...to help you break the ice - a prize for delivering an Ice Breaker

"Come to the dark side!.. We have cookies :-)"

// reportedly a motivational phrase by Darth Vader

The Ice Breaker is what a first speech of a Toastmasters Club member is called. As someone once said, a journey of thousand miles begins with a step, and in Toastmasters Club this step is an Ice Breaker speech. And as it is the first - it is the hardest one.

Our conscious mind and logic tell us that since one becomes a member of a Toastmasters Club he should waste no time and start delivering the speeches, but our subconscious mind often has different opinion. Knowing that we're about to go on a many miles journey we will most certainly hesitate to make a first step, even though it seems to be an easy step to do on it's own. Similar things happen to new members as they are about to deliver their Ice Breakers - there's always some fear or uncertainty in our subconsciousness that causes procrastination and evasion, while our conscious mind just makes up excuses like "I think I'm not prepared enough yet" etc. Life is full of situations like this, I believe everyone at certain times in their lives have to struggle with themselves to overcome this kind of "invisible barrier".

But, as often mentioned, Toastmasters Club is a positive and mutually supportive environment. And now as a part of this support we are introducing a new thing that should really help you on getting extra motivation for delivering an Ice Breaker and getting your subconsciousness to become eager to deliver it - a prize! A prize for delivering an Ice Breaker.

The prize itself isn't something extra fancy, yet we believe it is just the right thing to have an effect on your subconscious mind - this nice cup with Toastmasters International logo:

click to see bigger picture

Looks good, doesn't it? Want one? Than stop hesitating and deliver that Ice Breaker! :-)

New Officers Team

Lemberg TM club has appointed a new team of officers for 2011-2012.

Please welcome:

Andriy Turak - President

Alex Sheremet - VP Education

Yustyna Holubets - VP Membership

Pavlo Maschak - VP PR

Secretary - Mykola Makhin

Treasurer - Dmytro Martynov

I personally wish these guys the best of the experience on the leadership position at the club, and truly devoted members and great achievements!

ToastGangsters at Winter Masquerade

Men in black & white with guns and ladies in fashionable exquisite dresses with delicate accessories in their hair and boas around the shoulders – dancing Charleston, drinking champaign and discussing the most recent events in the world of Chicago gangsters of 20s….

A real Chicago 20s atmosphere at annual Winter Masquerade organized by the Toastmasters clubs of Ukraine in Kiev. I was very excited to participate in that event together with my fellow Toastmasters from Lemberg.

Our adventures started from the early morning upon our arrival to Kiev. First thing (after breakfast of course) we went to the club meeting of Art Talkers. I personally was very curious about this particular club. The initial impression I had about Art Talkers – they are the most creative and artistic people. And this impression has been confirmed. They don’t only give speeches, but also set up theatrical sketches. If you happen to be in Kiev, make sure you spear time on Saturday morning to visit these guys.

The evening was a culmination of the entire trip to Kiev. We entered into the world of Sicilian mafia lead by famous Al Capone (Levon Petrosian). The program was very rich and extremely entertaining; starting from the Chicago performance of The Kelly Sisters “All that Jazz” song and Timur’s (Berezhnoy) amazing singing of “All I care about is love”. Those who were not interested in dancing were spending their money in Poker or simply playing good old mafia game.
The final gun shot of the event was Photo Contest Finely hosted by Lemberg Toastmasters. The winner of the best photos in 4 difference categories was Top Talkers club.

It has been our second Winter Masquerade in Kiev which proves that Toastmasters are not only great public speakers but also are great dancers, singers and simply know how to have fun and enjoy themselves.

New Year with a New Committee

It was sad to say "good bye" to year 2009, because it has been productive and interesting year for Lemberg Toastmasters. Thanks to the efforts of our officers team many good things happened, and the most prominent for us were:

1. Lemberg TM club got chartered in spring,
2. Added new members to the club,
3. We got our first Competent Communicator Toastmaster,

4. Participated at Ukrainian Toastmasters officers training,

5. Conducted Toastmasters outings : picnics, lake parties, etc.

However, the new year 2010 has started with good changes for the club - we elected a new committee of officers!

Ladies and gentleman, please welcome:

President-Lena Koronenko

VP Education - Lyuba Lazarenko, CC

VP Membership - Yaroslav Kisylychka

VP PR - Olena Derzhko

Treasurer - Dima Martnov

Sergeant at Arms - Sasha Sheremet

We all wish them a productive year and achievement of new big personal and club goals.

