The world is in a recession caused by the meltdown of the financial industry. It started from the subprime mortgage crisis only affecting America, slowly building up winds with impenetrable clouds of dust and sand until becoming the perfect hurricane. For the last 6 months, this financial hurricane has caused great damage to our economy, threatening to bring down big names like AIG, Ford and more. It is still in full steam driving ahead, tearing down everything in its path. Reports after reports, companies are downsizing and retrenching staff to keep operations alive, companies are seeking government bailouts and companies needing to file for bankruptcy. There seemed a never ending stream of bad news.
Would the economic situation improve? Definitely it will. It’s only a matter of time.
I want to share with you a fable called The Ant and The Grasshopper?
In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.
"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"
"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."
"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer.
Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.
The moral of this story is to prepare for the days of necessity. Will you be prepared when the economy improves?
Definitely! I have this conviction that Toastmasters prepares us for challenges. Therefore, starting this month, we are instituting changes in our chapter meetings to prepare us to grow as Toastmasters, positioned for the future.
1. Chapter Meetings
a. Feedback Sheet
Giving feedback is one of the skills that we practice in toastmasters. If we are serving as an evaluator, we give feedback to encourage the speaker. Sometimes we shy away from giving feedback because we are not used to doing so. Therefore, in our chapter meeting, we will be distributing feedback sheets. With the different speeches (projects/evaluation speeches), if you want to encourage the speaker, you can fill in this sheet and pass it to the relevant speaker at the end of meeting. We want to create an environment that supports learning through feedback to one another.
b. Guide to “Serving as Appointment Holder and Making Greetings”In order to help us serve better our roles as meeting appointment holders, we have prepared a guide of things to do. This guide will be given to the appointment holders during the chapter meeting, which serves as a handbook to remind us of the demands of the appointment.
Similarly, we have prepared a guide to making introduction. This guide will be placed at the lectern. For anyone coming up to the lectern to speak, we can use the template so as to learn how to greet at a Toastmasters meeting.
c. Target for Project and Serving as Appointment Holder
Goal setting is extremely important to motivating us towards success. Therefore, starting from April, there will be a roadmap worked out for each of you.
What is this roadmap?
This roadmap will be your project presentation schedule, where you book your project presentation slots in advanced. The target that we are setting for each member on the competent communication track to complete a minimum of one project every 2 months. For those on advanced communicator track, to complete at least one project every 3 months.
Serving in different appointment roles at chapter meeting will train us in various aspect of communication. As an AH counter, we practice listening skills, catching all the pause fillers used in speeches. As a timer, we learn the importance of keeping timing in speeches. As an evaluator, we learn the art of motivating people through our feedback. Likewise, to encourage us to learn the different skills through participation, we will work out a chapter meeting appointment schedule with all of you. The target is to have you serve as an appointment holder whenever you are not doing any projects.
2. Mentors
Learning without guidance can be difficult, especially if you are new to toastmasters. How to do your projects, what topic to select, how to say it? Learning cannot be tougher than that. Knowing this, we have Jun Peralta and Randy Sng offering to be mentors. They are both experienced toastmasters, who are willingly to share their experience with us. Therefore, if you are doing your projects and need guidance, you can drop them an email.
Fellow toastmasters, let us embrace these changes and prepare ourselves for the future as motivated toastmasters!
March Club News
We wish to thank Randy for motivating us with his sharing on Sir Edmund Hillary. The club would like especially to thank, President Nathan of Braddell Heights TMC for lending us support as Table Topics Master and Project Evaluator at our meeting. Congratulations to the following members for completing their projects.
- Project 4 - Elizabeth Leng
- Project 6 - Madeline Neo
- Advanced Project 3 - Jun Peralta
