Contributi

Dr Martin Luther King once said, “I have a dream”. Well, so do I. In my dream, I envision our club sprouting into several more clubs to create an area with 4 or 5 clubs. I see this developing into a district with several areas. I picture speech competitions between clubs and areas that evolve top-rate speakers who can compete at the International level. I foresee an opportunity for Italian speech enthusiasts to stand before large and varied groups of like-minded toastmasters in many different venues around Italy willing to listen with a kind ear, evaluate with an astute mind and encourage with a generous heart. But alas, I thought this was only a dream… until Saturday April 17th, when I got a peek at our possible future and now… I am inspired.
Laura Tavola, Laura Limitone and I got up with the roosters that fateful Saturday morning and embarked on, what became for us, a thoroughly satisfying and motivating journey. We attended the Division E Annual Conference held in the Four Points by Sheraton in Zurich, Switzerland. This flawlessly organized event (what else would you expect from the Swiss) welcomed members from clubs from all over Switzerland to come together and learn from each other through workshops and speech competitions.
I was astounded by the sheer number of participants and encouraged by the enthusiasm, passion and keenness these Toastmasters displayed. When we arrived, we where warmly welcomed, briefed on the days activities and given our name tags. One by one, almost all in attendance approached us with a friendly smile, introduced themselves and expressed their appreciation that we would travel so far to be a part of their conference. I immediately felt at ease… welcome… home.
We witnessed top rate speakers give phenomenal speeches with textbook technique clearly honed through hours of practice. But, what really struck me was the joy that oozed from these speakers as they shared their thoughts through words and completely engaged the audience. We heard about the importance of allowing trust to win over fear, using anger as an ally, a new, positive way of looking at the word “Mafia”, how soup made a profound difference in someone’s life and the power of words, themes of some really great speeches that I hope we can share with all of you in an upcoming meeting once we receive the DVD.
After the speech competition, we had the opportunity to witness an equally articulate group judged on their skills in evaluating a speech. All contestants really showed how powerful an evaluation can be to encourage, give confidence, and empower a speaker to move forward and improve.
Following a short lunch and social networking, we all settled into the afternoon workshops. I attended the workshop by Jack Vincent about “Selling in a Brave new World” and AK Bullus on what to do when props go wrong in your presentations. Jack showed us how much more worthwhile it is to truly listen to our clients and not just show them how “sexy” our product/service can be and AK involved us all in coming up with solutions to real disasters that occur with props when we do a presentation. Both were very interesting, involved the audience and left me with many new ideas to think about.
We left the conference regretting only one thing… that we didn’t sign up for the dinner and perhaps stay the night so that we could have more time with these wonderful people. I made many new friends and established some great contacts for potential future business collaboration. We drove home exuding an after-glow of satisfaction after having a taste of what it means to be a part of such a large, well organized, enthusiastic, and passionate group.
As I come back to our club, I feel much more like a part of a much larger organism and am determined to use the tools Toastmasters International gives us to grow together with all of you, the Italian Toastmasters: a group that has already proven to be great and that, I am convinced, has the potential to take its place in the International arena to produce world-class speakers.
I highly encourage all of you to participate in the upcoming Fall conference (date to-be-announced). I know I’ll be there and am happy to have any and all of you join me. I promise you, you won’t come back the same.

Editoriale

The Vision

I see a club. An easy club. Easy to join, where learning is easy, where fun and creativity are easy, where everyone strives to improve his own communication skills and though they take the task seriously they still know how to take it….well…. easy, of course, and enjoy the learning process, the challenges, the “out-of-comfort-zoness”. This is our club.

I would like to share this vision with all the members because the puzzle needs everyone to be completed and a club goals achievement is the sum of every member’s personal goals as well.

So let me tell you what  my goals are for next year:

 Quality: because we all want to improve and we all want to enjoy others’ improvement.

Better speeches to be delivered and to listen to, Workshops and educationals focused on different topics: listening skills, impro-speeches, table topics, how to evaluate, body language etc.

More Competent Communicators tackling new manuals projects for new comers to look up to for inspiration. Reaching the standards required for smooth, streamlined and yet dynamic meetings with a fast pace and attention to procedures but always with a sparkle and a sprinkle of new creative ways and ideas.

Fun: creative people are abundant in our club and they need chances to express themselves in and out the table topic session. Moreover, we cannot miss the point that while we are performing our roles as speakers and getting the benefits from the experience, someone else is watching and they want to be entertained, inspired, informed with gusto if possible.

Visibility:

Well, I am a toastmaster member.

Uhm…a toast….what?! What’s that?

How many people in Milan know what Toastmasters Club is?…do they know it exists a place where they can practice public speaking?

We are the Only club in Italy, this doesn’t make us Unique yet!

We are not on the map guys. Rotary club and Lions club are. We are unknown to the general and if you put your TM achievements and certificates on your CV it doesn’t count as it should, and pay heed to my words: it should!

The press, the radio broadcasting, the TV, that specific magazine should get the drift and we have to grow to get their attention.

Expansion, colonialism and travelling:

What doesn’t grow, stales and shrinks. No other way. It means that fresh air is wanted all the time, new members mean new ideas, new confrontations, new blood. Our membership tide goes up and down but never floods.

One club could split in two more clubs and one member can open a club anywhere if provided with energy and enthusiasm; who will pick up the challenge of growth?

So far we did and learned. We learned by doing.

We’ll keep on learning by doing what we haven’t done yet.

I prompt you all to define your goals for next year and match them with the vision of our club.

If you are new to the club there is so much you can achieve, it’s beyond your imagination, and if you are senior to the club there is so much you can contribute, it’s all in your imagination.

Join and enjoy!

Ivan Ottaviani/ACG

The President