The Better Speaker Series

The Better Speaker Series

1.       Beginning Your Speech:  Suggestions for starting off your speech right.

2.       Concluding Your Speech:  Tips for ending your speech with power.

3.       Controlling Your Fear: Techniques for overcoming nervousness when speaking.

4.       Impromptu Speaking:  Don’t be caught off balance when speaking off-the-cuff!

5.       Selecting Your Topic: Running out of speech ideas? Here’s how to develop new ones.

6.       Know Your Audience:  If you can relate to your audience, they will relate to you.

7.       Organizing Your Speech:  Once you know what to say, consider next the when and the how.

8.       Creating an Introduction:  Great introductions should precede great speeches.

9.       Preparation and Practice:  Techniques for preparing and rehearsing your next speech.

10.   Using Body Language:  Techniques that will help speakers add impact to their speeches.

Sema Toastmasters Club Tall Tales Contest 2013 - Mr. Bee

It is said that humour is one way in which humans cope with tragedy. Unfortunately my tragedy is that people laugh when I am serious and don’t laugh when I am joking. Luckily, during the 2013 Sema Tall Talescontest, I got the hint that I might not be human at all but a Dromindan. Thank you very much +Alligator Makori.

I subscribed to the contest to live the dream and lift the trophy. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed my five minutes of fame until Ralph Palmer, seriously intoxicated after imbibing those liquids available only at Lavington West, elsewhere referred to as Kawangware, came zooming away in his risky contraption in the form a car missing 2 wheels.

How I wished that I was as stoic as the six feet less three inches, Dainah Kibera who remained unruffled as +Waihiga Higgz Muturi threatened to scatter and scuttle the contest using a crude weapon

in the name of protecting his Olympic millions and ego. Had I with me my M16, I would have showed him how +Joyce Kaduki felt shedding green tears after snacking on spinach between green pepper snacks in the name of dieting after hearing the truth that she is not fat in just that one dress but in any other dress any place any time, including the other side where  Anthony Wang’ondu sneaks to to share an illegal drink with Jomo before being processed.

Lastly I thank the tie breaker judge for breaking the tie between me and myself for position of 'others in the contest'.

If you still would like to know what sort of madness was going on there, below is my speech and it's video here.

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Mr. Bee!

Sir! yes sir!

Please take the stand.

That is me being discharged from the military.

Some of you may call know me Mr. Bee, but do you wonder how it started? Well I can tell you; It all started during my stint serving as a Navy SEAL.

Who are seals and how can they have the audacity to call someone Mr. Bee? 

It is an elite, rapid deployment force drawn from various units of the US military. Occasionally it does recruit from friendly foreign armies, and that is how as a soldier serving in the 82 Air force, I got to join. While in team six, my compatriots would say that my M16 stung like a bee, then after leading outstanding successful missions into enemy territory they said I was the honey maker for the team. And when I designed and deployed the current sensation that is the surveillance drone, they started calling me Man-Drone that later mutated to Mr. Bee.

East of Mount Kenya we have a saying that a young man looking at his Grandmother thinks the clan wasted animals in her bride price. So, if my face that has started scaring young children makes you doubt that I was once a fine soldier, you are not alone. To qualify, we had swim 500 meters, then do 42 press-ups, then 50 sit-ups, then  sixty pull-ups, and lastly run 1500 metres all this  in less than 25 minutes.

The training is punishing and painful but the results are rewarding. And am neither talking about the 1 million USD dollars I was paid after that small matter of my dropping Osama to the depths of the gulf of Aden. Neither the 2 million US dollars I was paid by the family to retrieve back the body.

I am talking about how it got me a wife and a name.

After being honorably discharged from the military I did the logical thing; I joined Toastmasters in the hope of meeting a young clever retirement wife.

