CC1 - Ice Breaker Tips

Tell where and when you were born. If something memorable was happening at that time tell it. – 1 minute.

Tell of your childhood memories. Listeners love it as it relates to their own. - 1 minute.

Tell where, how, and when you went to school. If college is relevant tell it too. -1 minute.

Tell of first job and current job.
Embelish the story with love and marriage. Ladies love hearing about this part. – 1 minute

Tell how and why you ended up in Toastmasters. – 1 minute

Hint:

1.       not all those need be there. If one item takes more time, compensate by doing away with another.

2.       Write down three main points. Then try to tell the speech (to yourself) building on these three points. The rest of the material will bring itself out. You can write it down if you want or continue using cue cards.

Toastmasters Speech Number 8 (CC8) - (Visual Aids) NOMOPHOBIA

NOMOPHOBIA

Exit fear of public speaker, thanks to Toastmasters, Enter Nomophobia!

Switching off ones mobile phone is the utmost sin of the 21^st century. Your friends, colleagues, customers and bosses will not take it kindly if you cannot be reached for even a minute. In fact, the only viable excuse to get a matatu driver, cum DJ, cum moneychanger to lower the radio volume is to gesture phone.

We rely on it lock stock and barrel, and there lies the tragedy!

The study that came up with the new dictionary word nomophobia, found out that a whopping 60% of us check on our mobile phones an average of 34 times a day. This is DOES NOT include the genuine times you have to answer a call or sms.

How did we get there,

First, the mobile phone is not the first technology to capture peoples’ attention. Television has been used to shape a whole population’s opinion, credit cards to ratchet spending habits upwards and the internet to harvest biodata and profile people. You can imagine then what happens when all that vexing venom is put in one little container. 

The mobile is everything including love letter; overt or covert. How ironic that we should have to pay a traffic offence fine using a phone for using a phone! – precisely why I say it has made matters easier and worse in equal measure.

For example, back in the day when at least two subscribers had to share the telephone line and the operator was a demigod, the caller became an accomplished court jester, connoisseur of clichés and a master of platitude.

If you ever got through the operator gave you two to three minutes. Whatever you discussed and agreed on in those minutes was sacrosanct, sacred, a covenant and as such a call achieved a lot. Today all you hear is where are you? followed by lies, English football, a bit of gossip, a lot of babble and jabber, then more lies. We have sadly become masters of duplicity and mendacity, infidelity and rascality.

When not calling we are on social sites and rarely where we can get valuable information. Content that used to be delivered via Television is now delivered on phone, such that households no longer place speaking moratorium at 7 pm and thus denying the patriarch a chance to exercise authority The news message arrives anytime anywhere. You could be crossing a street or driving. I shudder to hear advice that when driving one should use hands-free mode. How vain! because the distraction is not in the impaired hands, No. The devil is in driving under the influence of the next big deal or under the wrath of loved a one.

Texting is convenient, very convenient, perhaps even too convenient because, one does not get enough time to decide whether the SMS is worth sending. Previously, by the time you put pen to the yellow, green or pink piece of paper adorned with a captioned dolly picture and a message; the only days I love you are those that end with Y;
by the time you doused it with a copious helping of Yolanda perfume and slipped it into

 a par Avion envelope, never mind that it would be hand-delivered across the fence, you were surer about your intentions. Today all you need is a few clicks and send. Suddenly you are wiping your running nose by the stumps of your hands among ruffians at Kibera.

This, This, This is not as innocent as it looks.

Sergeant At Arms

June 30^th 2013, my term as the Sergeant At Arms at Kwanza Kenya Toastmasters Club came to an end. When I committed to it an year back, I had no idea how I was going to pull it through. What with my erratic non-schedules that would at times spiral late into the night depending on the temperament of computers! But I needed to do it as a way of supporting my club. In any case someone had advised that to reap maximum benefit of Toastmasters, when asked to take a role, just say yes then figure out how to do it later.

What no one warned me is that it would be great opportunity to learn and I learned three lessons

Delegation: I learned that most people are ready to help. I have learnt to let go once I ask someone to do something and wait for the result instead of micromanaging the means. I have learned to multiply my hands by using other peoples'.

Criticism: I have learned to take criticism without feeling “where were you to do it mr. perfect”. I have learnt to take responsibility for the result.

Patience: I have learned to be patient with people who mess with communal equipment. But I have also learnt that most people will treat communal facilities kindly if shown how to use them correctly.

Above all I have learnt that 

roses are red violets are blue

never decorate a room

that a lady will use

purple and blue are

not shades of black.