Dear Fellow Toastmaster!

Taking what we’ve learned from our fellow Toastmasters, we’re applying new pedagogical approaches for a successful back-to-school season.

🚨 Never miss an update!

📣 GGTM Club Announcements from our monthly meeting

Wednesday Meeting Revamp 🚨

We’ve kicked off a project to make our club meetings even better! We’re encouraging socialization (with snacks!) during our Wednesday meetings while not compromising our speaking time! Our applicable role guides and meeting agenda templates have been updated to reflect the changes. Please help us out by giving our guests a warm welcome and keeping an eye on the clock during your role.

Sunsetting Yoodli 🌇

We are currently exploring a new videographer tool because we’re losing Yoodli. We’ve already downloaded and saved the bulk of the videos from our most common videographers. We hope you downloaded your videos already if you wanted them.

YouTube for GGTM 📹

We introduced the YouTube for GGTM initiative. Where you can upload your unlisted videos in a GGTM playlist so you can access your speeches anywhere you want.

This is not mandatory and completely optional! Here are more details and FAQs about this initiative and please reach out to Omar and Sheila or email [email protected] with any questions or comments. Members, refer to the email that Omar sent on 08/08 to confirm your participation preference.

📆 Upcoming Events

Full list in GGTM Calendar!

[Speaking] The Moth: GUMPTION

Tuesday, August 26⋅7:30 – 10:00pm

The Moth StorySLAM is an open-mic storytelling competition in which anyone can share a true, personal, 5-minute story on the night's theme. Sign up for a chance to tell a story or sit back and enjoy the show!

📈 August 6th Meeting Highlights

Kyle was our Toastmaster for the evening, guiding us through a fun “Back to school” theme! Even though it was an abridged meeting, our speakers and evaluators still delivered amazing speeches to our 33 attendees (13 guests).

Thank you for our functionaries who helped make this a success: Scott, Angela, Nik, Tanya, Omar and Shubham.

Our evening was filled with travel tales, as we heard about two very different trips.

• ✈️ Valeriy spoke about his Summer 2022 family trip and how he learned to be more considerate of travel planning after their multi-city journey and redeeming ~1.5 million travel points (🏆 Best Prepared Speech🏆).

• ☕️ Michelle, who gave her ice breaker last week, continued her tale, sharing how packing a first-aid kit earned her a glorious shower while on her Ethiopian trip.

Angela led us through our “Back to School” table topics session, where we heard stories about what subject we’d teach to our most embarrassing school day. Alex Williams shared what her school friends would say about her and advised her younger self to take advantage of all the opportunities, earning her 🏆 Best Table Topic 🏆.

• Thank you to our members and guests who spoke impromptu: Oisin, Alex L., Albert, Divit, and Maz 🎤

Shubham, our general evaluator, closed out the meeting with a series of evaluations and reports, starting with Harris’s evaluation of Valeriy and followed by Helen’s evaluation of Michelle.

Harris won the 🏆 Best Evaluator 🏆 for highlighted Valeriy’s confidence, stage presence, and humor. Meanwhile, Helen commended Michelle for her strong engagement with the audience and the natural connection of her speech to Valeriy’s.

📚 Evaluation Tidbits📚

• Pause for effect. Add some inflection to make what you’re saying shine.

• Ditching the notes and memorizing your speech can significantly improve your eye contact and pacing.

• Try not to clasp your hands. It can feel like a barrier between you and the audience.

💗 Quotes of the Night 💗

“That shower wasn’t just hot, it was glorious. It washed off the dust, lava shards and the fear/anxiety of what I had just seen. Ladies, eat before you move!”
- Michelle on her “How I earned my shower in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa” speech

“The only thing that got me going was that I had to put down everything I thought I knew. And start from the fundamentals. From the bottom up. And if I do that, there’s nowhere I can’t reach.”
- Albert on his “One lesson from school that you still use today” Table Topic

“Pause for effect. Add some inflection to make what you’re saying shine.”
- Harris during his evaluation of Valeriy

🎉 Be part of the GGTM Newsletter! 🎉

Want to write a future issue or have something that you want featured with the club? Send a message to the #newsletter channel in Discord or let Omar or Sheila know!