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CHIC interview report
September 3, 2010
By Meco
This time I am an impromptu reporter since no one confirmed that I was to be the reporter again. Thanks to Iris for her input in the after-speech interview through email. Unfortunately didn’t reach Charlie so all of us are going to miss the funny stories behind his “what ifs”. As a speaker for the night in the meantime it’s really convenient to interview myself – another unconventional CHIC move after Charlie evaluated himself!
Questions:
- What are the funny things during your preparation of your speech?
- Tell us how you feel about your evaluations.
Iris:
During the preparation of my first speech, I could feel that interesting ideas coming out all the time. I tried to put as much CHIC elements as I can into the speech. Thanks to the funny things we had experienced together, it's really an easy and delightful job as long as using your imagination fully. What's more, the conversation between the Tanzanian gentleman and I is true, and it has enlightened MORE THAN TEN of my friends (who are as single as me, obviously)! And many thanks to Jonah, who helped me a lot during my preparation (He helped me to translate "小三儿" as "Third Senior", which is really creative, but I finally gave it up for I believed nobody could understand what I meant by "Third Senior", haha!)
I like the "group evaluation" idea! It drives every CHICer to speak out their personal ideas and comments on the prepared speeches, not just write them down (I believe "writing" is not the CHICer way, let's talk!) And I really want to give my thanks to all members of group 1 and 4 who evaluated me last night. Thanks for your sincere encouragement as well as inspiring advice! It really helps me a lot to strengthen self-confidence, as well as to discover my shortcomings for further improvements. And I want to especially thank Luca, who sent me his personal comments & advice to me by email after the meeting. The evaluation is one of the best part of CHIC & TM!
Meco:
The funny thing to me was I hopped from topic to topic trying to find the one I would feel comfortable to speak about. These ranges from men and women relationships, whether to keep pets and how music can do magic. I just couldn’t make up my mind so wrote 3 scripts on each of the topic. Only one day before speaking I eventually decided on the men and women relationships , since somehow felt the other 2 topics were childish, or rather what I wrote was. Not an easy journey, but glad I did it.
In addition to the laughter I received during speech (which I think is the best reward for a CHIC speaker), I really appreciate the evaluators comments. They point out my strong and weak points which will help me grow. The group evaluation worked well as a first time innovation and I want to thank the representative evaluators. Snow I totally agree with your team and will try to make more inspiring speeches. Thanks Jeff for confirming me what I did well, your comment is very encouraging and motivating. Luca, really appreciate your comment, which did away my wonder “Is the audience interested in what I said” and your advice always drives the nail on the head. Thanks to all of you, and all of you who laughed and applauded, this is the best music to me.
Notes from the reporter: Next time we will try to talk more to other role takers, guests and audience. We encourage you to come to us too, tell us whatever you think of the meeting, speeches, performances, jokes, evaluations etc etc. Especially when you didn’t speak in the meeting, here is the last chance for you to share your thoughts about the meeting and potentially get published on our website! Come on CHICers, let’s make it together.
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CHIC English Humorous Speech Contest - Insider notes from CHIC reporter
Reporter: Meco
Four brave souls eventually embraced the challenges to compete for the most humorous CHICer on Wednesday August 25, 2010. After enjoying good laughter that night, the audience must be keen to know their non-disclosed feelings about the contest. This is one purpose we do the interview – witness their courage and learn from them.
Two questions were asked: 1. What was the biggest challenge you had when preparing for the contest? 2. What advice would you give to people who didn’t participate the contest? Let’s see what they shared in our first ever CHIC interviews.
Jessie: The biggest challenge for me was choosing a suitable topic. My advice for non-contestants: this is a good chance to accumulate experience. It is just like doing one more project. Grasp it.
Luca: The biggest challenge was preparing for the contest while I was on holiday around China! I was traveling with some friends and I could draft and rehearse my speech only during dead time like on bus or airplane. People often saw me speaking and laughing alone.
I think that the difficulties in preparing the speech and the tension in participating were well worth. I feel I have passed a mile stone with this contest, even if I wouldn't have won, because I challenged myself in many ways.
Janet: Insist! (Due to time constraint only asked Janet the second question, her answer was brief but powerful)
Lisa: My biggest challenge was I had too many funny details to share in this one story but I had to cut many down to fit in the required time. Before I talk I also worried “what if people don’t laugh?” But then I said to myself, just carry on and make it an inspiring speech instead!
