nsb jan-feb2009
TRANSCRIPT
Club #619425, Area 73, Rivers Division, Region IV ✰ A President’s Distinguished Club ✰
The Nicollet Speech Builders meet every Thursday from noon to 1pm at the offi ces of PCL Construction Services in Burnsville, MN. Visit us on the web at: http://nicollet.freetoasthost.net
2008 – 2009 Offi cers
President Andrew Miller
VP of EducationJoe Fanska
VP of MembershipMark Reichenbach
VP of Public RelationsDawn Throener
SecretaryMark Bentfi eld
mjbentfi [email protected] 952-882-2517
TreasurerTerry Brickman
Sargent at ArmsBen Van Zee
[email protected] 952-469-4460
Looking Ahead:No Meeting
on the following day:New Year’s Day
January 1st
Club ContestMarch 21st
Speech Topics:Table Topics (1-2 minutes)
International Speech (5-7 minutes)
Area Speech ContestTentative Date:
Saturday, April 4
TELI Toastmasters Education & Leadership Institute
Saturday, February 14, 2009 DoubleTree Hotel Park Place
St. Louis Park, MN.
Need Help Putting Together a Toastmasters Meeting? Want to add some spice
to the routine?
Check out the 40-page
District 6 Club Programming
Idea Cookbookavailable for download
on the district website at www.d6tm.org/
It’s full of useful information and meeting themes
THE NICOLLET SPEECH BUILDER
January – February 2009 • Volume 2, Issue 1
Invite a Friend or Coworker to
Attend a Meeting!
Happy New Year Fellow Toastmasters! As you read this edition of the Nicol-let Speech Builder, the new year will be upon us. As always during this time of year, we hear about “New Year’s Resolu-tions” and many of us will formulate our goals or plans for next year. When think-ing about how you’re going to improve yourself this year, put Toastmasters on the list and stay focused on coming to meetings and giving manual presenta-tions. I recently fi nished a book (given to me by another Toastmaster at a Toast-masters meeting - you never know when a learning moment will happen) whose premise is to look at self improvement like compound interest. Concentrating on a little effort on a regular basis builds and builds upon itself or in other words the small steps accrue over time at a faster rate and are easier to accomplish than the occasional “big” step. So think about our weekly meetings as those small steps... You may not give a presentation or have a major role, but you will learn something, gain some ex-perience with Table Topics, hear a par-ticularly effective evaluation, or gain valuable information from someone’s presentation. But if you want to get to the end of the year and say to yourself, I’m
The Presidential Columnby Andrew Miller
continued on page 2
##C
lip and save!
Spotlight On...
Evelyn Genta
defi nitely a much-improved person, making those small steps by attending the weekly meetings will build like your savings account getting compounding in-terest. The changes maybe small in the beginning but over time, they grow and grow. Then when you add to your improve-ment and self-confi dence by giving pre-sentations or having a major role in the meeting, you get much more out of those roles. That is when the compound inter-est really starts paying dividends. Com-pound interest is so amazing a concept that it’s been called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” (Benjamin Franklin, Baron Rothschild, Bernard Baruch and Albert Einstein all have been given credit for this quote). I believe this concept is one of the powerful forces behind Toastmas-ters and why members, when they attend meetings regularly, make vast improve-ments in their communication skills and self confi dence. Think about how you can make it work for you. If you want to make a big deposit in that account of self-improvement, chal-lenge yourself to participate in the up-coming international speech contest. We will be having our club contest sometime in February and the details will be forth-coming. Now is the time to start working on your presentation and getting it pol-ished to perfection. If you have any ques-tions on the contests, think you might want to compete, or you would like to be involved with the meeting (there is a Leadership project in the CL *compe-tent leader* manual for this) please get in contact with myself or any of the leader-ship team. Lastly, we’ve been talking about some new ways to promote Nicollet Speech Builders and our members through social networking on the Internet. Joe Fanska has set up a group for NSB members at LinkedIn. We will be posting the link at our Website. If you are in the LinkedIn network, join the group and we maybe we can reach out to some prospective new members. So here’s to a great start to a great new year! Cheers!
DCP in a Nutshell:Distinguished Club Program
4 CC’s2 AC’s2 CL’s2 AL’s or DTM’s8 New MembersClub Dues on time twiceand other offi cers trained twice
continued from page 1
Birthday: December 18 • Residence: Farmington • Family: My husband Randy, one daughter, Amber Joy, son-in-law Kris and, of course, my one-year-old grand-daughter, Taimi. • Occupation: Full-time grandma. Retired from 30 years of being a “Gatekeeper, i.e. Secretary” - 13 years with U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, in Washington, D.C., 12 years with Cenex in Idaho, and short stints with Idaho State University and a regional hospital. • Years in TM: 9 • Groups In-volved with: Currently belong to Apple Valley Toastmasters; have belonged to Voice of Leadership; Big Apple; Community Spirit and Spokane Valley TM (Spokane, WA).
For this issue, Evelyn Genta is in the spotlight.
Tell us about yourself: I was a latecomer to Toastmasters but certainly could have benefi ted by it much sooner. Interestingly, in the mid-sixties, before women were allowed to join, a friend at work suggested that I come to a “Toast-mistress” meeting. I did not attend the meetings and I regret that. Had I known it was an underground meeting I would have been there with bells on! Life has shown me so many adventures. I was a part of the “Camelot” atmosphere in the sixties in D.C. Song writing was a hobby and I sang folksongs in the local estabularies in D.C. during this time. On a hot, August Wednesday, I found myself at the Lincoln memorial listening to what was to become the “I Have A Dream Speech.” Protests and rallies were so commonplace during the sixties. The signifi cance of Dr. King’s speech would become relevant after the march. At the time, however, I was just as interested in Bob Dylan, Joan Biaz, Peter, Paul and Mary. Music has always played a big part in my life. Music, especially guitar, has brought me a wide variety of friends, many of whom I still keep in touch. I enjoy reading and writing and political discussion. Having lived on the east coast, west coast and now in the middle, I consider myself fortunate to have been able to savor the different cultures and to get to know so many super people! When my husband retires, in a few years or less, we plan to return to the west to be close to our family.What goals have you set for this upcoming year? I achieved the second CL on December 16, 2008; Plan to complete the ATM-Gold by May 2009.
The Nicollet Speech BuilderProduced by: Dawn [email protected]
The March – April issue will be out by the end of February!will be out by the end of February!
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us
to get it right. ~Oprah Winfrey