Preparing for Toastmasters

My creativity is not just in illustrative form. Sometimes, my creativity takes the form of the public speaking practiced at my Toastmasters club, Norvic. Currently I am working on a Toastmasters advanced manual called Interpretive Reading, where I go through 5 projects to help me illustrate and properly present points written by others, whether the points take the form of a story, a report, or a speech developed by professional speech writers.

The project that I am working on is the final one in this manual, the Oratorical Speech. Here I must choose a famous speech to present, and use all of my skills to bring the speech to life. Upon first reading of the project, I thought that I might do Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream", mainly just because I liked the title. But after reading the actual speech, I felt no real connection to it, and thus I felt that I couldn't do the speech justice. I needed to look at many different speeches and find the one that I felt the strongest connection. That one turned out to be Steve Job's Commencement Address to the 2005 Stanford graduates. I was in love with his message, and since the project never said that I had to choose a speech from way back in the past, I decided to go with the one by Steve Jobs. All I have to do is edit the speech to fit within the time restrictions of the Toastmasters project. And that was my bit of creativity today.

Fun with movies

On Friday the 17th, I presented & recorded a short play at my toastmasters club meeting. It was part of a project in one of the advanced manuals and was my first attempt at portraying 5 characters. If I had given myself more time, it could have gone better.

In any case, I wanted to start recording my club speeches and make them into mini movies. And what better speech to turn into a movie then my first one-woman play. It took just over 4 hours to arrange with music, transitions, & titles, but I'm happy with the results.

But next project, I'll be much more prepared in both speech and equipment. No more shooting with cell phone.

Norvic Toastmasters Open House Poster

Last week I was officially elected as the Vice President of Public Relations for my Toastmasters club and with that I was asked to design a poster for the club's open house. Taking the color scheme from Toastmasters international website, I proceeded to lay photos of a few members wearing those colors.  The members were of varied ages, styles and positions to show that the club wasn't just for one group of people, but welcomed everyone. The title is similar to what a town crier would yell out, maybe one of the earliest public speaking positions and the kind of confidence that the organization wishes for its members. The background shows that the members speak from the heart and let it shine out.