We encourage visitors to come this week and next to be an audience for our club speech contests.
Tomorrow we will have a Table Topics Contest in which each contestant will be given a topic when they enter the room. They will then speak extemporaneously (without preparation) for 1-2 minutes on that topic.
Next week (Aug 26) we will have a Humorous Speech contest. Contestants will deliver a prepared 5-7 minute speech.
Winners will advance to the Area contest, held in early September at a location to be named (watch this space).
Come and be part of the fun. Picture yourself as a contestant.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Farewell, we hardly knew ye
We just elected Mark Gleason to the post of President and now he's gone. Sometimes that's what it takes to jar things loose in our lives. We wish Mark well in his new employment and move to the Athens area. At the same time we think ahead to a special election to fill the gap.
The theme at this morning's meeting was "Revolutionary Road" chosen by Toastmaster Anamika Lodh. Table topics selected by Erik Jul used the theme and a related one from a Pete Seeger song, "Turn, Turn, Turn." We saw clearly that revolution (sometimes called change) is a recurring theme in our lives. This brought to mind Teresa Hedlund's speech last week (Change: a Curve In The Road) and her statement that change won't hurt unless we miss the curve.
The new executive board (with room for a new policy maker) wants to bring some change to you. No sharp curves--just a few gentle bends. Primarily we want to become (even) more friendly to visitors with more transparency concerning how we will meet their expectations. We think transparency (also known as communication) is the best policy and we will be working hard to have ready answers for all questions. We'd like to eliminate anything we do that might discourage a visitor (even to the web site) from becoming a member and eventually a Distinguished Toastmaster or a World Champion Speaker.
Join our gentle revolution.
The theme at this morning's meeting was "Revolutionary Road" chosen by Toastmaster Anamika Lodh. Table topics selected by Erik Jul used the theme and a related one from a Pete Seeger song, "Turn, Turn, Turn." We saw clearly that revolution (sometimes called change) is a recurring theme in our lives. This brought to mind Teresa Hedlund's speech last week (Change: a Curve In The Road) and her statement that change won't hurt unless we miss the curve.
The new executive board (with room for a new policy maker) wants to bring some change to you. No sharp curves--just a few gentle bends. Primarily we want to become (even) more friendly to visitors with more transparency concerning how we will meet their expectations. We think transparency (also known as communication) is the best policy and we will be working hard to have ready answers for all questions. We'd like to eliminate anything we do that might discourage a visitor (even to the web site) from becoming a member and eventually a Distinguished Toastmaster or a World Champion Speaker.
Join our gentle revolution.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Club Picnic 2011
Our annual club picnic was held on Saturday, June 25th at Teresa's house. We had a wonderful time and Teresa (at left below) was a most gracious hostess, with Vallery doing an outstanding job of organizing. The untiring efforts of both of them certainly assured a successful event. As you can see (below center) there were lots of smiles going 'round, and (below right) Erik was his usual eloquent self.
One part of the festivity was a Toast & Roast. Chris Quinn, our departing club President was the target of the first, much to the amusement of all. To his credit, he had at least as many Toasts as Roasts. Yours truly (me) was on the receiving end of the other. It was all in good fun. The accolades sent my way were rewarding and produced some 'warm and fuzzy' moments for me. I certainly appreciated the comments and the 'gold star' award I received for the 'Web Page Hall of Fame'. My thanks go out to everyone with a short bit of advice I've read many times in the last few months: "do what you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life". I'm just havin' FUN!
s'nuff fer now.
s
s'nuff fer now.
s
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Blog Change, TI Web Site Changes, and Other Tidbits
First of all, I've moved the Follow button that's on the right side of the screen to just down below the picture of the club awards. It just seemed to me a better place for it. The big change though, is that I've picked a new layout from the supplied templates. It allows for more text on a wider screen. I'd like to change the background photo, but for now, it is what it is. Let me know what you think.
