Winnipeg Toastmasters Are Happy for No Reason!

Today's UM Masters Toastmaster's meeting was a challenge for our new members who might have been tempted to sit back and observe on another day. With many of the more experienced members absent, newer members seized the challenge of the unfilled roles - and boy did they do a good job to give us another fantastic meeting.

Dianne was Toastmaster and she introduced today's theme 'Happy for no reason' inspired by a course she and her daughter are following with dramatic effect. She encouraged us to think about what makes us happy.

Charith in his first time as grammarian introduced the word of the day - capricious and encouraged us find ways to tell us about times when we have acted on impulse or done something unexpected. Charith is always so cheerful, and this always rubs off on me!

Matt, a new member introduced humour to the meeting with a clip from a paper that showed how differently men and women approach problems - which had us all laughing and relaxing, before we introduced ourselves and told the other members what makes us happy. There was definitely a sub-theme in today's meeting as everyone seemed to be happy outdoors and enjoy the natural world.

Speeches followed, and we had 2 today. First, Selena gave speech number 7 with a speech titled 'What's wrong with Lake Winnipeg anyway?', telling us about the water quality problems in the lake, work going on to solve it, and giving us all some hints and tips to take away on things we can do differently. This was followed by Mike, who gave an awesome ice-breaker speech on 'the road travelled' to explain how he got to where he is now.

Dianne did some juggling of the Agenda to give Mike time to prepare his first evaluation of Selena (multi-tasking), and Charith gave his grammarian observations with a smile of course. Mike's first evaluation was great. He used the sandwich method to great effect giving Selena positive observations from his perspective with a point or two to grow. Then Matt gave his first evaluation of Mike's ice-breaker and did a fantastic job for a first time - two excellent evaluators in the making.

Matt was also trying to time everything - truly multi-tasking, what a volunteer! He fully deserved the Gold star from Dianne who filled in as general evaluator.

We had two guests today in our Winnipeg Toastmasters Club, who gave their feedback, and I hope they will come back and join in the fun next week!

If you are in Winnipeg and are interested in dropping by and visiting our club, we meet Wednesdays from 12:05 – 12:55.  We have currently “moved house” for the summer to room 125 St. John’s in the University of Manitoba but please do drop by and see what our members are up to next week.

If you're in Winnipeg and interested in sitting in on a club meeting to see if Toastmasters is right for you , please feel free to contact Dianne Winser at dianne_winser@umanitoba.ca, phone 204-256-7550.

Toastmasters – the proven way to grow your communication and leadership skills.