Before I got into details, I asked him to check with his host organization on the corporate communications or public relations policy. This was because his club is a in-house club under a host organization.

Most host organizations, especially companies, have strict policies to protect the company image or branding. The Toastmasters Clubs under the organizations also have to observe these policies on top of the Toastmasters policies.

Over the years, I had seen Toastmasters Clubs being shut down by the host organizations, partly because of the policy issues. But on the positive note, some host organizations provide free web hosting for its affiliated Toastmasters Club, either in the public or intranet domain.

Community Clubs have more options on setting up a club website, and many of such options are free.

The first one is the freetoasthoast (http://www.freetoasthost.org/) -> the official one recommended by Toastmasters International.

I personally have not used it myself, but I know there are many clubs using it. I had checked with some of the users, and in general, the feedback is most likely positive as such.
1. easy to use
2. the template is there with most of the Toastmasters publicity material

Personally, I have observed the only set back: the club website will look like most other clubs’ websites. It is not easily to stand out.

I have known other free options as follows:
1. Blogspot or Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/)
2. http://www.wordpress.com
3. http://www.webs.com

The setback for these options, is other than blogspot, the other 2 will put ads to on the website.

Of course, there are some clubs prefer to have their website with paid hosting services, and this shall be discussed in the future posts.

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During a Toastmasters Meeting, I was guiding a first time evaluator to evaluate a Project 2 Speech on Organize Your Speech. The speaker was young beautiful lady.

I started by guiding by asking, “What do you think of her introduction?”

“What do you think of her conclusion?”

And lastly, I asked, “What do you think of her BODY?”

At this point, a senior Toastmaster cautioned me, “Hi, mind your wordings, it is her speech body, not her body!”

In this situation, it clearly demonstrated the importance of being careful in our wordings. A missing word could have a completely different meaning and lead to embarrassing situation.

Imagine, the evaluator, standing in front of everyone, commented, “You have an interesting body.”

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These are some of the common questions being asked, during Toastmasters Club Speechcraft sessions or Demonstration Meetings. Toastmasters have changed my life for the better in many ways. This is one of the stories which I shared during such events.

One of tasks as an engineering student in the polytechnic, we needed to complete an engineering final year project. Towards the end of my polytechnics days, a close friend doing computer science visited me in the polytechnic.

I was very excited showing him the polytechnic, and of course, my proud final year project.

This close friend was impressed by the technical wonders which we had put into our project. And he believed that the project would score well. Out of interest, he asked what else to be done to the project.

I told all we need to do was to give a presentation to the lecturers.

As my close friend, he was frank with me. He gave me this advice, “Let my project partner do all the presentation works.”

This friend had never seen my project partner, and not even heard him speak. He gave me this advice, but he knew me very well. He knew so well that he knew, my presentation was so bad that almost anybody could do a better job in giving the presentation.

I did not feel anything wrong with my bad presentation then.

Years had passed. As I stepped into the working life, I realized how bad my presentation had affected me in my life. I had difficulty presenting my ideas.

After I joined a Toastmasters Club, I was given a positive environment to improve my presentation skill. On the process, I also gained confident about myself.

Without joining Toastmasters Club, I do not think I am able to give this presentation on “How Toastmasters have changed my life?”.

Toastmasters had changed my life, for the better.

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When I first started to judge in Speech Contest, I always tally my placing with the result. If my placing is close to the result, I would feel proud of my judgment. However, if my placing is way off the result, I would question my judgment. Is there any problem with my judgment?

As years go by, I had taken up the role judge and chief judge for many speech contests ranging from Club, Area, Division and up to District levels. I have the opportunities to observe and analyze many competitive speeches. I also have the opportunities to observe other many other judges’ placing when I was the chief judge. I had noticed how varied the judges had put their placing.

These experiences had given me a new perspective on Speech Contest judging. Toastmasters International has a clearly defined listing of judging criteria for speech contests. In International Speech Contest, Speech Content carries the heaviest allocation, followed by Delivery and Language used.