Now, more importantly, there are changes on the TI web site. Click on this link to go to the TI web page that has tutorials on these changes. This is important for new club officers, as it will show how to use the tools that TI provides on the web for:
Submitting member dues and applications
Viewing/updating/printing officer information
Updating the club mailing address
Applying for educational awards for club members
Remember all, that there's a great TM resource out there, the monthly TI Podcast (click here). There's some great stuff out there. See last month's session for an interview with Robin Sharma, author of The Leader Who Had No Title, and The Monk Who Sold His Farrari.
Now, more importantly, there are changes on the TI web site. Click on this link to go to the TI web page that has tutorials on these changes. This is important for new club officers, as it will show how to use the tools that TI provides on the web for:
Submitting member dues and applications
Viewing/updating/printing officer information
Updating the club mailing address
Applying for educational awards for club members
Remember all, that there's a great TM resource out there, the monthly TI Podcast (click here). There's some great stuff out there. See last month's session for an interview with Robin Sharma, author of The Leader Who Had No Title, and The Monk Who Sold His Farrari.
Monday, June 20, 2011
The Elusive "Follow" Button
The Follow button is supposed to appear on the blue Navbar across the top of the screen between the blogger search entry frame and the share button. It doesn't always. However, when I add the gadget to Share by Email (meaning you want to get an automatic email when there's a posting) to the top of the right side links, it suddenly does appear. If I remove the gadget... it then disappears again. It's the blogger software that's at fault there. Their support web site shows several requests for help in this area... none of which have been adequately answered yet.
So go ahead now. you should be able to follow using this button. You enter your email address and click on Submit and it sends you a confirmatory email which you have to respond to for it to be set.
s
So go ahead now. you should be able to follow using this button. You enter your email address and click on Submit and it sends you a confirmatory email which you have to respond to for it to be set.
s
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Still More Inquiries...
A google search for "Toastmasters Columbus OH" and "Toastmasters Central OH" both returned the Franklin Club as the first choice. The search "Toastmasters Franklin Co OH" brought us in as number sixteen, far down on the second page. A little more research shows that there's been a lot of web inquiries about the club... fourteen since the beginning of the year (all originating from our web site "Contact Us" page). That's fourteen in twenty-nine weeks... an average of one every two weeks. It sounds pretty good to me, how about you?
I find myself wondering... why all these inquiries? Is it that we meet in the morning and that's when a lot of people want to meet? Perhaps it's word of mouth" advertising? Another one just came in. I get a copy of all of them, since I designed the form and felt I needed to know how well it was being used. The form addresses the inquiry to the club President with myself (as Webmaster), the VPE, and the VPM as CC addressees. The problem I have is that I want to answer them all, and I know I shouldn't, that's not my job. But it's soooooooo tempting! I just want to DO IT! Allatime!
Some more research is warranted. OK, I signed us up to use Google Analytics a long time ago. I've been getting weekly reports but pretty much just file and forget. Let's visit the site....
Since January first we've had 1,112 visits to our web site. I wish we could exclude our own members but either we can't or I just don't know how to do it. Almost thirty seven percent of those were NEW visits. That comes to 410 new visitors. That's 169 days... an average of 2.42 new visitors each day. We've had a 33% bounce rate. This means of those 1,112 visitors, 366 leave the site without looking any further, and that 746 of the new visitors go from our home page to other pages inside. That means about 4.4 NEW users each day research more on our web site than just the home page. The average time on site is 2:16 minutes. To me... in the online world, that's a LOT of time. Unfortunately, 74% of the visits were of a minute or less (meaning only 288 stayed for a minute or more). There's an average of 2.69 pageviews for each of these visits.
I think one of the most telling statistics is that of 462 "Absolute Unique" visitors. At this time we have 33 members. We weren't always at that number. Even if we were, that means there were 429 NON MEMBERS that visited our web site since the first of January. I'm not an Internet or a marketing guru, but that seems impressive to me (remember, this is not a commercial site). Wow! there were 18 different languages used in these visits. Some 413 viewers only visited the site once, meaning that 699 people came back more than once.