Day one she was sitting right there. When she smiled like Toastmasters do, I felt like it was to only me. Then like toastmasters frequently do, she disappeared. How I frantically I searched every club in this town in the guise of speaking and other roles! I even started one. Then like all Toastmasters finally do, she reappeared.

Presently, we got to the scene where I present myself before her relatives so they could enumerate the animals and liquid intoxicants I needed to send to her clan.

Well it turned out to be only one item. A beehive!

Full of bees!

To their chagrin, because I was not prepared to share my Osama or is that Obama millions as they cunningly intended I decided to deliver the beehive. In disbelieve, my uncle promptly donated one of his. But I had an ace up my sleeve. In the SEAL service I had learnt an antidote to the bee sting pain. Which is; you I squeeze a little lemon juice into a yellow bottle top. Cut the tip of a red chili, then use it to stir the juice two times counter clockwise and three times clockwise, then pour the drops down your left nostril.

That is what I did! It is not painful. No. It is excruciating. But it is the antidote to a bee sting pain. I delivered the hive and henceforth everywhere you go in the whole of that land between mt. Kenya and the coast, Mr. Bee is a house hold name second only to Tiger Power. 

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Mentor vs Mentee Relations

As a speaker you can choose to work with any other Toastmaster as your mentor for the particular project. The Vice president education will pair a new member with a mentor for the first four projects.

The mentee should ideally contact the mentor.  Mentors don’t mind as long as you give them sufficient time to fit you into their schedule.
 

Mentors will not draft the mentees speech. And if they do you will have a problem owning it and it will show.

You learn a lot when you mentor a project. It especially comes in hardy when you have to evaluate the same project number because you don't have to prepare so much.

Speackers can choose the mentor to work with. At times it pays to work with more than one mentor.
 

Toastmasters Speech Number 5 (CC5) - Perfecting Gestures

Choose a dramatic and entertaining speech that has a lot of verbs and directions of action. Verbs of action render your body to move with the verb. Highlight the verbs then practice individually each gestures that you want to deploy with each verb. One way of judging whether the gesture is appropriate for the verb is to ask yourself whether the gesture can replace the verb. Can someone understand you to some degree if you gestured that way without speaking?

Know your weakness. Is it no gestures at all or inapproprieate gestures. If you don’t move your hands and body always, the gestures are more pronounced. Moreover for the purpose of this project, any unnecessary movement will be construed as inappropriate gesture. Much like difficult words in project four being called jargon. If you are not gesturing take a stance. A pose. A posture demonstrating poise. Don’t make any unnecessary movements.

Make the speech short, say about 500 words so that you can talk slowly and have time to gesture more deliberately, clearly and obviously where needed.

Facial expressions are part of gestures. They potray the emotion. Use a mirror to practice the facial expressions you want to portray. It will feel ridiculous watching yourself making faces, but you will get used to it after some time.

Once again the full length mirror is a friend of this project.

My attempt at this project can be seen here

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.

Toastmasters Speech No. 7 (CC7) – (Research) – Millions of Pieces

“The Young Man came to the Old Man seeking counsel.
I broke something, Old Man.
How badly is it broken?
It's in a million little pieces.
I'm afraid I can't help you, There's nothing you can do.
Why?
It can't be fixed.
Why?
It's broken beyond repair. It's in a million little pieces.” – Those are the opening words of James Frey’s book a million little pieces

At 20, in college and wiser than Solomon, I wondered why some people live in Umoja-Innercore. I wanted to do many things, least of which was to be a millionaire by 30. The Internet charlatans advise what you should have achieved by 30, by 40, by ---.

What a shame they do not tell you that it is not over until the final whistle.

If later your big perfect plan, like mine, shatters and scatters into a million little pieces, and you realise that the only way of moving into a two-bedroom house is by relocating to Gachie, where half the night is spent listening out for night crawlers.

Or if like my teenage friend Tumbo Kaliech your assumed six-pack is a cm of fat, then St. Francis of Assisi has just the recipe.

Start by doing what's necessary;
then do what's possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

For the necessary stage, you are in a rut! Stop digging! Otherwise, the rut will become your grave. And then, take a step to get out.

Martin Luther King Jr. advises this

“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step”.

For example, in his six-pack redeeming enterprise, Tumbo started with baby-steps around the block.

or if your million little pieces are financial, take debt and luxury cutting step. In the property guide magazine of August 2010 is the story of Mike Otieno. After he lost his shop during the politician fuelled January 2008 mayhem, he first adjusted by relocating his residence from Buru Buru to Ruai and transferring his children from Wanja and Kim to a public school.

The ensuing savings set the stage for Mike’s possible and so should anyone else’s.

In the possible face, you will be happy you did not listen to those who said it cannot be done it cannot fixed, because now you can start investing small amounts, in quick return, low risk ventures. According to Mr. Nduati, a Senior asset manager with old mutual, 60% of the people who lose during their early years and restart this way recover to be financially stable by 50. Mike put his little money in quick return tailoring projects and two years down the line, he was back in Buruburu.

Meanwhile, Kaliech, at 42 might could not run the marathon yet, but jogging for one hour was not leaving him trying to swallow back his heart. Which collaborates an assertion by Dr. Muniu of physical education at Kenya University that, even people who start exercising later in life appear to gain many of the same health benefits as people who've exercised their whole lives.

Then the impossible happens; when Edison said we would astound ourselves if we did the things we are capable of, he was spot on, because:

• I met Tumbo registering for the ten Kilometre semi-marathon heart run.
• I met Mike biding to supply Kenya Power Uniforms. Do you know how much he is going to make if clinches the deal? No, neither do I, but I know someone who went for four day Mediterranean cruise after supplying a similar consignment.

Remember

do what's necessary;
then what's possible;
and by and by the impossible.

The Young man replied

It can be fixed

I will pick the pieces,

I WILL FIX IT!

Toastmaster

How To Start a Toastmasters Club in Kenya

In the effort to sprout the Downtown Toastmasters Club, Nairobi, I have so far established the following steps that may guide someone wishing to sponsor a club. Please note that the steps are not necessarily in sequence. Further, you must visit use the governing docs of Toastmasters international for updated terms and conditions and relevant fees and charges.

1. Inform the president of the club that will sponsor the new club. This enables the resources of the sponsoring club (and other clubs) to be directed to help the fragile new club.
2.  Acquire interim officials. These act as the committee to draft the budget, to arrange a demonstration meeting, to campaign and raise awareness and to regularly attend meetings. 
3. Draft the first-year budget: Especially consider the TI fees $77 per member ($20 joining fee, $27 first six months subscription, $27 second six months subscription) and the venue hire charges.

4. Register the name at the Registrar of Societies. Can come later 5. Open a bank account and raise at least sh30,000. This amount should be sufficient to cover

1.    the charter fee ($125),

2.   stopwatch, bell, guest book, all available at Seal Honey

3.   Lectern, rostrum or podium– if your venue doesn’t provide

4.   first meeting room charges. Later members can contribute towards this item.

6.   Download and read the file121-How to Build a TM Club.pdf from http://www.facebook.com/groups/downtown.nairobi

7.   Download and complete the form, "Application to Organize" and e-mail it to newclubs@toastmasters.org. This form is also found in the file in 6 above

8.   Pay $125.00 to TI. This gives the group the right to use the name, procedures and materials of TI as a provisional Club.

9.   Following receipt of the 'Application to Organize' and the $125 fee, World Headquarters (WHQ) will send to you a 'Charter Kit' that includes among others

·        20 No. Competent Communication Manuals

·        20 No. Competent Leader Manuals

·        1 no. Table Topics Handbook

·        250 no. Ballots & Brief Evaluations

·        Green, yellow, and red Timing Cards

·        Gavel

Ask for a sample of the meeting program from the sponsoring club. But there sample meeting agendas in the manuals and in the web. 

