoted to communication and leadership skills development.

More than half of all Fortune 500 companies in the US offer in-house Toastmasters clubs, including Amazon, Bank of America, General Electric, Google and Microsoft. These employers have found the Toastmasters program to be an effective staff development tool that benefits their organization.

Toastmasters | Soft-Skills

“Even if you aren’t required to give presentations or manage a team at work, all employees should have at least basic verbal communication skills and leadership skills,” says Lark Doley, Toastmasters’ 2018-19 International President. “Toastmasters offers a supportive setting to practice and develop these and other soft skills, including active listening, giving constructive feedback, time management and people management. These are the skills that will set an applicant apart from equally qualified candidates during the interview process and help to advance their career.”

Toastmasters International is a worldwide non-profit educational organization that empowers individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders. Headquartered in Englewood, Colo., United States, the organization’s membership exceeds 357,000 in more than 16,600 clubs in 143 countries. Since 1924, Toastmasters International has helped people from diverse backgrounds become more confident speakers, communicators and leaders.

Here in Brisbane, you can join our local club which meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesday night in inner Brisbane. See our contact page to come along as a visitor to check us out?  Visit https://toastmastersbrisbane.com/contact/

 

 

Delivering Technical Presentations

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Speech Contest Tutorials

A technical briefing is a speech that conveys technical information to a specific audience, usually in a workplace.

Technical briefings should be presented in a way that allows an audience to understand and apply critical information. Technical briefings can range from an engineer briefing a group of managers on a current project, to a retail supervisor explaining a new company policy to the store employees. Follow the steps below to ensure your technical briefings are as effective as they can be:

  • Know your audience. Avoid using too much industry jargon or material that is too technical for your colleagues to easily understand.
  • State the purpose of the technical briefing in one or two sentences and use this summary as the focal point for the entire presentation.
  • Arrange the material into an outline containing an introduction, main points and a conclusion.
  • Prepare for the questions when you invite questions at the last segment of your presentation. Anticipate what questions may be asked and be prepared for “loaded” questions that may be asked to knock you off balance. If you need more time to consider an answer or you don’t fully understand, say something like, ” I don’t quite understand what you mean, can you please expand on that for me?” If you don’t know the answer, simply tell the audience you can’t answer that today but you’ll follow up for all with the correct answer after the presentation.
  • Know when to close your presentation. End the presentation on your own terms. A good technique to end the questions is to ask, “who has the last question?”
  • Finally the important part, the “Close”. Finish your presentation after the questions by summarising the “key points” you have covered in your speech and what you want the audience to remember. This close should be to the point, no more than a minute and is your “action statement” with what you want from the audience in response!

Practice your speech so you are comfortable on the day of delivery knowing you should not expect surprises on the day that counts! As a member of our Toastmasters Club you have the opportunity to deliver your speeches at our club meetings and receive supportive feedback at the same time for improvements.

Source- “Delivering Technical Briefings” Toastmasters.org resources & David Hill of Alpha- Endeavour Club.