Welcome a brand new VP PR

At the yesterday's meeting the President of Lemberg Toastmasters welcomed a brand new VP PR - Olena Derzhko - our devoted member who already has shown a lot of interest in contributing to the club's success and has been actively promoting it among her peers.
We welcome Olena to our team of officers!!!

Splendid meeting

We had a really good meeting lately, so I want to share with you what I liked most. Maybe, it will give you an idea for your role preparation next time.

First, a grammarian’s word of the day: «to take one’s goat». Usually, the most used words are synonyms to «good»: they are easiest to insert into prepared speech, or to use in some meaningless sentences to fill gaps between speakers. Words with more complex meaning or concerning a particular subject barely make their way to speeches of one or two speakers. This time it was a completely different story. Perfectly announced by grammarian, and promoted by toastmaster, it was used several times by each member!

Then, there was a viewpoint. Rules are following: speaker has 2 minutes to deliver a very controversial speech, a statement that causes a holy war. Each response is 1 minute long. I decided to discuss attitude to police. The statement was that nobody likes them, for good reasons, but still apply for help. We should appreciate their service and collaborate when we can. Certainly, everyone has their own experience with police, and different attitude, so there was a certain flame. Just as planned!

As a tabletopic master, Lena arranged a «job interview in a company of your dream». «Interviewees» needed to answer one question each:

• What are your greatest weaknesses?


• Tell us about the latest problem you encountered. How did you solve it?


• What recent accomplishment are you most proud of?


• How would your colleagues describe you?


• What was the latest mistake you made? What did you learn from it?

It was a constant flow of interesting stories, personal experience, brilliant solutions. I liked the section very much.

Trip to the TM OfficersTraining in Kiev

Teaching is extremely difficult, i did not realize that until my recent experience of being a trainer. This was my first time in such a responsible role. And I realized that profession of a trainer or a teacher has been underestimated, especially in our country. Training is about sharing the experience and helping others in what they are doing.
Mykola Latansky has shared with us his view on the opportunities in life, motivation and inspiration. I do agree with him in things like positive thinking, and I believe that thoughts do materialize.

Overall, it's been a great weekend in Kiev. I am very happy that my fellow Toastmasters from our club had joined me and got a valuable information and fresh ideas on how to make our club even better. For me trips like this one are always productive, cause i get to know new cool people form TM community, like our new Area Governor Yulichka Dmytryshin--a very sweet, braive and smart lady, and spend a quality time discovering Kiev and new people around me:)

Weekend with Kiev Toastmasters

"Never mess with Ukrainians"--one more proof of that statement was given by Vera in her fabulous speech last Saturday at the joined meeting we had held together with Kiev guests.

Well, that was not the main idea of her speech, but whoever attended the meeting know what i mean:) The rest--go figure.

What i also liked was the Table Topic part led by Irina Nikolaynko. She brought to us a sense of summer holiday which I crave so much for.

After the meeting we had a great time walking around the city and tasting good food of fine Lviv cousine. One of the interesting places we visited was Lviv Brewery museum with its long history and great story. As a treat we got a chance to taste a true Lviv beer. Well, I do hope the guys had fun and they will come back for more:)

Grabbing Audience Attention

Do you feel you have a difficult time with starting your speech?
Do you feel the audience is chaotic and not intersted in you?

Startel them!! Tell them a joke or ask them a question.

The very important part of any presentation or a simple speech is drawing the attention of your audience. Moreover, i think it is a milestone to any presentation, because you want to make your audience start listening to you, and furthermore, get interested in what you are about to tell them.

Turns out it is not that easy to do.

Thank goodness there are tips that you can learn to use. One of the valuable source is an article written by Rana Sinha a cross-cultural trainer and author. So, I'd like to share it with you, hope you'll find it useful:
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Grab-And-Keep-Audience-Attention-During-A-Presentation&id=593725


Improve your technique and keep impressing your audience!!

Toastmasters are out in the open air

Winter is over!

Although, such a cold and gloomy weather like the one we had for almost 2 weeks now, makes me doubt that summer has come.

Anyway, no matter what the weather is like, Lemberg Toastmasters are celebrating the warm season ( I am beeing a bit hypocritical) by going out side. This is actually our second picnic and we plan to spend it by the lake with tasty shashlik (aka bbq) and the fun activities.

Our heart to all Toastmasters:)

Contacts

President: Alexander Sheremet (asheremet@gmail.com)

VP Education: Lena Koronenko (okoronen@gmail.com)

VP Public relations: Olena Derzhko (oderzhko@gmail.com)

VP Membership: Lyuba Lazarenko (lyuba.lazarenko@gmail.com)

Treasurer: Dima Martynov (dmytro.martynov@gmail.com)

Sergeant in arms: Dima Martynov (dmytro.martynov@gmail.com)

Secretary: Lyuba Lazarenko (lyuba.lazarenko@gmail.com)

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Club mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/lvivtm

Roles planning spreadsheet: here