11. HOLD THE FIRST MEETING! Publicize and promote the inaugural meeting. It should be carefully planned as a demonstration meeting. The goal should be to

1.   achieve the minimum 20 members needed to charter in the shortest period.

2.   achieve the brake-even number of members that can financially run the club with straining members.

12.  Submit charter documents, membership fees and six months subscription when the Club reaches 20 members. At least 17 members must be non-dual. i.e. new, reinstated or transfer (unless it is an Advanced Club).

Is there something I left out? Have you sponsored a club or have you been part a charter member? Kindly share your experience and help grow your district.

Toastmasters Clubs In Kenya

Toastmasters mission is to provide a supportive and positive learning platform on which members develop public speaking, communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and rapid personal growth.

This Toast-Mate list of Toastmasters Clubs in Kenya is provided to make it less onerous for members and prospective members to locate a club meeting location.

In case you find that there is a club that you know off, that is a missing from this list kindly let us know.

Club Name	Domicile Town	Venue Location	Meeting Days	Time of meeting
Kwanza	Nairobi	UKC	Tuesday	Evening
Nairobi Toastmasters Club	Nairobi	UKC	Monday	Lunch Time
UpperHill Toastmasters	Nairobi	Upperhill	Tuesday	Evening
JKUAT Toastmasters Club	Juja	JKUAT	Tuesdays	Evening
Smart Speak Toastmasters	Nairobi	Parklands	Tuesdays	Evening
Early Birds Toastmasters	Nairobi	Luther Plaza	Wednesdays	Morning
SEMA Toastmasters Club	Nairobi	UKC	Thursdays	Evening
Downtown Toastmasters	Nairobi	CBD	Thursdays	Evening
Kwacha Africa Gavel Club	Mombasa	Kwacha Africa	Fridays	Not meeting
Mombasa Toastmasters Club	Mombasa	CBD	Not meeting	Not meeting
Nairobi Bottlers	Nairobi	Embakasi		Evening
GE Kenya Toastmasters	Nairobi	Westlands	Thursdays
Toastmasters@Chiromo	Nairobi	Westlands	Thursdays	Morning
K-Toastmasters Club	Nairobi	Westlands	Thursday	Morning
Anchored Toastmasters	Nairobi	Luther Plaza	Friday	Evening
Mombasa Island	Mombasa	Island	Tuesday	Evening
Rafiki Toastmasters	Nairobi	Ngong Road	Mondays	Evening
Kisumu  Club	Kisumu	CBD	Monday	Evening
WBG Kenya Toastmasters	Nairobi	Upperhill	Wednesday	Evening
Westmasters	Nairobi	Westlands	Wednesdays	Evening
Lerai Toastmasters Club	Nairobi	Westlands	Thursdays	Morning
Nakuru Toastmasters Club	Nakuru	CBD	Tuesday	Evening
Kilele Toastmasters Club	Nyeri	CBD	Thursday	Evening
The Thika Toastmasters	Thika	CBD	Wednesday	Evening
The Ruaraka Toastmasters	Nairobi	Ruaraka	Tuesday	Evening
Kericho Gold Toastmasters	Mombasa	CBD	Friday	Evening
Kikuyu Toastmasters	Kikuyu	Naivasha Road	Tuesday	Evening
Strathmore University
Diplospeak	Nairobi	Gigiri	Tuesday	Midday
Nyali Toastmasters	Mombasa	Nyali	Thursday	Evening
Mombasa Road	Nairobi	South C	Saturday	Mid-morning
Andela	Nairobi	Roysambu	Wednesday	Evening
Ruaraka Toastmasters	Nairobi	Ruaraka	Tuesday	Evening
The Hill	Nairobi	Upperhill	Tuesday	Evening
Nakuru Business Association	Nakuru		Friday	Morning
Eldoret Toastmasters	Eldoret	CBD	Friday	Evening