Bite Size Knowledge

The basic in 2-Step Humor is, 1) to state some commonly accepted problem, frequently with a cliche, and 2) in the last word or two, change the expected ending to a surprise.   example:  People lose sleep over the stock market are lucky.  I lose money!

Helitzer, Comedy Writing Secrets
President's Notes
President's Meeting Reflection May12, 2010

Written by Laura Sun, VPE

Dear friends,

It was a miraculous night! I could still remember during last Excom meeting, we were still racking our brains to find some ways to attract more guests. But it's great to see today, our room was completely filled and all the seats were occupied . If I could describe my feelings about tonight by words,  they should be warm and familiar...just like what most of us used to experienced every Thursday five months ago- but even better, I shall say. I believe it is a marvelous achievement for any club that they could ever expect in their first five months. Thanks to our president, our officers and actually all CHICers, this achievement belongs to all of us!
When I sat here and enjoyed the all meeting, I cannot help to marvel at all these people:
Our new member Meco, our conscientious timer showed us an excellent time-controlling spirit-even though our GE Laura neglected the ring bell again, it seemed that she wanted to give us a typical example on a poor time management.
Our grammarian Zhao Peng, is also a new member. He gave a wonderful performance and made a self-improvement on confidence tonight. I believe he will become more natural and wild on stage in future. I've heard that his dream is to become a Hubert:)
Our Lawrence, Ah-counter of today, gave a very efficient report with structure and category--it's valuable because new members usually tend to go through all the details.
Our Vivian Deng, also a new member, was so brave and gave her ice-breaker speech this week! She gave a speech not only won the "love" from her evaluator Alpha, but also won her a "most improved award". And yes, we would like to know more about Vivian in future!
Hubert is Hubert, how could him always bring us laugh and touching moments together?
Our open-meeting Chair, Jonah, gave the most creative and lovely warm-up activity that I've seen in our club! I am thinking to invite Jonah to lead the cheer squad for our fall conference, if we could have a cheer squad.
Our Toastmaster Yucheng, a crazy fan of both Rock&Roll and Ancient Chinese study, gave us a great theme as "sayings of Confucious". And after the meeting, people start to talk about the "sayings of Yucheng"--that's an example of the influence from a great leadership.
To our Table topic master, I can feel that Loose did spend a lot of time and energy preparing his topics. All the questions are simple, interesting and picturesque-- even a timid person like I am want to have a try. It's a little pity that only 4 speakers joined the session due to time pressure.
Our lovely Susan, I love your joke. As a greeter, you made all the guests felt they're welcomed and important. You want what, there are 3 first time guests asked me how to join our club!
For the rest of speakers, Jennifer, Ashley, Ivy, Connie, Molly and Alpha, your improvement made me feel that I really came to a right place that everyone could made a progress and hand up their own record. I am happy to see that more and more members like Alpha broke the"walls" in their hearts, and urge themselves to become superior than what they were. Although we are still not perfect no matter how hard we are trying our best to improve, that's exactly what well connect us with each other together.
Everybody, see you next week!
Laura Sun
VPE of CHIC Toastmasters Club of Beijing
 
President's Reflection Apr28, 2010

I think we broke the record for guest-member ratio:  It is greater than 1.  And this is before the Bring-a-guest Campaign kicks off in May!  By unofficial count, Ashley won the prize for bringing 3 guests.  And the award is....a hug from Jennifer. 
It was an engaging, humorous, and light-hearted atmosphere throughout the meeting, thanks to the creative delivery of our Toastmaster Ashley!  A first time, and I had a terrific time!  Our first-time Grammarian Stella, with razor-sharp ears, did an outstanding job of catching good usage of words.  What great listening skills you have!  Jessie the timer: thanks for being firm but nice at the same time.  Ah-Counter Janet.  First, of all, welcome back.  We all missed you.  You performed this role so professionally in amazing detail.  Further congratulations to Luca, first-time greeter, Lynn, first-timer TT Master, and Leo, First time TT Evaluator.  I love seeing you trying new things, showing your courage and passion!  You make my week!
Carole: I always loved seeing you on stage;  Loose: Your body language is much better than your previous speech: more natural and instinctive. Caesar: A big improvement in delivery. For the members who weren't able to make it today, I'm sorry...I forgot to turn on the video-recorder. 
Terrific evaluations today.  I think it made a positive and lasting impact on the guests, as well as the speakers of course.  This format worked much better than I thought.  We will continue with this format, as it allows beginners to take on the role, and also the speakers and the audience can also hear a deeper feedback from a more experienced speaker.  I hope Lisa and Jennifer have found it a learning experience in the humorous story telling and observational humor session.  Continue to practice the delivery, and you'll be the Humorous Queens of Beijing.  And I hope everyone also find my 'CHIC' feedback to be helpful for the next time you put humor in your speech.
Finally, I want to congratulate the four prospective members:  Walkers, Meko, Susan, Zhao Peng.  After a lengthy discussion after the meeting, we have decided to opened the door happily and widely.  Everyone: please give them the warmest welcome at the next meeting.  For the four future members, remember when I said, "technically, the stage at Toastmasters isn't free"?  It's true.  Please see our treasurer for membership payment when you have a chance. 
Have a safe and enjoyable 5-1 holidays.  See you next week!
Hubert

