One Word to Sum Up a Toastmasters Experience

I was given this Post card by Fred Jones, ACG, ALB of District 21. During his Nairobi stop over, in one oh his travells, he decided to visit Toastmasters in Kenya and ended up at Sema Toastmasters Club.

The district had invited members to submit one word to describe what Toastmasters means to them. Over 600 members submitted their one word and this postcard represents the top 65 words chosen.

 

of English, Me and I

This year, I have heard so much especially from Toastmasters in Kenya about using me and I that I have declared 2013 the year of me and I. I will learn how to use the two correctly.
In the November 2012 issue of  TOASTMASTER, Prof. Jenny Baranick illustrates the different scenarios so well that I have no more excuses.
Who knows, I might even learn how to use correctly may and might, that and which and who and whom.

That way, paraphrasing Jerry Seinfeld, at a funeral, I will no longer rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.

Toastmasters Speech Number 2 (CC2)

The objective is to select an appropriate outline in either chronological, Spatial, Causal, Comparative, Topical, or  Problem-solution that will best achieve the speech objective and organise the speech into an opening, a body and a conclusion.

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The speech below was presented as Competent Communicator Toastmasters project number 2 at  Kwanza Kenya Toastmasters Club.

 The conclusion and closing was lost by me, but I hope it can help a Toastmaster somewhere and especially Toastmasters in Kenya with the second project.
  See evaluation below

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Corporate Chameleon

My uncle had two missing teeth. He called his neighbour a chameleon.
Chameleon! That’s what you are! Said He, and his dental formula changed forever.

However being called a chameleon should not necessarily be taken as a bad thing.  In fact calling a system administrator a chameleon is a compliment.

How so?

Because, many users find electronic gizmos challenging to use and system administrators assuage the pain. Not because themselves are not frustrated by dealing with difficult equipment, no, they have adapted multifaceted skills akin to those of a chameleon to deal with it. Let me illustrate how.

First, skin

A Chameleon’s ability to change it's skin colour is legendary. For example between August and November in Nairobi, John Gakuo’s Nairobi that resembles an amazon forest, the vegetation is in full bloom the green giving way to purple, yellow and red. In turn, the chameleons up the trees change from green to motley of colours in order to blend in. On their part inside the corporate boardrooms and ice-cold conference halls managers are busy and alive planning changes (they call them strategies) for the following year. Unfortunately their decisions are rarely rolled down to the hoipolloi lower down the corporate food chain such as the system administrator. These are left to their own devices. Devices such as the deft chameleon skin to sense the changes envisioned and adapt accordingly, and they have to, or else the upcoming company end of year dinner would double-up as their farewell party.

Often also, these decisions require more than one system change. To view them all properly requires a wide angle view; which brings us to a chameleon’s second characteristic.

Eyes

Each of a chameleon’s protruding eyes can move independently of each other.

It can look in two directions at the same time and perceive two different images. Therefore without moving its head it can scan almost 360⁰ of its surrounding. Similarly a system administrator needs to view the entire computing spectrum simultaneously.
While a user sees an individual gadget or application, a computing system is an intricate network of Hardware, firmware and software. By knowing a bit of each and a lot about the people using the system, system administrators figure out how to seamlessly bring services from different servers all working together.

The system changes come with limited time lines because information Systems is a highly volatile technology that needs to be consumed fresh for it to have any tangible benefits. Therefore, from the system admins bug of tricks pops out a chameleon's third characteristic.

Tongue

A chameleon can extend its tongue to almost twice its body length. The tongue can flick out to full length within a fraction a second, fast enough to catch a fast flying insect. What of a system administrator?

While giving a boss or a client the excuse that the “the system is down” lets off the hook most workers, when the system is down, that is when the System Administrator’s job ratchets a notch or two higher. The crucial function of the system administrator is to eliminate threats to the system such as downtime. The second most important is to turn round a failed system. Therefore every time there is a threat to the system sys admins have to move with speed beyond their normal ability to reign in the rogue system.

Body

A chameleon's body is flexible and rather flat such that it can bend easily from side to side. This self-effacing characteristic allow it to blend better with leafy surroundings while squeezing between twigs without attracting attention. Similarly, a system administrator needs to be flexible to the corporate working schedules.
Not only are the system admins required to be flexible schedule wise, they must also be flexible enough physically to fit in the spaces left by the users souvenirs, family photos and flower bouquets.