Good luck!!!

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!!!

Officially Registered!!!

I would like to express my gratitude to every member of Lemberg Toastmasters club who contributed to make our club recognized in the Toastmasters community.

We are finally charted!
My congrats to all of our members! I hope this event will help us explore more possibilities the Toastmasters is offering.

Now our new goal is to become a Distinguished club.

Good luck to us:)

Lyuba
VP Membership

Mascarad Party 2009

Another fun meeting with Kiev Toastmasters community our guys had a chance to attend. This was a mascarad party where everyone had a costume.

Before the party 4 of us (Lena Koronenko, Olena Derzhko, Alex Sheremet, and I) togather with Vera Viter and folks from Odessa TM club went to see newly opened galleries at PinchukArt Center and drink a coffee cocktail in SkyArt Cafe on the top of the Center.
What was real fun is that we had a chance to meet other Toastmasters, exchange the experience with them and jus hang out in a party atmosphere while tasting good food, wine and hot dances (swing, tango and salsa).


Even though Olena was not chosen as a winner of the best costume (she was an amazing and hot Red Hood), we all considered her costume to be the best in all aspects:) Alex got so much into his character that he even started speaking and joking just like Dr.House does. Impresive, i must say.
Well, it was a good time for sure, and we are looking forward to have more of events coming up this year to visit in Kiev.

Our First Toastmasters Picnic

We finally moved out of the office room to a green park.

Last Saturday Lemberg Toastmasters had their meeting and a picnic outside in Kazervald Park in Lviv.




First we had the meeting with Table Topic Sessions. Sasha Yanov made us all speak on a sensetive topic--love and relationships. Olena, on the other hand, wanted us to give a piece of advice on personal letters " for help" sent by real people to Mrs. Web.



But for me the most challenging part was to lead an Auction. My goodness, it is really exhausting to be an Action Master. It is not just talking, it is about selling for a higher prise!!! I did have fun though:) And we raised 100 UHA for our budget which was the main point.

After the official part we gathered around the "table" to feast:) on backed sausages with beer and wine (boy, it was a challenge to open the wine without corkscrew). The unwelcome quests were annoying bugs and bees coming from all over.







And of course, there is no picnic without fun games. Do you think you can do a rabit or a mamonth? You should see Ira doing a wild cat. Who was there knows what i mean:)

All this fun lasted from 11 am to 5pm. And believe me --time flies when you are having fun!!
I surely hope this is not the last "Toatmasters going out event".

Share your experience....

Advantures in Kiev

If you missed our trip on July 6th to Kiev - Annual Picnic of all Ukrainian Toastmasters, then you missed some good stuff!

This has been our first trip outside of Lviv. Vera Viter (still as an Area Governor) invited us to this picnic that they have once a year for the Ukrainian TM clubs. And it was quite an advanture for us.

First of all the weather was not very friendly: it rained cats and dogs all morning. However, we decided to break the rain! After a good breakfast at the Puzata Hata place we headed for Pirogov's museum--where the picnic was planned to be.

The picnic started from the formal meeting. This was my very first time when i had to give a speech evaluation to a girl i never met before in front of 60 people. Kind of challenging....I was nerveous...Lena also had a difficult job--Ah-counting all of the participants!!!

Besides the general meeting procedure, they had an Auction led by Levon Petrosian (an experienced Toastmaster). If not for him, the Auction would have been very boring. Also i think it was way too long. People started to loose the interest. Sasha Sheremet even bought cool headset and some CDs. This way he donated to the TM area budget. I realized that the Auction is a great way to raise money for our club as well. We should try it.

All who wanted to have fun participated in team games. Some of them were so tought that i started to fear for my health:)
Since the seconod half of the day was warm and sunny we took a walk around that amaizingly large museum on the open air. Besides, it was the "Ivana Kupala" holiday that gathered hundreds of people to celebrate it in more or less traditional way: singing, dancing, jumping over the fire, etc.

Meeting new people, gathering tons of ideas for our club, making friends - made our trip interesting and useful. Inspired by this, I want to organize a picnic for our Lemberg Toastmasters in a nearest future. Hope the people will support it!!!