President of CHIC Toastmasters Club of Beijing
 
President's Meeting Reflection Apr21, 2010

Dear friends
Tonight was a solemn occasion, as we pay our respect to the victims of the Yushu earthquake.  Even though we still had humor, it was quite toned down, especially for me.  It is only fitting that I use this time to encourage everyone to use the humor you learned at our club to make those around you smile.  Not only are there stress and anxiety and frustration in our lives, but also sadness and sorrow in the world.  The greatest gift that CHIC can give back is a smile in everyone's heart.
Vivian as our first-time Toastmaster is so professional and warm--quite fitting for the occasion.  Believe it or not, you have shown big improvements in your stage presence since you joined TM.  Jennifer: I concur with Connie's evaluation, that you have shown great strides in maturity and confidence as a speaker.  Bravo to our first-timers: Loose as Grammarian, Luca as the speaker at CHIC, and Meko, a prospective member who took the Ah-Counter role today.  Welcome back, Snow, we missed you.  Thanks to Jeff for preparing our badges:  They are so nice, that I plan to sleep with it tonight!
Our four new roles/sessions worked quite well:  Alpha opened the meeting, Jeff shared a humorous story about himself, Phil made fun of himself, and I was the CHIC evaluator.   These roles have successfully added more stage time and focused practice on humor.  I will continue as the CHIC evaluator for a few weeks and give feedback on how to improve humor writing and delivering skills. 
Yucheng was correct: the two new CHIC roles are too similar.  So, the new change is: "it happened to me" will be replaced by "Humor in Others" (funny things that happened around you, or to other people).   Good luck.  I'll be observing your improvements.  I am confident that the changes in these few weeks will make all of us CHICer

Hubert, President of CHIC Toastmasters Club of Beijing
 
President's Meeting Reflection Apr14, 2010
It was a pleasure to see everyone at the meeting.  I enjoyed your passion and your smiles.  And everytime I see you on stage, it just makes me smile to see how you're making progress.  Did everyone loved the celebration after the meeting as much as I did?  The cake was delicious for sure, but I hope that it also gave you sweet memories to last for a long time.  Congratulations to all the birthday girls who were born :).  And Congratulations to Lisa who achieved her CC/CL.

In the past 4 months, I have seen in many of you significant growth in the area of creativity, humor and imagination.  I'm glad that our club has provided the environment for you to be free and go beyond your comfort zone.  Now, I feel that it is time to take us to the next level of growth.  Now, I want all of us to have a more focused learning to communicate in a "CHIC" manner, and more importantly, not to forget the leadership part of Toastmasters.

In the coming weeks, we will have a few changes to the program.  Some redundancies will be removed;  there will be new roles to develop specific CHIC skills; there will be an improved evaluation format; 

Outside the meeting, I'm calling for a renewed focus on mentorship;  If members are interested in monthly weekend training, we can make that happen;  And the officers will be more proactive to call on you individually to help and contribute to the committees or to organize events. 

Let's light the fire and achieve together.  In fellowship, we can all leap to great heights!

Hubert
 
President's Meeting Reflection Apr7, 2010

Dear friends
This week has been tough for me.  I'm behind on my thesis, at the same time preparing for two speech contests, with the fall conference also on my mind, and of course, I was the Toastmaster today.  Needless to say, my mind wasn't as focused as it used to be, and the preparation for tonight wasn't as sharp as it could be.  I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to the meeting amid all the stress.  That terrible feeling continued until the meeting began, and immediately dissipated as we sang that marching song together.  I found that feeling of fellowship.  Your laughter, your smiles meant so much.  Thank you for the opportunity for me to make you laugh. 

Today's theme is strange.  It is new.  It is shocking to some.  Despite the fact that it wasn't smooth in many areas, I think it did accomplish one thing:  opened our eyes to the possibility of being creative with our meetings.  For future Toastmasters:  think differently to bring the fun factor into the meeting;  You're encouraged to try.  There is no failure here.

I want first to thank Bena to be the minutes writer today.  I will appreciate all the words in your meeting summary.  I want to thank Crystal and Connie for taking the unscheduled role today.  You did a terrific job.  And thanks to Cindy for coming even though she missed 1.5 hours of the meeting.  Great dedication.

And of course, I have to congratulate Lisa for becoming a CC.  Please give her a hug (not you, Caesar) when you see her.  And congratulate to our first-timers:  Ouyang for her ice-breaker speech (terrific, by the way!), Crystal for her TT evaluation, and Lawrence for counting the Ah's.  Leo and Panpan as the jokester.  Continue to take new steps so you can grow. 

Hoping for our brothers and sisters to come back:  Snow, Loose (my two mentees....哎), Janet.  Haven't seen you for a while.  I miss you.

Hubert Lin

President of CHIC Toastmasters Club of Beijing
 
More Articles...
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>

Page 9 of 12
Joomla SEF URLs by Artio
valid xhtml valid css