Gurney-Hydro Toastmasters Club

There is a tradition in every Toastmasters club to have mentors for new members. Mentors are usually senior members who will help show the ropes to new members or member show need extra help in their Toastmasters journey.   At times, not so senior members can also become mentors if they are keen.   All they have to do is volunteer. There are a number of benefits mentors have to the new member (mentee), club and mentor themselves. For the Mentee 1) Mentees have someone to guide them.   Every new Toastmaster can tell you that the first few times they walk into a meeting, they have no idea what is going in.   They don’t know how far they can go, the many terms that are used and they don’t know the hierarchy of clubs, area, division and district.   The mentor’s role is to explain to them the big world that is Toastmasters. 2) Mentees have someone to help them prepare for their assignments.   New members may take forever to do their f...

You read that right! Toastmasters is the place where it’s alright to fail.  In fact, it is the safest place for you to fail. As quoted by Robert Kiyosaki above, you don’t achieve success without failing first.  And you need to fail fast and hard as early as possible, learn from your mistakes and come back strong. Statistics have shown that only 8% of people achieve success on the first try without failing first.  And it is an even smaller percentage of these people who manage to retain their success. The reason is simple – if you don’t fail, you don’t learn anything.  The people who get lucky and achieve their goals on the first try will normally not be able to sustain that success for the long term.  It is the people who have failed time and again who are the ones who go all the way. Failure teaches us a number of things. It tells us where we went wrong, the areas that we need to improve upon to be better.  Thomas Edison failed to invent the...

Feedback is one of the 3 pillars of Toastmasters.   It is where members benefit the most because how else are they to know their progress. The advantage of getting feedback from Toastmasters is that it is from your peers.   That way you will know how you come across to the everyday man on the street.   Of course it is always good to get feedback from experts if any are present in your meetings, like very senior Toastmasters. A simple constructive criticism will help members improve by leaps and bounds, given of course, that they take the feedback to heart and try to incorporate them into their future projects.   It is futile when members do project after project without even listening to the feedback given. Members have to remember that feedback given is with the intention of helping them improve and is nothing personal.   They are observations from somebody who is seeing you in action, sometimes for the very first time.   However it is foo...

Every Toastmasters club is required to organize 2 speech contests per year.  This will give members a chance to take point in the organization process and sharpen various skills needed to make the event a a success such as interpersonal communication skills, leadership skills, organization skills and project management skills. Regardless of what type of contest you are organizing, here is our foolproof plan to help keep you on point if you decide to take up the daunting role of Organizing Chair. 1) Have a Checklist Go through the Speech Contest Rulebook and extract the important points pertaining to the logistics involved in organizing a contest.  This will include details like: - By when your club needs to organize your contest in order to qualify for the next level - How many role players are required - Who to appoint as the Chief Judge who will then appoint the other judges - The kind of help you may need from your club members - Minimum requirements for con...

It's contest season in Toastmasters again and this time, we are honored to team up with Great2B Toastmasters Club to pool our resources and jointly organize our International Speech & Table Topics Contests. The night certainly was exciting with so many talented contestants, both seasoned and new. - 2 contestants from Great2B for the International Speech & Table Topics Contest - 9 contestants from Gurney-Hydro for the International Speech & Table Topics Contest We were certainly very impressed with the level of talent that were showcased that night.  Every contestant shone brightly and we were sure the judges had a difficult time choosing the winners.  We also saw marked improvements in some contestants, a testament to how joining contests has helped them polish their public speaking skills more than ever. The event wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of the organizing committee and the help of role players from other clubs.  Thank you ...

Welcome to the first edition of our new TM Insider series.  This series will give you insights on some of the things you get to do once you join a Toastmasters club and things that go on behind the scenes to make a meeting successful. This post will focus on the concept of "Club Hopping" or "Clubbing" as it's commonly called in Toastmasters circle.  This is not the type of clubbing that involves alcohol lol *wink*. Clubbing in Toastmasters is where members from one club visit other clubs.  There are various benefits of clubbing both for clubs and members. 1. Building Relationships Perhaps the biggest benefit from clubbing is the opportunity to build inter-club relationships.  In order for clubs to continue to grow at a  healthy rate, they need the support of other clubs to run meetings, hold contests and maintain a continuous flow of guests.  Inter-club cooperative events are very common amongst Toastmasters clubs. 2. Improve the Running of Yo...