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THE EVALUATION

CATEGORY	RATING	COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS
Speech value (Interesting, Meaningful to audience)	5 4 3 2 1	Homorous manner. Engaged audience. V. interesting
Preparation (Research, Rehearsal)	5 4 3 2 1	No use of notes
Organisation (logical clear)	5 4 3 2 1	3 prong approach. Good transitions
Opening (Captivating, led into topic)	5 4 3 2 1	Excellent. Humorous. Teased us. Wanted to hear more
Body (flowed smoothly, appropriate support material)	5 4 3 2 1
Conclusion (Effective)	5 4 3 2 1	Good semantics though not appropriate to the overall message
Transitions (Appropriate, helpful)	5 4 3 2 1	smooth

• What could the speaker have done differently to make the speech more effective?

a) for the title - "the sys admin" not necessary and probably better without.

b) conclusion was not connected to the purpose

• What did you like about the presentation?

a) Loved the way use of humour to very skilfully bring an entertaining twist to a otherwise informative speech.

 b) Use of metaphor 

Do You Have Something To Say?

If you have nothing to say, join Toastmasters
By and by, you will get a chance to say it

If you have a lot to say, join Toastmasters
By and by, you will learn how to say it.

Five Steps To surviving a One Minute Table Topic

This site was plagiarised by myself, for myself. But you can use the plagiary below

 

1. Take it easy, the worst that can happen is drying up. That’s all.
2. Open with a stand or opinion then justify it in three points while remembering Kipling’s six honest serving Who, what, Where, why, when,How.
3. Talk about the first idea that comes up.
4. Keep talking until the bell. You will be surprised you are the only one who thinks you are not making sense.
5. Be fictional; don’t try to be factual unless it’s a topic you have the facts of.

Toasting Around

Toastmasters Will Never Cease To Surprise Me.

Last night I attended a Smartspeak Toastmasters Club meeting at parklands sports Club. Just as well I did because I was stumped.

First the ambience was so relaxing. While someone was at the lectern, the waiter strolls in, fire-star hotel style, napkin hanging on one hand and a glass bearing tray balanced on the other. He his on is way to deliver a cognac, the aroma!

Someone is taking a beer. Another red one.

Claire Jethwa was the Toastmaster. She kept the meeting on the double to the end. The theme, Music. Did I learn about music genre! (the grammarian said to pronounce that as zhahn-ruh , gesture as jes-cher and guest as gest. Gĩkothe! English and it!).

Karim, who oozes humour from every pore, was at his element during the tip session. He even sang (or sung) to us Michael’s “They don’t care about us”. Twice.

Then there was Kuldeep Nayer, the other Gramma cop, besides Wangũ and Nahabi. They had to drag him away from the lectern. He had so much to say. (How I dread the day I will have to take up the grammarian role).

The joke master, Tawfiq is telling a joke about flickering lights when the lights in the room flicker and go off. I thought, hey, that is eerie!

The Table Topics were allotted two minutes each. Most of the speakers were on their feet for more than one and half a minute. That was great.

The climax was when Clare, as parting short, sang ‘climb every mountain’ before handing back the meeting, to David gray the quiz guru.

Did you watch sound of music?

Yes you did.

And then a guest said …see woraimin. To nudge me back to Kenya.

You Can't Talk About That!

 Most members seem to believe that politics, religion and sex are forbidden as speech topics in Toastmasters. This is not true and Here is the official position.


Toastmasters International does not prohibit any speech topic or content. But it recommends that members be sensitive to the diversity in the club. However, each individual club does have the right to limit speech content.

What this means is that a club sponsored by a church or mosque for the members of that religious organisition to practise evangelism and preaching cannot be stopped from speaking religion.

Similarly, a member of club sponsored by a political party for the members of the party to practise political speeches is unlikely to offend any of it's members by giving a political speech.

Toastmasters Speech number 1: Freedom Will Come Extended Version

Freedom Will Come 

Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, invited guests;

Have you been to prison? Like me, have you been to jail?

I was born during the freedom struggle and at that time my parents and my older siblings lived in a concentration camp – a prison per excellence. Luckily, after a fierce seven yr struggle, Kenya attained freedom from Britain and thus ending my short stint in that prison.

However that was not my last time in prison.

   The second time I found myself in a dungeon was the year Tom Mboya was short. I was six. I accepted to go to school. What a prisoners life it was attending six hours of primary school every day crammed in those mud walled classrooms, that we would smoothen with cow dung, jam-packed 3 to a desk, while my young mind yearned the freedom to roam the thick bushes that doted the country side of the adulating slopes east of Mt.Kenya, to savour the succulent wild fruits, and berries and other delicacies abounding there in.

In between being taught English in our vernacular,
                                               Teacher: ĩno ĩtagwa mbotoro.
                                                              Ugani mbotoro!          
                                                Pupils: Mbotorooo
freedom meant playing in the rain, pulling jaw-dropping stunts while sliding downhill on our bare backsides. And for our effort, we would be handsomely repaid with the smothering kisses of a bamboo stick to the very backsides.  There were promises though that life would be freer in secondary school.

