Humorous Speech Contest, and Celebration with Cake, at HOD Speakers' Club in Harrow. All welcome.

 HOD Toastmasters International Speakers' Group members are having a contest including humorous speeches and table topics (impromptu speeches) on Thursday October 1st, meeting starting promptly at 7.30. 

Later that busy month we are celebrating the club's 25th anniversary on Tuesday October 27th in the evening. Expect to hear from past presidents about our past successes, present opportunities and plans for the future. Of course there will be cake! 

Our usual meeting date is a Thursday evening twice a month, but the celebration will include past and future members, lots of guests, so we have a bigger room. Please contact the club if you want to come to one of these events or both 🍰 so we have enough food and chairs, and maybe a speaking slot for you.

Useful Links

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/hod-speakers-club-107921320861

toastmasters.org/find-a-club

HOD on the Toastmasters International website

https://www.toastmasters.org/Find-a-Club/00002326-00002326

How To Social Media to Advertise Events: Facebook, Meetup, Eventbrite

When holding an event in your home country or overseas, you need to know how to get publicity. Nowadays social media is the thing. Here are some of the suggestions which I have been exploring for my club, Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters International Speakers' Club in Singapore.


Braddell Heights Advanced Speakers' Club in Singapore.

I belong to four clubs, two public speaking clubs in London and two in Singapore.

In London the first club I joined was Harrovians. The club began meeting in a pub in Harrow. It moved to another pub, then three more location, a pub in Harrow Weald, a hall in Stamore, and a church hall in Stanmore, before coming back to Harrow to meet in a baptist church. You can see the Harrovians page on Facebook.

I later joined HOD in London. They moved from Stanmore to Harrow..

Facebook
You can make a page for a club and its events, mention an event on your home page, or even make a page for an event, such as an annual conference. I have attended Writers Holiday in Wales and Writers' Summer School in Derbyshire, England. Both attract visitors from all ove the world through their Websites and we keep in touch with each other throughout the year on Facebook. You can have one official page for publicising the event and another for chatting and news of members.

Meetup
In Singapore I have just joined Meetup. This proved very successful for bringing in new members in London and for several clubs in Singapore.

The system is similar to many others. You pick a name for your group, load up a name, add a profile for yourself. You have a calendar for future events.You can add photos from events.

Promotion Throurgh Changing Your Personal Or Club Photo
Decide which photo shows your people and activities best. What does it say about you. For example, a business admin college decided they wanted viewers of their page to get the idea that the college and the college society would help you get employment or a well paid job. So they changed out of their casual clothes into business suits with brief cases and ran a tagline along the lines of enhance your career with our college degree and network at our college club.

My club Braddell Heights Advanced is an advanced club so I choose a picture which shows us with ribbons or trophies.

Another club, Jurong Green Advanced. found that beginners were discouraged or confused by the name advanced, so the club changed its name to English (to distinguish itself from another club at the same venue called Mandarin.

If you are in Singapore come along to Braddell ieghts Advanced Toastmsters International Speakers' Club.  The cost is only ten Singapore dollars and you will gain an enormous amount of information about job interviews, networking and media and social life, relationships and even your dating or love life.

Eventbrite
Eventbrite offers lots of options. You can change the admin from one person to another, eg a colleague at your business. You can have a sub-user.

You can accept payment in various currencies.

You can run events free, no fee to Eventbrite. Or have earlybird free. That would allow you to change and upgrade fees later if you decide you need the money or the event is nearly full and you want to be sure that those who sign up will turn up.

So, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Meetup, Eventbrite, lots of options.

Please check out Braddell Heights Advanced speakers club on Facebook, Meetup and so on. In the next month you will see our page improving.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, President of Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club. Meetings the first Wednesday evening of every month from 7 to 9.30 or ten, depending on the number of speakers, and the third Saturday afternoon 2-5.  

Appreciating Colour - red and green signs in contests

Problem
In Toastmasters Clubs the speech timer uses red and green boards to show the green you've spoken enough and can go on or go and leave the stage and red for you've reached the time limit and must stop.

