From The Editor’s Desk - Toastmasters Internationald73.toastmasters.org.au/southerncross/sc_1001.pdf · From The Editor’s Desk ... easily down loadable from the District web site)

Edition 65 • January 20101

d73.toastmasters.org.au


The Newsletter of District 73Toastmasters International


toastmasters.org

Exceed Expectations

From The Editor’s Desk

With a change of decade Southern Cross sees a change of Editor. Michelle Monaghan is moving on to new challenges and I have taken on this exciting role.

We have lots to look forward to in this coming year and I hope that this edition will reflect on some of the aspects of Toastmasters International in District 73 that will allow us to exceed those expectations.

One word of warning, if I don’t get much response to my request for articles you can expect to read lots about the fortunes and the history of Bristol Rovers Football Club. Just ask anyone at Cannington I would win Olympic Gold in boring you to death about my favourite team!

Looking forward to a great New Year!Gerry Prewett, CC, CL Area W28 Governor

[email protected]

“A Toastmaster is a man who eats a meal he doesn’t want so he can get up and tell a lot of stories he doesn’t remember to people who’ve already heard them”

George Jessel

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From the District Governor

It only seemed like yesterday when I heard that Michelle Monaghan DTM volunteered to take on the SouthernCross e-magazine for our District. How time flies, as it was basically 2 years of dedicated service in collating and formatting the many stories from our members.

Michelle brought her own flair to the e-magazine, with her unique style brought in a change in the way Southern Cross looks. For those who like to keep up to date with some of the activities of other clubs or even Divisions, or grab some handy tips, this magazine provided a quick summary which Michelle and past editors collated. (The past copies are archived and are easily down loadable from the District web site).

Thank you Michelle for chasing up the stories and weathering some last minute changes to the draft before it was posted on the web. Roles such as these do take up extra time and effort from our members and we recognise this. We hope that the experience has also enriched part of your personal goals and needs through the involvement with Toastmasters.

On behalf of the District Executive, I thank Michelle for her service and wish her well in the next phase of her journey. Welcome Gerry Prewett to the role of SouthernCross editor.

This is our chance to welcome Gerry to the District newsletter role. Gerry heard of a request from District that there was to be a vacancy, and has risen to the challenge to add to his busy life. This just fits in perfectly with the enthusiasm of all those around him in West Australia.

Rumours are he has edited running club magazines in a past life, so we definitely look forward to see his approach brought to the magazine this coming year. Gerry is also an Area Governor and enthusiastic member(s) of Cannington Communicators, Marketers (Specialty Club), and Fremantle Gourmet (Specialty Club), PowerTalk, NetMasters and finally Western Founders.

Please feel free to e-mail or talk to Gerry in regards to contributions for the

Everyone makes New Year’s Resolutions

The beginning of a New Year is the perfect time to increase the membership in your Club. Most people set personal goals in their New Year’s resolutions in an effort to improve themselves.

Toastmasters International recognises that at this time of the year it is a great opportunity for your club to increase its membership and conducts the “Talk Up Toastmaster Membership Contest”, which is run between 1 February and 31 March.

During the “Talk Up Toastmasters Membership Contest”, all members are encouraged to invite guests to their club’s regular Toastmaster Meeting, where their guest can observe the benefits and advantages of joining Toastmasters.

If your club adds five new, dual or reinstated members between 1 February and 31 March your club will receive from TMI a special “Talk up Toastmasters!” ribbon to display on your club’s banner.

Membership applications and payment for members who join between 1 February and 31 March must be received at World Headquarters or on-line no later than 31 March.

I honestly believe that all of the clubs in District 73 can achieve the “Talk Up Toastmaster Membership Contest” award and help to secure their future by increasing their membership.

Should you require further information or assistance with this or any other membership drive, please contact your District 73 Public Relations Officer - Ross Wilkinson DTM - [email protected]

Ross Wilkinson DTM, District 73 PRO





Who Would Want To Join A Club Like Ours?

Craig Valentine, the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking, said, “Champions get coached”. After five years in Toastmasters I had never won a club contest, so I sought out a speaking coach with a track record, Verity Robins, the 2007 Inter District Contest runner up.

Verity told me, “Henk, you need more Stage Time.” Where have you heard that before? Darren LaCroix of course, the 2001 World Champion. He has this three-part mantra of, “Stage time, Stage Time, Stage Time.” I know what you are thinking, but let us just say that there are three kinds of people, those who can and those who cannot count.

Anyway, I joined the advanced club TOCC, “Toast of the Country Club”, who meet in Mulgrave, Melbourne. So why would you want to join a club like ours? What’s special about our club?

Well over half of our members have made it to District Contests. This wealth of experience means that you get evaluations that go way beyond recommendations of eye contact and gestures. And that is just for starters

The main course is that we meet at the Mulgrave Country Club where we share a meal with a glass or two of wine before the meeting begins officially. Our room, supper and cleaning are all organised by the Mulgrave Country Club. We are spoiled rotten.

So what is for dessert? Well, the year I started being coached and joined TOCC, I made it to the District International Speech and Evaluation Contests. What also helped me get there was that by joining TOCC, I had two bites at the cherry, being able to compete at both clubs.

Craig Valentine said, “Champions get coached”; by joining an advanced club like TOCC, the quality of feedback you receive is tantamount to being coached. Whether you want to be a champion speaker or champion communicator, an advanced club like ours will get you there.

Henk van den Bergen CL ACG

TOCC Members at the District 73 Convention at Hahndorf. It was taken when all TOCC members present got on stage with the International President Jana Barnhill who presented them with the Trophy for jointly, with another club, having the most member present.



Edition 65 • January 2010�


Changes to the rules on Speech Contests

The following can be found on the TI web site.

“Each District will be assigned by random draw to one of nine semifinal contests to be held in August 2010.

The semifinal speech contests will be held on the Thursday evening of the Convention, The winners will move on to participate in the International Speech Contest Final on Saturday. In addition, beginning with the 2009-10 contest year, contestants no longer are required to present entirely new speeches until the final round. The speech given in the speech contest final may not have been given in any other International contest since January 1 of the contest year.

Travel (airfare or mileage) for all those participating at the semifinal level will be paid by Toastmasters International.”

The first two paragraphs are new information, based upon the restructure of TI into Regions. Travel (airfare) is currently provided to the District 73 winner to compete at the semi-final level.

However, instead of the US and Canadian Regions having regional finals with the regional final winners going straight into the grand final against the two “Districts Not Assigned to Regions” (DNAR) semi-final winners as happened in the past, all District winners will now go into a random draw and compete in the semi-finals on the Thursday evening before convention.

In the past the regional winners have had the time between their regional final and the convention to practise, knowing that they had reached the final, but this will no longer be the case. From a District 73 viewpoint, the speech contest will now be much fairer for our contestant. This is one of the reasons why District 73 made such a big effort to collect proxies from Club Presidents for the vote at the International Convention on Proposal A where reformation of TI was debated, and Damian spoke in favour of the motion.

District 73 DG, LGET and LGM all talked up the benefits of Proposal A to toastmasters from other countries and candidates for TI International Directors at the Convention. The reformation required 66.66% of the vote and was passed with 70% in favour.

The passing of Proposal A will have other benefits for District 73 which will now become part of Region 12 which comprises Australian and New Zealand clubs. We expect that we will now receive better service from TI as an outcome, and we will have an International Director representing our Region on the TI Board of Directors.

Bruce Hill LG Education & Training

Are there any other Area Newsletters out there?

Martin Lindsay contacted me to let me know that he publishes an Area newsletter for Area P30 Here’s the link he sent me

http://members.iinet.net.au/~clarke2/Toastmasters/Area%20newsletter%20Dec2009.pdf

Does anyone else publish an Area Newsletter? If so let me know about it and I will post the link here.





He said what?

We’ve all heard them haven’t we? Those sports commentators who open their mouths before putting their brain into gear. I’ve taken this collection from the BBC Football section of their web site. You just wonder how some of these guys would cope with Table Topics.

“Man City have scored in all of their home wins this year.”Sky’s Rob Hawthorne commenting on the Manchester derby.

“You have to win your home games at home.”Nottingham Forest boss Colin Calderwood after drawing the Doncaster game.

“We just have to get our heads down and continue to start winning games.”Sunderland’s Carlos Edwards.

“You have to expect that from Tim Cahill, he’s got the ability to do the completely unexpected.”Commentator on The Quay radio station.

“I’m a strong believer that if you score goals, you win matches.”Charlie Nicholas on Sky Sports News talking about Scotland manager George Burley.

“West Brom are having a bad little spell. They were leading 4-1, but now they’re leading 3-1.”Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday.

“This new ball is going quicker than ever it literally explodes off the player’s foot.”Jamie Redknapp reveals the secret technology behind this season’s new footballs.

And finally a commentator being deliberately funny!

“Macclesfield have gone back to basics. They’ve signed Reid and Wright.”Sky’s Jeff Stelling commenting on the latest additions to the Macclesfield squad.

Going bush?

Just prior to the Area P50 Humorous Speech and Table Topics competition held in Inglewood, Area Governor Pascale Amberville-Colby advised that the International Speech and Evaluation Competitions were to be held in Kalgoorlie.

Pascale, seemed to think that this hadn’t been done before. Usually they are held in the metro area. He said he was looking into getting a group booking to catch the train to Kalgoorlie.

The intention is to spend the long weekend there. On the Saturday, committee members (and anyone else) will hold an area meeting then have the competitions straight after.

So come on Toasties, is this unique or has anyone heard of this being done before?

Pascale proving that Johnny Cash wasn’t the only ‘man in black’





‘New’ new-member coordinator

My name is Vicki Wilson and I am a masseur, aroma therapist and author living in the suburb of Blackburn in Melbourne. I joined Whitehorse Toastmasters in July 2008. The reason was I was too nervous to speak without stumbling over my own words and I had been roped into a course that I had to lead by January 2009.

I tackled the CC and achieved it by June 2009 which gave me fantastic tips on how to create PowerPoints, speeches and taking the “nervous me” out of the equation. Toastmasters has been a great path to travel and learning has been so much fun. I’ve even joined the executive committee as Treasurer.

As for how and why I accepted the job of new-member coordinator? I saw a desperate need by Damian from an e-mail to get the position filled so that all the clubs in Distcict 73 did not have to wait months for the new member kit. I wanted to help.

Before I did though I had to ask my very long suffering husband if there was enough room in his cave (shed) that I could steal and with me measuring the exact size of a pallet and him taking out the tape measure and moving pieces of wood and mattresses, he finally agreed.

I sent the e-mail and within a day or two, pallets, paperwork and e-mails were arriving at my doorstep.

When two pallets rolled up though, my husband rolled his eyes and made sure that there would not be any more pallets arriving. Twelve more boxes arrived and I think I tested his patience then. Poor thing.

So many people have been so appreciative of me taking over that it has surprised me. So far it has been interesting organising different aspects of the job and I hope that I do all of the little jobs that go with it to a high standard.

A little more work than I thought there would be but I’m sure I will get the hang of it and everything will run smoothly. I hope to be as great as Susan Cade, the previous coordinator with all her years of doing such a great job.

Vicki Wilson CC

Just when Vicki Wilson thought it was safe, up popped the hand with the video camera again.

Footnote, for Western Australia the new-members coordinator is “Cannington Communicators”, the club as a whole is going to run this function as it has the facilities to do it and won’t put an overdue burden on any one individual





Who, what, why, when, where and how?

Have you ever wondered about the source of the Who, what, why, when, whereapproach to problem solving? Wonder no more.

