Speaking and Listening: Toastmasters Experience

The name of the programming language Python was derived from the British comedy group "Monty Python."  If you were to create a new programming language, what would you name it and why? That is one of the table topics I posed to my Tech Talkers (techtalkers.org) Toastmasters club this past week.  Our scheduled speaker was talking about Python (the programming language), so I thought it would be fun to come up with questions that were related to Python and yet that anyone in our group of technologists could answer.  The prompt of using "Python" in my questions was the first part of my table topics equation - leveraging a theme  for the questions. The next part was to do some research  about Python to help me come up with my questions.  This was how I learned that Python was named for Monty Python as well as some of the uses and guiding principles behind Python, which became the inspiration for some of my other questions. And finally, I combined the theme ...

Sometimes, we don't realize the type of impression we made on someone until years later.  This was recently proven true for me in one of my Toastmasters clubs.  A past guest I never expected to see again not only returned to our club, but signed up as a paid member! This individual had visited our club years ago to fulfill a requirement given by one of their college courses.  Many such students had come to, spoken in, and left our club.  This was the first time I got to witness one of them come back after graduating. Why did this person return?  Because they enjoyed the environment of the club and the interactions among the club members.  When asked if they remembered particular members from their prior visits, they expressed that of course they did, smiling as they described a certain member as their "favorite."  While this returning former student may have been buried deep in my memory among all the other students who had come and gone, we were not l...

 I recently gave a presentation for a Toastmasters meeting from my home via Zoom.  Sometimes when I present from home, I choose to sit in front of my camera.  Other times I opt to stand.  For this presentation, I stood, and I was surprised by the response! Numerous people commented that they were glad I stood up for the presentation.  The speech topic itself had nothing to do with standing.  It was about conflict resolution, not about the importance of exercise or "standing up" for what's right or some other topic where standing would be expected to have a real impact.  Still, standing clearly had an impact on my audience. Perhaps its because we have gotten so used to sitting down during our remote meetings in this time of working from home, but standing up seemed to be something different in that particular setting - something that stood out in a good way, enough so that multiple people noticed it and complimented it. How will you stand up and stand o...

 This past week, I served as Toastmaster with a meeting theme of "National Bubble Wrap Day."  I did not pick this theme.  The individual who was originally going to be Toastmaster selected the theme, but when they had to miss the meeting last minute, I volunteered to step into the Toastmaster role. As Toastmaster, I am responsible for running the meeting overall.  Specific responsibilities include introducing speakers and other meeting roles as well as filling gaps between meeting segments with interesting information that is related to the meeting theme.  A combination of my past experience and preparation done by the person who was originally slated to be Toastmaster helped me fill this role successfully even at the last minute. When the individual who could no longer fill the role of Toastmaster informed me of their situation, I immediately felt confident that I could cover for them.  One big cause for this confidence was seeing that they had already pre...