Well, that's a lot of numbers. I've been called a "quant jock" (one that love measuring things) before. How should they be interpreted. Dunno. But it's interesting.
I find myself wondering... why all these inquiries? Is it that we meet in the morning and that's when a lot of people want to meet? Perhaps it's word of mouth" advertising? Another one just came in. I get a copy of all of them, since I designed the form and felt I needed to know how well it was being used. The form addresses the inquiry to the club President with myself (as Webmaster), the VPE, and the VPM as CC addressees. The problem I have is that I want to answer them all, and I know I shouldn't, that's not my job. But it's soooooooo tempting! I just want to DO IT! Allatime!
Some more research is warranted. OK, I signed us up to use Google Analytics a long time ago. I've been getting weekly reports but pretty much just file and forget. Let's visit the site....
Since January first we've had 1,112 visits to our web site. I wish we could exclude our own members but either we can't or I just don't know how to do it. Almost thirty seven percent of those were NEW visits. That comes to 410 new visitors. That's 169 days... an average of 2.42 new visitors each day. We've had a 33% bounce rate. This means of those 1,112 visitors, 366 leave the site without looking any further, and that 746 of the new visitors go from our home page to other pages inside. That means about 4.4 NEW users each day research more on our web site than just the home page. The average time on site is 2:16 minutes. To me... in the online world, that's a LOT of time. Unfortunately, 74% of the visits were of a minute or less (meaning only 288 stayed for a minute or more). There's an average of 2.69 pageviews for each of these visits.
I think one of the most telling statistics is that of 462 "Absolute Unique" visitors. At this time we have 33 members. We weren't always at that number. Even if we were, that means there were 429 NON MEMBERS that visited our web site since the first of January. I'm not an Internet or a marketing guru, but that seems impressive to me (remember, this is not a commercial site). Wow! there were 18 different languages used in these visits. Some 413 viewers only visited the site once, meaning that 699 people came back more than once.
Well, that's a lot of numbers. I've been called a "quant jock" (one that love measuring things) before. How should they be interpreted. Dunno. But it's interesting.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Darren LaCroix Videos
We've all heard of Darren. Some of us have been fortunate enough to see him in person. I even jumped up to let him evaluate me when he was here in Columbus recently. Wow, talk about deflating! No, not really, more like... enlightening! PLUS, I got a free video CD from him (lucky me).
However, the point of this is... go to Youtube and find some of his videos. Brilliant, just brilliant. There's a funny one at:
Go ahead, check it out. His winning speech at the International Convention in 2001 can be seen at:
However, the point of this is... go to Youtube and find some of his videos. Brilliant, just brilliant. There's a funny one at:
Go ahead, check it out. His winning speech at the International Convention in 2001 can be seen at:
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Incoming Secretary Has Voice
The idea of having or finding your voice is infused with power. Once we claim our voice, we become confident and assertive. We are able to affect our environment in positive ways.
Those who know the difference must be the difference.
Come with us this year as we work to help each member and prospective member find their voice.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
New Authors
Just opened the blog up to postings from incoming club officers for 2011 TM year. Welcome aboard folks! I'm looking forward to your contributions. We've got to promote this to our members... get them to be 'followers' (at least I think that's what they call it when someone gets automatic notifications of postings).
s
s
Monday, June 13, 2011
The King's Speech
On Saturday night I watched the movie The King's Speech (click here for a Google search on it). A wonderful movie, one I think should be way up on the list of movies to see for all Toastmasters. If I were to pick the one phrase from it that is the most important, I'd say it was the scene where Bertie (the King) is in an argument with Lionel (which Lionel, the teacher deliberately started) finally blurts I have a VOICE. It's at that point that he realizes that he can overcome his stuttering. That phrase is one that is important to all new Toastmasters. We don't all have the same problem Bertie did, but we all come into the game to develop our voice. True, some have it and know it before hand, but some don't. The confidence and speaking skills that come from internalizing that idea is the what the Toastmasters journey is all about. Remember, success is a journey, not a destination.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)