Online Meetings Worldwide - Where You Can Gain Confidence and Practise Speeches and Presentations

Go to toastmasters international's website and you can find Toastmasters International clubs all over the world. The speakers' training movement started in the USA, eventually spreading to England, Europe, Asia and all over the world. Most of the clubs are in English  but the literature has been translated in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish and other languages. You can join foreign language multi-lingual clubs and bilingual clubs and give speeches in your other language in Spanish, French, Malay, Tamil and many more languages.

I used to give workshops all over the world, in the UK, USA and China. Now, in 2020 because of COVD-19 the in-person meetings are just fond memories. I was speaker, project evaluator, contest timer, judge. In Singapore I was out every day, sometimes twice a day, six or seven days a week.

Now everybody is going online.
Now that meetings are forced to go online, the opportunities are expanding daily.Here are just a few of your options.

Wednesdays (evenings in Singapore)
Braddell Heights Advanced.
1st Wednesday of the month on zoom. Other meetings on Learncool.

Fridays
Singapore Online meets online from 9 pm to midnight and after, Singapore time. Hong Kong is on the same time zone.


Singapore Online

We have table topics (impromptu speeches), speeches, evaluations, workshops and, as you can see, lots of fun.

Saturdays
Third afternoon of the month, from 2 to 5 Singapore time. Braddell Heights Advanced on zoom.

Speakers and members call in from the UK (seven hours behind in summer, so that means 2 pm to 5 pm and after in UK time in summer), also Greece, the USA, China, Hong Kong and all over the world.

Meetings you can join:
Singapore Online Friday evening 9-12 midnight Singapore time
Harrovians Mondays 7-9 pm evening UK time
Braddell Heights Advanced  Wednesdays 7-9 pm Singapore time. See Toastmasters Find a club and Facebook for BHA and Facebook for Angela Lansbury.

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of Harrovians in London. Member of tampines Changkat Advanced in Singapore. President of Braddell Heights Advanced. Area Director S3.

Hand Shaking And Hand Touching Alternatives During The Wuhan Crisis

Hands - apparently we all touch our faces ten times an hour. Shakes hands with somebody else, take a plate or spoon or pair of chopsticks, then touch the lift button on the way home - what can you do to avoid contamination?





Shaking Hands

.Let's start with shaking hands.

As President of Braddell Heights Advanced club I am expected to shake hands with members and visitors. That could be 8 to 10 or more people. .. 

At Emmaus Club I mentioned namaste.





Raymond demonstrated a Chinese greeting.

Then as Toastmaster of the Day, during an evening, I might shake hands with ten or more people, twice, as they enter the stage and leave it.


Namaste greeting in hotel.

Namaste
With the Wuhan coronavirus threatening the world in February 2020, I decided as toastmaster of the day at Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters International club, to give up our usual system of shaking hands to welcome guests and each time I enter and leave the stage. Instead I used the oriental Namaste greeting, a nod and pressing both hands palms together.

I then followed this by clapping my hands to encourage the audience to do the same to welcome the speaker onto the stage.

This worked well. I remembered every time.

The previous day I had visited Emmaus Catholic Toastmasters club, where I was the General Evaluator, commenting on the whole meeting. I had remembered to avoid hand shaking most of the time.

I was not able to stop others trying to hand around plates, and chopsticks. At the break time we had lo hei, which is a Singapore custom involving a communal plate of food.

You can buy it from supermarkets at assorted prices. The price varies according to the size and contents. The ingredients are various colours of vegetables, added sauces or spices. Depending on whether it includes fish, such as the more expensive smoked salmon, other fish, or is purely vegetarian and vegan.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See later post on this subject. Please share links to your favourite posts.

How To Load Your Photos Onto Facebook

For weeks I was successfully loading photos of myself and friends at Toastmasters meeting, from my mobile phone, onto my website page under my name.

However, I could not see how to add picture to my club's page. I now know the secret.

Instead of trying to upload the photos from the phone to Facebook, I go to Facebook and search for photos.

However, I must first find right website. I click on pages and up comes the club page, Braddell Heights, Advanced toastmasters club. Because I am on the club's Exco (executive committee) I had admin rights.

I can then click on more than one photo. The photos on which a tick appears are ready to be loaded up. Clicking on them does not do it.

I have to click on another icon. Either save or post or publish.