I Keep Six Honest Serving-Men

I keep six honest serving-men(They taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and WhenAnd How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,I send them east and west;But after they have worked for me,I give them all a rest.I let them rest from nine till five,For I am busy then,As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views;I know a person small-She keeps ten million serving-men,Who get no rest at all!

She sends them abroad on her own affairs,From the second she opens her eyes-One million Hows, two million Wheres,And seven million Whys!

Rudyard Kipling

Toastmasters Christmas Meeting 17 December 2009Whitehorse Toastmasters

Whitehorse Toastmasters celebrated their final 2009 meeting with an in-house Christmas extravaganza. Each member was asked to contribute to the dinner, and everyone feasted on a variety of nibbles, savouries, meats and salads and a wonderful spread of desserts for supper.

The President, Rod Ovcar, welcomed 3 guests to the meeting and inducted one new member – a wonderful way to finish the year.

The Table Topics had a variation that tested the speakers and evaluators, and those who listened to the speakers were impressed with the impromptu speaking skill that each speaker brought to the fore.

Mike McNamara was the “Impromptu Speaking Master” in place of the Table Topics Master introducing for the first time the novel concept of PowerPoint Karaoke, an exercise being used by some TM clubs in USA. It involved chosen members speaking to a set of slides that they had never seen before….a challenging proposition to last for up to 3 minutes.

Members were confronted with real PowerPoint presentations ranging from Hydoclimatology to Cloning (in Spanish!) as well as on medical cures and “bad PowerPoint presentations”. Not only did they become instant experts, they needed to speak to complex slides and explain the content, and keep up with the progression of slides through the presentation without their control.

Each of the six chosen brave “experts” made a good fist of their demanding show, with lots of funny send-ups and laughter along the way.

After supper we were entertained by 3 wonderful speakers, covering topics of • Motivation to keep going in the face of challenge when everything seems to be going wrong, • The mystique of belief and myth – how could you not believe in Father C Christmas • Strategies to get the best out of shopping assistants.





We left with the motivation to shop till we drop, maintain our belief in Father Christmas as he fills our stockings, and to look on the bright side and see solutions rather than problems.

2010 will be a wonderful year for Whitehorse Toastmasters!

Anna VandenbergIPP Whitehorse ToastmastersArea E14 Governor

Membership is the Key

Happy New Year to all members of District 73 and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Here we are at the half way stage of the Toastmasters year and I am happy to report that new member numbers are on the rise across the District.

We have welcomed 713 new members into the District in the first 6 months of this year, an increase of 100 potential future DTMs. Remember that membership is the key to a successful Toastmasters club so keep attracting new members to your club and retain your current members by having exciting and energetic meetings.

New Members

Clubs have been meeting their membership goals of 4 new members (1st goal) plus another 4 new members (2nd goal) with gusto. There have been 90 clubs that have achieved the first goal (172 clubs total) with 25 of those clubs achieving the 2nd goal.

Fourteen of those clubs have registered 10 or more members already, which is just amazing. These clubs all have proactive committees that target membership in their DCP plan and have a lively and interesting web site. Web sites are the best way to attract new members so make sure your club web site is working for you.

New Clubs

The District has welcomed 3 new clubs so far this year and plans are in place for many more in the next 6 months. The new clubs are PB Toastmasters and

Marsh Masters in Victoria, and CSBP Toastmasters in WA. For all info on how to start a new club, follow this check list.

Club Officer Training

The second round of Club Officer Training will commence very soon, so make sure your club officers attend a training session near you. Your club needs at least 4 officers to attend this session to obtain another goal in the Distinguished Club Programme. Contact your Division Governor for more details.

This year we have had exceptional membership growth so far. Let’s all keep looking to improve our clubs by offering the Toastmasters opportunity to as many people as we can and together we will Exceed Expectations.

Mark Richards DTMLt Gov Marketing 2009/10

Above Left to Right; LGM, Mark Richards, District Sec, Hilary Jane, District Gov, Domain Chong, CSBP members Martin Lindsay and Geoff Schulz





What is that funny looking box on the front page of Southern Cross?