But was it?

In secondary school my very first English vocabulary to learn was out-of-bounds. Getting to within 30 paces of the school’s perimeter fence could turn a boy, not much taller than the slasher he wielded into a loan mower for an entire Saturday, An outing Saturday at that! By then the most treasured freedom was the day out. The occasional dance was good yes, but nothing could beat a day out. A whole day without the ubiquitous eye of our dreaded headmaster who perpetually lamented that we had nicknamed him ID Amin, while according to him, his nickname while in Alliance had been Carey Francis!

Just us I was preparing for my forth form exams the soldiers of the Kenya Air Force staged Coup de tat and rendered jobless for half a day the man from Sacho, also referred to as M-O-one. On that Sunday morning to get home from school, I had to criss-cross the City centre of Nairobi that had suddenly turned into killing fields not much different from Mai-Lai of South Vietnam of 1968 effectively rekindling the memory of sporadic machine gun staccato that pervaded the villages, and gun powder smells that suffused the cold nights during the freedom struggle days. On that day, indeed the entire August of that year, the only freedom that mattered was an end to the six-to-six curfew.

First forward to a decade later, and as a fresh graduate, the ink still wet on my Physics degree certificate, the quest for multiparty politics – christened second liberation - had reached fever pitch! Freedom, to the agitators, meant more political parties. But for me, prison break would have been freedom from the forced KANU party membership. Well, that was before the police, and the G.S.U, a.k.a Fanya fujo uone (cause trouble and get it) descended on us the demonstrators with their gun buts, giant buttons, lashes and teargas on that fateful Saba-Saba day. Just hours, hours and the word freedom took a sudden new meaning! I will never forget Kisamkasa, a fellow demonstrator who was cornered outside Burma market and lynched like a deadly animal, the jungle fatigue clad law keepers continuing to kill him long after he was dead until what remained of him looked considerably worse than your average dead body. At that moment as we watched helplessly from our unlikely hideout, neck deep in muck, while the pungent smell of burning tires and the obnoxious stench of human waste merrily fused with tear gas to to effectively camouflage any tinge of gunpowder, freedom meant getting out of that sewer manhole in one piece.

And I did.

But a different rebellion was fomenting in my head. A rebellion that drifted me into another jail.

Jail? Hell was more like it because I saw the devil. You are impeccably in hell when you reach career burn out at thirty-one - the devil is your boss! Poor me I had been hired by the Directorate of Civil Aviation (the precursor of KCAA) as an Air worthiness Officer and posted to the apron side of JKIA. Watching everyday those aluminium birds at the airport with their noisy take offs and landings was getting into my nerves. I had to free myself to pursue my electronics carrier. Oh yes! Electronics! Diodes, transistors, thyristors, neon, lights amplifiers… that would be life.

My break came years later as the country was gearing up to the second multiparty elections. At a time when to access the internet one required a dial-up modem and a telephone line from the dinosaur-KP&T. At a time when a mobile phone had to be insured because it cost 10 times a prime plot in Kitengela, I changed jobs to my current employer.

At around the same period I married, ostensibly to free myself from the tedious domestic chores. Little did I see the booby trap of a family of three dependants that consider me as their alpha and omega. Me! I wouldn’t recognise myself if I saw my image in a mirror, yet am the coxswain at the rudder of my family boat, steering way to freedom. No jumping ship, come storm, rain, or high water. No sir! You are the captain. You sink with your ship. If that is freedom, what is incarceration?

Second millennium, the year 2011, Kenya has been free for close to half a century. Multiparty democracy is reality. Hell! We even have a new constitution! All and Sundry can afford a data enabled mobile phone-the Internet it’s cannon fonder (never mind the please call me). ‘Freedom struggle’ is an Internet blog. The world wide web provides unlimited freedom to data and information - Inspiring some while entrapping others and forcing them into dungeons of waking up between their sleep at night to tweet and facebook.

What Irony that we now have a productivity software named Freedom that blocks a computer user from the Internet.

And you ask me whether I have been to prison. Yes I am still there trying to break out. The yoke now is being tongue tied every time I am called upon to “say something“ to a group – anything more than one person to me is crowd. Fortunately with you toastmasters in general and my mentor in particular I am convinced and convicted that freedom will come.

Aluta continua! the struggle continues!

Toastmaster.

Who Are Toastmasters?

Some characters who arrange an elaborate meeting so that they can to talk anything about anything and everything.

Well, am one of them.
When inspired enough, I do stand up to speak.
When more inspired, I post some of those moments here.
You can see my Ice breaker here

At you own risk (of becoming a chatter box)
you can use this list of Toastmasters Clubs in Kenya.