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How We Appreciate Our Guests at Tarpon Talkers

By on Monday, September 13th, 2010 | 1 Comment

Kim Kerbs and Elan Chalford worked out a message to send guests by email. This represents out club. All the members of Tarpon Talkers can read it and see how it fits the spirit of out club.

Dear [name],
We enjoyed your recent visit to our Tarpon Talkers Toastmaster Club meeting.  We hope you found the experience interesting and fun. We certainly appreciated the energy you bring to the meeting.

The Toastmasters program of training in public speaking and leadership is completely adaptable to your goals and needs. Every member of our club would like to help you develop your public speaking and leadership potential.

As a reminder,  We meet every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 6:30 in the evening. Our meeting room is the Kappa Building on the St Pete College campus in Tarpon Springs on Klosterman Road..  You are welcome to visit any future meeting as a guest.

You may consider joining us as a member on your own time table. We are ready to pitch in and set you up for success.

If you wish to call an active member for more information, try Elan Chalford at 938-1417. Or, email Elan by chalford@earthlink.net,
Kim by kkerbs@tampabay.rr.com,
Loretta by lobuckner@gmail.com.

Again, thank you for sharing your time with us. We hope to see you again.

Kim Kerbs, Secretary

*************************************************
At our last meeting our newest member, Alison Shepard, gave her Ice Breaker. She spoke of her reading as  means of disengaging from social activity as she was growing up. Now she has to stand in front of all of us and talk.

Arnie inspired us to fly and pursue our dreams. Enough waddling and quacking already!

Jonathan did a smooth and effective job as Toastmaster of the meeting. And it was  his first time, too.

Loretta gave an especially supportive and insightful evaluation for Alison. She recognized the good cadence of the story teller and arc of exposition.

Kim recognized Arnie for his good physical presence. She invited him to dare a more heart centered talk next time.

For the meeting coming up on Sept 22, Toastmaster of the meeting is Robert. Elan and Jonathan are scheduled speakers. There is room for another. Arnie shall be General Evaluator. (Let’s all salute him.) Kim is handling Table Topics.

Hope to see you all there!

About Tarpon Talkers

By on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 | 3 Comments

We began as a corporate club for Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, or Tarpon Springs.

Now we are meeting at St. Petersburg College, Tarpon Springs in the Kappa Building. We get started at 6:30 PM the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month. The meeting lasts about an hour and 15 minutes, usually.

Anyone may just show up and see what it is about. Guests are invited, and there is no charge.

Members who are able to answer the phone and talk about our club include:

  • Arnie Milnes, President 727-934-8797
  • Elan Chalford, VP Education 727-938-1417
  • Loretta Buckner, VP Membership 727-452-0023

The Four R’s of Evaluation

By on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 | No Comments

You hear about the sandwich method. Say something sweet, then salty, then sweet. Or, maybe sour instead of salty. But, never bitter.

That’s okay for beginners. When you want to raise your evaluations to the next level, you have to go beyond this simplicity.

My answer is the four R’s of evaluation: Recognize, Report, Recommend, Review.

Start your evaluation by Recognizing the good quality of the speech, or the boldness of the attempted presentation. Either be enthusiastic because it was a really good speech, or be sympathetic and encouraging if the speaker tried something a little beyond his or her ability at that point.

You can even be both enthusiastic and sympathetic, if you set your mind to it.

Then Report on what you saw and heard that you can commend. If the speech was well organized, report on that. If eye contact, or gestures, or vocal variety was strong, make that known.

If it was a story, or a speech to inform, or to persuade, nod to that form and say what it was. In this part of the evaluation you are simply reporting, to the credit of the speaker.

When you begin to make your Recommendation, just stick to one thing if you can. This is the takeaway or take-home part of the evaluation.

You can encourage working on a weakness, and give an example of how to work on it. Even better, in my opinion, is to recommend building a strength. If you see that the speaker has a definite strength, you can recommend pushing the envelope and making it a bigger strength.

Finally, as you close your evaluation make a quick Review of the main points. In a few words recap your evaluation. That gives more form and shape to what you said. If you can hit those first three R’s in a few sentences and express enthusiastic encouragement and interest in further speeches, that would be perfect.

Giving your evaluation this form goes beyond the sandwich into expert contest evaluator territory. Mastering this method, you can expect to win.

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