It is actually known as QR Code and is an interesting feature. In fact, it will probably “grab” more people in the street, than members at Toastmasters!

The idea came from someone in Bernard Marmian’s leadership team. “The Age” mentioned it, and we jumped on the bandwagon. The idea is that with new-fangled phones, you can photograph the code, and then go to a mini-website (for the phone), to see a little more about the main subject, and get to a link you can save for further searching later. e.g. someone might see the magazine in a library, photograph the QR Code, get the appetite, and search more when they get home.

A set of students from South Australia reviewed the D73 marketing a year ago. One idea was, to include the QR code in the Southern Cross to help bring the web to our readership.

More on QR Codes are described at this web site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code

Other interesting links include

http://2d-code.co.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IphTJHiKGos&feature=related





Welcome to Toastmasters...

CLUB NAME NEW MEMBER

Adelaide Peter DawidowskiAIAWA Charles Cheuk Yin NgBanyandah Madelon HerperiBanyandah Jason D ColeBayside David WesconBayside David Andrew PetrieBerwick Peter J JagoBerwick Merv N SkvesBerwick Tony PetersBox Hill Anita M WongBrimbank Cindy MelkshamCanning Vale Jay D McSweeneyCannington Communicators Andrew MartinChampion Colin Paul HallettChesterville Chatterers Dheeraj SachdevChesterville Chatterers Andrew StewartChesterville Chatterers Srinath NadadorCity of Perth Febbie KhoCoombes Rachel C LaneCoombes Hang Thu DoDoncaster Steven C Archer Doncaster Ken M McQualterDoncaster Alexander VittorisDoncaster Suwei NgEssendon Milan SadekFive-O-Five Irena BerdichevskyGateway Cynthia M Thom

CLUB NAME NEW MEMBER

Gateway Ying Jia TeohJetty Julie Leanne CooperJustalk Steven DavisonKalamunda Mark StankiewiczKalamunda Lindsay G GregoryKwinana Robert TwomeyLatrobe Valley Robert J MrzygloskiLatrobe Valley Maria R AntonuccioLaunceston Wayne Steven WilsonMoorabbin Saints Mark J BennettoNillimbik Barbara RaffaelliNorthern Exposure Darren A YoungPlain Speakers Kristofer J HindgePlain Speakers Julie M de JongRingwood Rachel JohnsonRingwood Christine CroweRising Stars Mark P PattersonSynergy Kevin MageeSynergy Timothy DickesonSynergy Simon SmithTalkabout Shaun LawrenceTea House Geoffrey P BurnsTelstra Exhibition Robyn MadsenThe Dynomos Ching W LeeThe Wafflers Megan A K HigsonWangaratta Peter Richard Gilmore





Congratulations...

The following people have achieved Educational Awards during the month of December.

Distinguished Toastmaster

Leonor Ragan UWAMax Warlond PostMasters

Competent LeaderJean Boladeras Canning Vale ToastmastersLionel Nicholas Business Talk Mark A. Richards Victoria Quay

Advanced Communicator GoldMax Warlond Elsternwick

Advanced Communicator BronzeManel Dayanie Fernando Business TalkDidy Pederick Adelaide HillsKerry L Rigby Ringwood Toastmasters

Competent CommunicatorKieren Arthur Adelaide CityDavid J. Bedford Morning Star ToastmastersRobert B. Drew GourmetAnne Howes Jetty ToastmastersPeter Law Victoria QuayEmma Lynch Mandjar SpeakersMarilyn Patricia Newby PostMastersNeville J. Simons Victoria QuayKerry Elizabeth Spoor BHP BillitonLee Syminton Victoria QuayVivian Zhao Monash



Documents

From The Editor’s Desk - Toastmasters Internationald73.toastmasters.org.au/southerncross/sc_1001.pdf · From The Editor’s Desk ... easily down loadable from the District web site)