Everyone’s a BuddY or a Mentor

During District 91’s recent Spring Conference our International President, Mike Storkey, gave a presentation on ‘Everyone is a Mentor’ and it seemed timely to share some of those thoughts.

Everyone is a BuddY.  At Excalibur we’ve been calling it BuddY as we look to members to ‘BuddY up’ together.  Principally it is the same as a Mentor programme, just organised a little less formally.   David West has been gently kicking this off for the past few months.  Do tell him you want to be a BuddY or a Mentor to someone.  Do tell him you want to be a BuddEE or a Mentee (ie Buddied by someone else).  Contact David West on: gonewesty@btinternet.com

There is so much value in both being a mentor and a mentee.  Everyone at every level needs a mentor and everyone at every level can be a mentor.  That means YOU. 

·         Who is a mentor?

o   Someone you trust

o   Someone you respect

o   Someone you can confide in

·         What is a mentor?

o   Someone who is knowledgeable

o   Will challenge you

o   An active listener

o   Empathetic

o   An effective evaluator

o   A role model

o   Someone who is never afraid of developing their mentee to exceed their own capabilities

·         What is a mentee?

o   Someone with a thirst for knowledge

o   A desire to improve

o   An ability to learn

o   Has goals

o   Accepts evaluation

·         Types of Mentors

o   New club member mentor

o   Member mentor

o   More advanced member mentor….good for Excalibur members

o   Leadership mentor

o   Specific skills mentor eg humour, evaluation or table topics …..good for Excalibur members

·         Benefits for Mentee

o   Support based

o   Information based

o   Being challenged

·         Benefits for Mentor

o   A new challenge

o   Being part of their Mentees success

o   Involvement

Don’t delay, sign up today.  Be a BuddY or a Mentor AND be a BuddEE or a Mentee.  You won’t regret it.  

Meeting Report 24th May 2017

What a warm meeting it was! Freddie Daniells called the meeting to order with his usual energy and handed over to the acting President Monika Swiderska.

Monika told us about us how she hoped to have some time free from her studies, but it never happened. She also used the quote from Woody Allen “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans” to highlight how challenging time management can be. Then, Monika greeted our guests and handed over to Odile Facih, who was our Toastmaster of the Night.

Odile introduced a theme of the night- meanings of names and a word of the day, which was “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, a truly challenging one! Our Toastmaster suggested that “superb” is an easier synonym, but as we are Excalibur, a club of excellence, and we like a challenge, we should try to use “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

Then, Odile introduced Prakash Patel, our Timekeeper, whose name comes from Sanskrit and means “bright light”.

Mustapha Hanafi, in Arabic “the chosen one”, was our Table Topics Master. He asked a variety of questions based loosely on transferable skills. Freddie Daniells told us what Disney character he would like to be and was evaluated by Irene. Then, Monika Swiderska was to think outside the box by answering (or not answering!) the question which celebrities she would like to invite for a dinner. She was evaluated by Hannah can der Deijl. Our guest Rhona told us about porridge in Tenerife and was evaluated by Tony Winyard. Adam explained why he would take a laptop, flipchart and pen to the island and was then evaluated by Marcin. David Lennon told us what a lovely child he was and got some comments from Chinkata Okpara. Finally, AJ explained why he is the best person to play in the movie. He was evaluated by Katja van Koten.

We heard 3 speeches this time. Our 1^st speaker was Tony Winyard who told us about his trip to Norway and how a snowbank saved him from falling off the cliff. It was project 1 from The Entertaining Speaker manual.

Our next speaker was Marcin Tolysz who gave his 1^st speech at Excalibur! Marcin was telling us about his experiences from Toastmaster conferences, trying to convince us that these events are brilliant. It was project 4 from Speaking to Inform manual.

Our last speaker was Brian Skelton, who was a very effective Bank Training Manager for the night. He was introducing us, bank employees, to Toastmasters and Persuaded with Power that we should all join the new club.

Irene Bradshaw gave Tony commendations on how effectively he achieved the objectives of his speech by telling us an entertaining personal story. She also liked his fluidity and the use of humour, especially the information about a town named Hell. However, she noted that Tony’s gestures were a bit tense and he tended to be static. She suggested he should use the stage more.

Hannah van der Deijl evaluated Marcin. She spotted that he owned the stage and was very confident. She also liked the information he presented. Her suggestions for improvements were to work on the structure to make it clearer, make sure that visual aids completely support the message and maybe focus on more technical information.

Katja van Koten commended Brian on his knowledge about Toastmasters and his credibility. She also felt that he was very passionate about this project and he sold the idea very effectively. Katja recommended that Brian could have used less information. She also suggested that he could pause more after asking questions.

Open feedback session was led by Chinkata Okpara. Our Toastmaster of the Night confessed that she couldn’t find the meaning of Chinkata’s name in Google, but there are 9 people in the world with this name.

The meeting was General Evaluated by the very efficient Andy O’Sullivan, Past Division B Governor, and current District Chief Judge.

The winners of the competition were: David Lennon for Best Table Topic, Tony Winyard for Best Speaker and Katja van Koten for Best Evaluator.

Monika then mentioned the dates to save in the calendars:

14^th June – Past Presidents meeting & 28^th June – the last meeting of TM year with a bit of a party! With hats!

Finally, we made our way to the corner pub!

Monthly Newsletter - May 2017

The 86th Annual Toastmasters International Convention Magazine Subscription Dates not to be missed

The 86th Annual Toastmasters International Convention

Featuring renowned speakers, incredible networking opportunities and more—all set against the backdrop of beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. You can book now and save $50 on registration with early bird pricing.  The District 91 International Champion, Excalibur’s own Simon Bucknall, will be competing for the third time at this level.  Why not book and go along and support him.  

https://www.toastmasters.org/Events/2017-International-Convention/Registration-options

Inspirational Speakers The Convention features an amazing line-up of inspirational speakers, highlighted by Delatorro McNeal II, who will deliver the keynote address. Plus, don't miss Freedom Writers Foundation founder and this year's Golden Gavel recipient, Erin Gruwell. https://www.toastmasters.org/events/2017-international-convention#Speakers

International Director Candidates  The Toastmasters International Leadership Committee is pleased to announce the 2017–2018 nominees for international director. Elections for regions 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13 will be held during the 2017 Annual Business Meeting this August in Vancouver, British Columbia.  (District 91 is in Region 11)

https://www.toastmasters.org/About/Board-of-Directors/International-Director-Candidates

Exhibitor and Sponsorship Opportunities Have you, or someone you know, written and published a book they'd like to promote? The 86th Annual Toastmasters International Convention is a terrific opportunity to share products with Toastmasters from all over the world. See the 2017 Exhibitor and Sponsorship Prospectus to learn more.

https://www.toastmasters.org/events/2017-international-convention/exhibitor-and-sponsorship

Magazine Subscriptions

Now that the Toastmaster magazine is online, you have instant access to timely educational content. Don't need the print edition? You can opt out of it, update your address and manage other preferences by logging in to your My Toastmasters profile.

https://www.toastmasters.org/my-toastmasters/profile/magazine-subscriptions

Dates not to be Missed

Excalibur Meetings 6.45pm for 7pm

o   Wed 24^th May – Standard meeting

o   Wed 14^th June – Past Presidents meeting – Do join us for this auspicious occasion

o   Wed 28^th June – Standard meeting – theme of Hats (for a bit of end of term fun!).   

• 
  

Meeting Summary 10th May

Marcin Tolysz, efficiently called the meeting to order, handing over to President, Lynne Cantor, who joined toastmasters 10 years ago today. Congratulations!

Lynne linked her introduction to recent presentations from international president Mike Storkey and focused on 'Step Up, Step Out and Seize the Opportunity'.  The two guests were then welcomed with a few more joining us throughout the evening.

Being election night Lynne handed over to the Chair of the Nominating Committee, Cat Kipling, who smoothly and professionally took us through proceedings. 

Its Double Dutch!!! With President Katja Van Koten and VPE Hannah Van Der Deijl.

Congratulations to all the 2017/18 Club Officers, some new, some returning.  From L to R back row: David West (automatically elected) as Buddying / Mentoring, Freddie Daniells as VPM, Chinkata Okpara as Treasurer, L to r front row: Paul Andrea as Secretary, Hannah Van Der Deijl as VPE, Brian Skelton as SaA, Katja Van Koten as President, Monika Swiderska as VPPPR, and Lynne Cantor (automatically elected) as Immediate Past President.

VPE and VPM were contested positions and voted on by the members. All others received 1 vote by the nominations secretary on the night, Lynne Cantor, in order to make the ejection official. 

Katja gave a short acceptance speech saying how much she was looking forward continuing the great work of the current committee. She joined Excalibur due to the wealth of knowledge within the club, the quality of the evaluations being received and in learning to give.  She congratulated the amazing and diverse new committee with both current and new members. With both her and Hannah being Dutch there was humour around keeping one foot firmly in the EU!! 

We very much look forward to Katja kicking off her year on Wednesday July 12th. 

Cat handed over to president elect Katja as ToastMaster. 

Hannah was our succinct Timekeeper. 

Returning member Lyn Roseaman was Table Topics Master with the theme of politics and elections. Member to be (he's handed in his form) Ian Brown, won best TT and David West who gave a recommendation on content won best TTE. 

The speakers, evaluators and topics were;- Bob Ferguson on issue based politics, evaluated (E) by Simon Cooper, Carol West on fake news E by Paul Andreas, Chinkata Okpara on my fake story, E by Mustspha Hanafi, Errol Williamson on ballots E by Irene Bradshaw, Marc Lottig on fiddling expenses E by David West and Ian Brown on annoying elections E by Anne Bingham. 

There were two speeches this week. The first by Lynne Cantor from the PR manual, speech 5, crisis management, based on a true story on ‘Rats at Asda’. 

Monika Swiderska did speech 3, the non-technical audience, from the technical presentations manual with the intriguing title 'What was the optimum pub crawl for my requirements’. 

Tony Winyard evaluated Lynne commenting on the fact that it was probably the Morris dancers that killed the rats!! (They were dancing and jingling their bells outside at the time).  

Prakash Patel did an admirable job giving feedback on Monika's speech. 

The open feedback was run by Brian Skelton who got plenty of CRC's in for both speakers within the time. 

Lynne closed the meeting with many thank you's and congratulations with a special mention to Andrew Bennett who joined us by FaceTime. 

Join us in two weeks for a standard meeting. An opportunity to practice TTE that are everything except delivery recommendations!  Lynne will be back on the 14^th June to see progress!!!

14th June is our Past Presidents meeting - does anyone have AV ability so we can link in Andrew more easily into the meeting? 

28th July will be the last meet of the TM year with a bit of a party. A few nibbles, a bit of bubbly and a theme HATS as our president elect loves them and always wears one, so come wearing yours. If you wish to bring some nibbles to share then please contact Cat.

Cat asked if anyone wanted to be Assistant Area Director during her term of office as area director starting  In July.  Please speak to her directly. 

Lynne closed the meeting requesting that everyone likes us on Facebook. Excalibur Advanced Speakers London.

Meeting closed.   See you all in two weeks.  J