Contagious Random Acts of Kindness

Two great presentations and a business meeting today.  The business meeting was just getting started when time ran out.  Of course the important aspects of the meeting were dealt with.  We had a little extra time so “Monkey Business” started.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at things, there will be a motion on the table that we will have to attend to at our next business meeting.  It’s just another opportunity to practice running meeting as I am sure we all have been to some that are poorly run and very unproductive.  Toastmasters tries to rectify these situation.  The more we practice, the better we become.

Both presentations today were from the Competent Communication manual.  Erin presented a great speech, Project 3 – Get To The Point, that spoke of random acts of kindness. Something she feels is contagious.  Her examples and excellent word choice painted pictures that we could certainly see ourselves in.  Here personal examples were well explained and appreciated by the group.  She certainly got to the point.

Our second presentation was by Richard, an experienced Toastmaster.  He was completing project 10 – Inspire Your Audience.  With a speech title of “Not In My Back Yard” the audience was persuaded to consider their environmental footprint as it extents outside their immediate area and think about the amount of garbage they generate.  The key message was to reduce and recycle, not just throw away and forget about the impact of your actions.  I think the audience was inspired.

Again we had top notch evaluations from Marloes and Julia.  Feedback is always important and happily received.  It is important to know the things the speakers did well and also the areas that could have been changed to better fit the objectives or make a more powerful and compelling presentation.  It was nice to hear the assigned evaluators but also nice to see notes being passed to the speakers from the rest of the audience.  This way the speakers get additional feedback on their presentations.

I am looking forward to our next Business meeting so we can continue our monkey business.  In the mean time, I will be thinking of a new subject for my next presentation.

Maybe I will see you next week.