My advice: don’t care so much about the result, just share your story no matter it is humorous or not.
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Every time we deliver a speech, that is an opportunity to improve ourselves, as we try something new, explore different ways of doing things, in order to uncover powerful techniques that you had never believed would work for you. It is a chance to put the theoretical into practice, so we can verify first hand the advice given by experts or textbooks, or even the Toastmaster Manuals. It is my hope that all of us at CHIC can embrace this mentality with every precious stage time given to us.
For me, delivering a Mandarin speech is quite special: I could put myself in most of your shoes, because I’d be speaking in a second language. I would be able to experience what you experienced, from the difficulty of speech writing, to rehearsal, and all the overwhelming emotions during the delivery. I hoped that through this experience, I could verify how much of the speech technique is translatable across different languages and culture, and whether the language gap is an obstacle that is worthy of our worries. We just had our Mandarin Humorous Speech contest this past Wednesday. There were four techniques I wanted to test out:
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Dear friends.
Today, we met Mr. Chaos. Whatever could have gone wrong did go wrong. All the SAA items (timer tools, evaluation kits, ribbons, camera stand) were all trapped in my car's trunk, and my car was trapped in a 4S shop. Add to that, the introduction of one of the major change in our meeting--the team evaluation session--which was complicated by the silly president who first gave confusing and useless directions. But then came the team to save the day! Timer Luca improvised with creative, but barely noticeable timer cards, and controlled the entire meeting's timing to make up for the time-consuming and useless direction from the president. And came Molly, who made the instructions much clearer for the audience to lead us into the evaluation team.
I want to congratulate Molly for being our TM for the very first time. Finally putting your talents and skills to work! Now I remember why I insisted on you joining CHIC as one of the founding member. Took you 9 long months to fulfill your promises. I guess we can blame it on your bad eye-sight. Congratulations to Gale for taking the first official role at our club. Continue to prepare your every role to be best of your abilities. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Of course, congratulations to our ice-breakers, Charlie and Iris. It only took you a few meetings to have Jonah's sense of humor rub off on you. One is a pure woman, the other is a pure fitter man.
I know the evaluation session didn't go smoothly. I didn't expect the first shot to be perfect. But I thoroughly enjoyed the lively discussion within each team. In my team, we had the guests to contribute their feelings about the speeches. And the more senior members were able to add onto the insights and coach the less experienced members. It was truly a team effort that engaged everyone--including Vicky :). I believe this is a terrific value for all the members of the audience. For those of you who didn't come tonight, don't miss out again. We will hold this format for the month of September.
In last week's reflection, I was a bit intense and serious. I'm a bit moody nowadays. I have hormonal imbalance in addition to my mad-cow. But today, I'm in a better mood. Even after receiving the Junior Achievement newsletter in my email box--some of you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, I'll forward it to you one day. All in all, a successful roller coaster ride tonight. See you next week.
Hubert
President of CHIC Toastmasters Club Beijing |
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First, there were ten, and then there were seven. Finally, only four remained: the final four of the Humorous Speech Contest on Wednesday. As the contest organizer, I was in the thick of the process of role confirmation. It was quite disheartening seeing each contestant dropping out, one by one. My heart sank deeper with each cancellation. I didn’t know how many would remain—because earlier confirmations still canceled at the very last minute. This reflection is a day late, because I needed time to reconcile my conflicting feelings, and make sense of what my priorities are, and what I envision for you, my fellow members.
If you look back on the previous contest six months ago, you would remember a slightly different me. Back then, the contest participation rate was 50-100% higher, even though the membership was lower. I was quite driven, bordering on obsessive-compulsive and spent more time persuading you, challenging you to join the competition, because I believed, as I still do today, that when you compete, you maximize your learning and deepen your commitment to the club. Then why wasn’t I as persistent this time around? What has changed?
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members come from different backgrounds, jobs and companies in Beijing, and all cities in China, but have one thing in common: We work together to improve our public speaking and leadership skills, and to help others do the same. That will help you with a promotion, close sales, and get more dates. More importantly, you will connect better with others, make a positive impact to them, and our society. The spirit of our Toastmasters club is "Celebrate Fellowship, Go Beyond Ourselves" (No, we do not have out-of-body experiences.) So, you will find in our meetings:
