18 Sept 2017

Life inside and outside Toastmasters?

How life and Toastmasters, interact on each other?

Every time we finish a project in Pathways, we are asked as last question of auto assessment : "Do you understand that this project will be useful outside Toastmaster?"

Not once, have I seen, but it must be somewhere, for sure in the project Prepare to speak professionally "How much what you learned outside Toastmasters helped you to prepare and deliver this project?"

Yesterday, a fun Zoom meeting online with 23 participants!  

As I was preparing to deliver for my project "Handle difficult audiences" at Firebirds Collective. 

What a fun project! 

Was I prepared for it? Of course. And they were too, my interrupters! Skilfully they did interrupt me from time to time each in his or her way. That was also so well organised and it did look so natural! 

Was I able to handle the Hacklers? 

You bet! I did have experience, after hundred different standup comedy clubs. Once, we even made a night, when the audience was asked before the hackle us. Some, could not finish, they were so distracted. Others tried to speak lauder. I had no problem even then. Not only because I had twice as much material then time, and when interrupted, I took lines to answer from that part of my repertoire, but also because... I learned to answer on my feet in the Toastmasters Table Topics.

I do not remember each interruption, but I enjoyed them and it seems, after my feedback that I handled them all very professionally. 


And here it is, a Table Topics question about "will you surf" ?

Well, Susan answered in a very funny and surprising way. Yes, I will at my age, even if I did not do it till know, learn to surf!!! I will. In fact, I already begun it: surfing the web.

So, yes, Toastmasters and Real life interpenetrate each other, and with Pathways more and more. Pathways offer fun projects, that can serve again, outside the clubs.

While I will receive a formal evaluation from Krishn also, he was my evaluator yesterday, through the chat, I received (and later again) already thanks for my presentation, as you see. A bit like the small slips of paper that I loose usually. This time, I did a screen dump on some of them.

In fact, even if I did have experience in Hacklers, I did not in the Keynote Presentation software, so presenting a speech about the Zoom Digital Background or Green screen, was a real challenge for me. As with the Panel Moderation, for which I got taste now, learning to use Presentation Software better will be now another of my focus. 

Also, some wrote me that from now on, they got courage to try the zoom green screen. They understood what is needed in plus of handling what zoom offers. I also managed to begin with a story and make them laugh three times during my 20 minutes. 

Yes, that gave me courage to try next time again. 
Inside or outside Toastmasters.

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