Traffic lights are relatively easy to distinguish because the top one of the three lights is red. the middle one is yellow. The lowest one is green. But if you turn the lights sideways on a desk instead of standing them upright, the colour blind speaker loses the vertical clue.

However, people who have red green colour blindness cannot distinguish colour boards.

Answers
At HOD Toastmasters Club in London, England, at the request of a previous president, who was colour blind, we now print the word green in black on the green card, and the word red in black on the red card.

Author
Angela Lansbury, author and speaker.

Learning Spanish - beginning

How do you learn Spanish? Start with a plan, encouragement, confidence, success, progress. When I started learning French at school I created an alphabetical notebook of words I already knew or wanted to learn. When we went to Spain on holiday I bought a pocket size A6 notebook and started writing down Spanish words. I thought I might know 5-10 already. I reckoned if I learned one a day, that would be 365. If I learned 10 a day, that would be 3,650 - a pretty good working vocabulary. If that was too challenging, maybe 5 related words each day - the easiest to remember from a group, or just five every day on holiday, written down from signs passed in the street, or multi-language leaflets.

My first day, first half hour, actually five minutes looked like this:

1 adios - goodbye
2 Amigo - friend
3 si - yes
4 senor - mr
5 Sombrero - hat

Five already!

Keep going

6 señora - mrs
7 senorita - miss
8 gracias - thank you
9 uno - one
10 dos - two

I've reached ten - but am confused as to Italian and Spanish. However, thinking of what I saw or heard in a Spanish restaurant helps keep me on track.

Where were we a moment ago? Numbers one, two, three.

11 tres - three

If you are reading this you have reached today's target. I shall find ten words every day and put them on this blog. Just pop back and read it to effortlessly learn.

If you are in Spain or a Spanish speaking country in South America, Mexico, or even in Washington DC and Los Angeles - hey - even place names help.

12 Los Angeles - the angels. Now we know our first step in creating a phrase. Los is the plural. Actually we have two words. 12 is Los.

13 Angeles - angels

How about learning one grammar rule and one sentence every day? You could do this with any language. Just for fun. This is something you can do waiting for a train or at a bus stop just to start or supplement your other studies.

But how about learning whole sentences by listening, or the basic grammar by reading?

I've also bought the Berlitz system Earworms. Under £20 in the UK if you buy the two discs together. Look for offers on ebay. You could play every day when alone. Or put them in a car with a player. If you are buying a laptop computer and learning languages, it is handy to have one which plays CDs, discs.

If you are into Apple, A MacBook Air is light to carry around but does not play discs so you need a supplementary device, or you can download your disc onto iTunes. `the same presumably applies to separate or linked devices such as an iPhone of iPad.

If you normally listen to a lot of music, you could add your Spanish language disc and a couple of songs. (I recall Fernando's hideaway Ole!) I want to find a Spanish nursery rhyme or basic song which teaches Spanish children simple words or numbers or weekdays.

I'll try to do that tomorrow for my next post. That reminds me.

14 mañana! - tomorrow!
***
About Angela Lansbury the author
Angela Lansbury BA Hons is a teacher of English, French and languages. Also author of ten books by regular publishers, such as Wedding Speeches and Toasts, originally published by Ward Lock, then Cassell, reprinted many times.

Latterly self-publisher of other self-help books such as: Quick Quotations; Who said what when.
(See Lulu and Amazon.) To see Angela reading her work and performing, go to YouTube or Toastmasters International  HOD Speakers Club and Harrovians Club sites and other blogs on blogger.com.

Angela speaks to various groups, speaking on radio and TV and giving workshops to schools, clubs, and universities worldwide, from the USA to China.

PS - If you are already a member of an English speaking Toastmasters Club, look for a Spanish speaking club. I think there is one in the UK, one in Europe and at least one in the USA. Toastmasters International has manuals in other languages.

More Information /links

For numbers - I just googled Spanish one two three and found this handy site
http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/cardnum1.htm

www.earwormslearning.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Spanish_origin