Monthly Archives: November 2011

Sir Ken Robinson – Changing Paradigms

Its always good to learn from other public speakers whether they be fellow toastmasters, colleagues, lecturers or a public figure icon. A great place to check out inspirational talks is Ted Talks or The RSA. One of my favorites is a talk by Sir Ken Robinson entitled ‘Changing Paradigms’ in which he makes a compelling case for how schools are killing creativity. The full talk is almost an hour long and can be viewed here

The RSA has produced a wonderful animated version of highlights of the talk. Here it is:

 

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Competition

Competitions are a big part of Toastmasters. Each year thousands of Toastmasters compete in 4 categories currently; Humorous, Evaluation, Table Topics and International (Prepared). The purpose of these events is not to establish any sort of superiority as such but rather to provide Toastmaster members with a suitable forum to showcase their skills and stimulate new, higher levels of speaking achievement.Competition begins with club contests and winners compete upward through the area, division and district levels.

We recently held our Humorous speech and Table Topics competition. Members of the Tullamore Toastmasters club enjoyed an eruptive night of laughter and were entertained by Fionnuala Galvin with her speech entitled ‘Swiss Precision’ and Patrick Hynes with his Speech entitled ‘Brownie and Me’.

Winner of the Table Topics competition Gerard Cleary and Fionnula who won the Humorous Speech competition travelled to Longford to represent the Tullamore club in the Area competition. Both members did their club proud at Longford with Fionnula coming second with her speech.

 

What Tullamore Toastmasters means to me

For me the Tullamore Toastmasters Club is much more than a place where I can develop my public speaking and leadership skills. It is a social outlet, a place where I have met and learned from new people. Our club is an eclectic mix of fun and interesting characters and of young and old spanning 7 decades! Everyone is non judgmental and gently encourages each other to progress. Why I love our club is that I have learned to laugh at myself and to not care as much if a topic comes up which I know nothing about and believe me this has happened many times! I am not as au fait with general knowledge (sport,history, politics or basically anything that’s happening in the news) as some of the other members but it doesn’t really matter. Toastmasters is about building confidence and public speaking skills in a supportive and fun environment, it’s not about how much you know.

Since I joined our club over a year ago I certainly feel my confidence has grown and although I still shy away from topics I look forward to some day meeting that challenge head on.

Jennifer Dillon

Club PRO 2011/12