In Lviv with Kiev Toastmasters

After a fun Toastmasters meeting our Kiev guests and a couple of Lviv Toastmasters went for a tour around the city. This was the chance to get to know each other better and enjoy the company which we used to the fullest:)

The first stop was in dungeon Ravlyk museum. Everybody wanted to get under the ground world of Lviv. Me too actually... But not much was there, just a couple of statues of lion, one big, empty and mysterious sarcophagus, and a good old man telling us a story of ancient Lviv.

Long walk gets tiering. Good Lviv beer and a delicious snack was the best decision. We stoped at everyone loved Dzyga caffe.

See how Tania and Andrey enjoy the beer:)

Of course we could not miss the provokative statue of Mazoh near the Mazoh caffee. Mazoh actually was born and lived in Lviv for some time. Lviv really got quite a history:)

Anyway, it was a great day with lots of positive impressions and memories.

We should do it more often:)

Hilarious Meeting

Who said that Toastmasters meeting can be boring? Who said that Toastmasters meeting is no fun?

Last meeting AGAIN proved wrong everyone who still had doubts about how fun and hilarious (who attended know what i mean:)) Lviv Toastmasters can be!!!

This time it was a joined meeting with experienced toastmasters from Kiev:

Area Governor - Vera Viter
President of ArtTalkers - Tania Knyazeva
President of DniproHills - Lily Nabochenko
President of EBA Toastmasters - Iryna Nikolaenko

VP PR ArtTalkers & Treasurer DniproHills - Greham Seibert

ExVP PR DniproHills - Andrey Yaroshenko

Our hilarious participants were:

Olena Derzhko told us all about how hilarious extreme activities could be . She had her 2nd project titled "Extreme Activites: sports vs. lifestyle".

Olena Koronenko with her 5th speech "The Best Advice" gave us advice not to give an advice:) Now, every time i mean to say " here is my advice.." I think twice..

Sasha Sheremet as a Table Topic Master made everybody remember our hilarious childhood.

The most challenging topic was: how do you decode this abriviation YMPA as a child? What is your guess?

The fastests Ah-counter so far:) has been Bohdan . After his hilariously fast evaluation we should invent a competition "The fastest ah-counting":) It definitely saves time and makes everyone listen to it carefuly.

Who was the most on-time?

Zoryana - our Timer (she knows what i mean):) Never heard such a deep introduction of the Timer role and such a profound ending (and i am serious). Understanding that time is extremely important in our meetings she made an extra stress on it. Man, i wish we had it recorded...

The most hilarious word of the day:) was provided by our Grammarian Krystyna, and counted how many times it was used. Vera used the most-15 times. Bohdan was second-13. That was quite a competition:)

In that hilarious atmosphere amazingly she could also pick the most commonly used mistakes.


And now on a serious note:

Lemberg Toastmasters first time had guests from Kiev and were very happy to meet new friends. It was definitely a fun meeting with interesting speeches and a variety of jokes and discussions. We also managed to impress Kiev Toastmasters by the level of our organization, performance as speakers and hospitality:)

Lemberg Toastmasters welcome everyone who wants to visit us!!!

Is laziness a virtue or a vice?

I was always convinced that laziness is a vice. However, after our Toastmasters meeting last Wednesday, i started to doubt it.
Bohdan, one of our Toastmasters, have delivered a speech with the interesting message - laziness is good, you just need to know how to use it. Never thought that being lazy can actually help you become effective at work? Maybe his speech was so well done that he managed to alter my attitude about laziness. Here are some of the tips Bohdan shared with us:

• Delegate your work to someone else


• Don't rush to do the task, if you wait sometime, it may won't be needed anymore


• Automate routine work (this might take some creative thinking)

Maybe I should try that, will see how effective my work will get. Although so far procrastination did no good to me but added up more stress....

Feminism: pros & cons

On the threshhold of Women's Day during our last Lviv Toastmasters meeting we had a vivid discussion about feminism. Two our devoted Toastmasters presented their Get to the Point speeches about this movement. Olena Koronenko with her speech "Wolf in a Sheep's clothing" was quite convincing about feminism being an evil to the society, whereas Yulia Kovalyova could give us the proves of a woman's superiority. I personally after her speech wanted to jump up and sing this famous old song "I'm a Woman" by Melinda Doolittle (originaly sang by Peggy Lee) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JUBSaWnms4

Bohdan Rak as a Table Topic Master developed the theme of feminism in a more detailed mannare involvening some of the guessts of the meeting and it's permanent participants.