Every judge votes to the best of their ability to eliminate biasness, perception. However, there are many factors which contribute on how a judge places their points. These factors include the judge’s background, preference and knowledge. The contest rule book also further defined the minimum number of judges at different level to minimize the biasness of the judges.

I learned that, how difference people judge contest speeches despite of the clearly defined judging criteria. The most important is that, we did our best as putting our past perception away, and judge as objective as we can.

During my most recent speech contest judging, only one out of my three placing was placed. In fact, I already guessed how other judges had placed their votes. I had voted as objectively as I can, just like the other judges in the contest. The main thing was, we had different perspective which differed in the way we judged.

What matter most was not how close was our placing with the placing, but how we had put our votes. We judged the Speech Contests to the best of our ability; the result would up the majority votes.

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A common confusion faced by most incoming Area Governors is that, the newly elected Division Governor would task them to contact the clubs served by them, asking them to submit the club officer listings. They are confused, because, officially, their term will be starting in 1st July. They are unsure if this should come under their duties or the job of the current term Area Governors.

Some of the incoming Area Governors are also currently serving their term as club officers. They still have the final month to clear their club officers’ responsibilities and to push for the club goals.

As a result, the Area Governors are confused.

When I took up the role as an Area Governor in June, the first tasks given to my by my Division Governor-Elect was to ask the clubs to submit the club officers list. Years later, when I was elected as Division Governor, the first thing I have asked my incoming Area Governors to ask the clubs for club officer list submission.

We have good reasons why it is so as follows:
1. The ½ DCP goal will go to the new term.
2. A chance for the incoming Area Governors to get to know the club officers within the Area.

Understanding this would clear the part of the confusion. The other confusion is to get the club officers listing submission done and to finish the unfinished work as current term officers.

This is part of the training as Area Governor, to plan, organize and manage the tasks. I would recommend that the Area Governors to set priority on the current officers work and focus to get it done before the deadline.

This, however, does not mean to completely put the club officers submission aside. The clubs have to submit the listing by 30 June to get the ½ DCP goal.

The tick to perform this is NOT to rush but to have a plan to do so systematically. The plan to do so is first drop an e-mail to remind the outgoing Presidents to do so and monitor the submission. Toastmasters International will post the submission in the report site. Around 15th June, e-mail and send SMS messages to remind those, who have not submit, to do so. Last week of June, call the outgoing club presidents to submit, if they have not done so.

Taking up the Area Governor is a challenging and yet rewarding experience. Although it can be confusing initially, it is a great learning experience if understand reasons behind the task and the way to complete the task. Through this experience, we learn to plan, organize and manage the tasks.

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Nowadays, Toastmasters Clubs in Singapore are dropping General Evaluation from the program. Many think that Language Evaluation is more important than General Evaluation. The members think that they learn the most from the Language Evaluation.

I think differently. I learn much more from the General Evaluator than the Language Evaluator. When we take up appointment in a Club meeting, we would wonder how well we had done and what the areas we can improve on. The General Evaluator filled in this gap. Furthermore, members also benefit from the General Evaluations. They can learn what to take note of if they were to take up meeting appointments. In fact, I had collected so many tips from General Evaluators before I first took up the role of Toastmaster of the Evening. These tips had helped me not to sound like it was my first time doing it. And from the General Evaluators, I learn how to improve my Project Evaluation.

The Club also benefit from the General Evaluators. The Club can improve future meetings using the suggestions from the General Evaluators. This in term will also help to raise the standard of the Club and soon helps the club to recruit more members.

General Evaluation is one of the key factors for the magic of Toastmasters. It would be sad that if it is completely removed from meetings in Singapore. I am glad that I took up the General Evaluation for that meeting. Because I know, I had shared the learning points through my observations during the meeting. And through the sharing, I not only reminded myself on the lessons and also learned from others on how to be an appointment holder.

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