Braddell Heights Advanced toastmasters Club meets the first Wednesday evening each month at 7pm; and the third Saturday at 2 pm

Useful Websites
https://www.facebook.com/bhatmsg/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Clubs To Visit In The UK, Singapore, or Worldwide, Whilst Newsletters From Home Clubs Echo Thank You Speeches

I wrote to a club in London:

Greetings from sunny Singapore 
(Actually - I use the over-used word actually correctly, to indicate modifying a platitude statement - it's no longer sunny, but after two hot, sweltering sunny days, cooling rain is welcome.) 

I am acquiring skills and experience to bring back to HOD and the UK. I am the sponsor of a forthcoming bilingual English-Chinese club. I just attended a Workshop on Club Growth. 

I have been attending a Toastmasters meeting several times a month. I am mostly language evaluator when I aim to be both instructional and entertaining. At the last meeting when I was Language Evaluator, I encouraging everybody in the room in unison to say third, not missing out the H! I pointed out that a turd is what you see in a toilet. That raised a laugh.

PROBLEM

I already have my credentials from Toastmasters. I am away for many meetings of my UK club. Why should I pay to renew membership if I am missing half the meetings?

 I get the Toastmasters magazine full of tips which Toastmasters are glad to share. That gives me my moneysworth from the proportion of my annual fee which goes to the USA. Being a member of two or three clubs means I am paying the USA twice or three times.

ANSWER

To make it worthwhile renewing my club membership, although I am absent, I would be glad to receive a club ‘newsletter’ or meeting summary. This can be part of the duties of: Vice President Public Relations, or Vice President Membership, or project 8 from Competent leader manual for a member, or a High Performance Project for somebody aiming to complete Advanced leader Silver, or Advanced Leader Gold or DTM, or Area Governor project for the Area, a sub-committee organising a rota.

It is merely irritating to hear praise devoid of facts, the news that you missed ‘a wonderful speech by so-and’.

However, I want one practical tip learned from my own club's meetings each month. 

How? Who would do it? 

'Nobody has time during their working day.’ 

(Phooey - the committee's WhatsApp messages go back and forth non-stop between the President, Membership secretary, Treasurer, secretary everybody!)

POSSIBLE TIME-SAVING SOLUTIONS:

1 The General Evaluator could send a one-liner or three sentence summary by WhatsApp 

a) during the meeting or 

b) during the break or 

c) on the train home. (This is done by American Marshall Cooper in Singapore.)

COPYRIGHT ISSUES SOLVED

2 Maybe the chief guest speaker (If none the TME) would prefer to send a quotation: 

eg "Speaker Bob Ferguson says, 'My top tip is …’ ” 

(That way nobody else is revealing the speaker's top secrets; nor off-the cuff possibly inaccurate remarks, ‘Half the audience - don’t quote me on this,’ nor mis-quoting). 

Secondly, the speaker could add their top tip from audience feedback. 

THANK YOU QUOTATION

3 A proper thank you speech by the Toastmaster of the evening, (a thankyou speech is a project in one of the advanced manuals) should incorporate something useful that the speaker has said. 

This sentence can be reused as the WhatsApp message.  The magic quotation forms part of the thank you speech, the thank you letter, and the club newsletter or WhatsApp message, or PR on Facebook or the club website.

UK CLUBS TO VISIT

If you are in London, visit one of the clubs in London, available morning until night, all year. There are breakfast clubs, banking clubs, business networking clubs, English, French, or Polish clubs.

In the UK I am a member of 

HOD Meeting at THE BRIDGE, HARROW, FIRST AND THIRD THURSDAY Evenings, PLUS An advanced club XL on another Thursday. Near Harrow and Wealdstone station.

HOD meeting in Harrow at the Bridge by the Leisure Centre near Harrow & Wealdstone station, London, England.

HARROVIANS meets near Canons Park Station, Edgware, in St Lawrence's Hall, behind St Lawrence's Church, first and third Monday evenings.

Harrovians in the large Hall near behind historic St Lawrence's Church by North London Collegiate School's park near Canons park station and buses from Harrow and Edgware, NW London, England.

In Singapore I am VPR for Braddell Heights Advanced toastmasters club, Singapore. 

If you are passing through Singapore, we meet first Wednesday evening at 7 pm and Third Saturday afternoon at 3 pm. Do visit us! The Community Cub is beside Serangoon MRT railway station.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters International Speakers' club, Singapore, the committee: Angela, Rachel, Maria, Marcus, Kan Kin Fung.

USEFUL WEBSITE

To find a club in the country where you live or are visiting on holiday or business:

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

Author, travel writer, photographer, speaker.

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http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk