Look who’s talking too
Last night I went along to join the Cape Communicators Toastmaster’s Club’s monthly meeting. They have a crafty tactic whereby if you are a guest and want a speaking slot, you are required to bring along an evaluator.
Tim Wagner, from Peninsula, was presenting the first of his advanced speeches and invited me along to see what the club is all about. This is a club with a bit of a difference as it’s for speakers working on one of the Toastmasters advanced programmes. Typically these speeches are longer than the average 5 – 7 minutes, and it can be difficult for busier clubs (such as Peninsula) to always accommodate the longer slots and still give all their members a chance to present regularly. Most of Cape Communicator’s members seem to belong to more than one club. They stay a member of their home club and then join Cape Communicators as well to rack up those advanced speaking credits.
The types of presentations you can see include keynotes, brainstorming sessions, after dinner talks and motivational speeches. I also found the evaluations to be more extensive than what I am used to. It’s definitely a good place to go as an observer to see some great speakers and evaluators in action.
I was asked to evaluate Craig Strachan‘s high performance leadership presentation on his goals for the district this year in his role as division governer. Craig has some pretty bullish goals in place – so watch this space.
On the one hand it was pretty daunting for me as a CC5 (this means I am half way to achieving my competent communicator status) to be evaluating THE most senior toastmaster in southern Africa, and such an advanced speaker in general. Fortunately the club was so welcoming, and the environment so relaxed, I only really thought of this later (gulp!). I hope I gave Craig some useful feedback on his superb speech and I earned a credit towards my competent leadership track (thanks Sarah Rossouw).
Tim did extremely well presenting his keynote address. The jump from 7 minutes to 20 minutes must be quite a task.
If you have just completed your CC or are interested in finding out more about the advanced course – do yourself a favour and go along to one of the Cape Communicators Toastmasters Club meetings. They meet on the third Monday of the month in Pinelands. Contact Francois Rossouw, the vice president of education (VPE) to attend as an observer or get on the programme.
PS – mention this blog post and see if you can get a free glass of wine out of Francois!
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Thanks for the feedback, Vanessa. It was a good meeting. Your evaluation of Craig’s speech did you proud. For a CC 5, you show all the right signs for being a great speaker. On a point of information, members of Cape Communicators are required to maintain their membership of their original club, unless they have attained their DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster).
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Thanks Sarah
and for clarifying that point for us.
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Great review, Vanessa. Interesting to see that Tim did a keynote speech (Professional Speaker manual?) and well done for throwing yourself in the deep-end and surviving the evaluation of such senior speaker. It is great to see that Peninsula members spread out into the “bigger world” out there and stretch those speaking muscles. You go!
September 26th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Great review and thanks for putting in the time to write it. My first speech – and not my last at this great club. I truly believe that more people should attend as a guest to hang around those great accomplished speakers. This would also make it not as daunting when you present your first advanced speach.
Last point of interest – 50% of the people who attended and 50% of the speekers were from Peninsula TM. Come on the rest of you be brave, take the jump!