Black Cat District 71 Conference

We are lucky to have a Guest Blogger to write the latest post for us.

Tanya Barad has written this great account of the weekend that has just passed. I hope you enjoy it and thanks to Tanya for such an excellent summing up.....

 

"Black Cat District 71 Conference

 

Me and my mom went down to Wyboston Lakes in Bedforshire for the District 71 Black Cat Conference and what a weekend we had! This was my second Toastmaster conference and, except for the fact that I got no sleep and my head hurt a bit both mornings, I absolutely loved going.

 It was amazing seeing old friends and new friends. One of the best things in Toastmasters is being with like minded people; at District level you meet people from other countries who have the same passion and way of thinking, especially amazing for myself who geeks out on Toastmasters!

 The evening events were fantastic; the first night everyone partied pretty hard and I even joined in on a Ceilidh dance! We stayed out for the Craic which turns out to be a big Irish Sing-a-long-song after party but is a right laugh. The second night was a Black Tie event so it was a much more mature, however me and mom managed to start a little fire during the meal (she will deny it's our fault) and by the time the Craic came around I entered the room to see everyone singing the Music Man song and doing the Dam Busters aeroplane dance so maybe not 100% mature!
Luckily there was no photo evidence of this.

 I had a really nice surprise to be congratulated during Saturday Dinner's award ceremony for getting a "Triple Crown Award". I hadn't heard of this before but it means a Toastmaster obtained 3 educational awards in one year; I got my CL, ALB and ACB last year apparently! With some planning we might be able to get some more this year/next year.

 I went to some of the workshops and here are some of the notable things I learnt:

Table Topics Anthony Day - Anthony Day is a very distinguished Toastmaster from Leeds and I have met him before. Through demonstrations of each of the role, Anthony very humorously showed how a Table Topics Master (TTM) should own the section of the meeting. TTM's should know the members well enough to be able to choose appropriate table topics for the skill level (so lucky dip topics do NOT cater for this) and should adapt the length of the section to keep the meeting on time; asking the Timekeeper if they have time for another table topic means they are not taking responsibility for the timing so try to own this yourself when your a Table Topics Master.

The Table Topics Evaluator (TTE) should give constructive feedback - we are really good for this and usually give a commendation and recommendation but we conscious not to just repeat the what the speaker talked about. Lastly, the General Evaluator should ensure that both the TTM and TTE considered these points and comment where necessary.

Unfortunately, Anthony decided to do a small Table Topics session which was "Cat" themed; I had to talk about "Caterpillar or Butterfly" and it sucked lol.

Choosing a Topic Olivia Schofield - Olivia Schofield competed in the Toastmaster World Championships in 2012 so has a wealth of experience. She spoke about how to choose topics and whilst some of the points were obvious eg keep a thought diary, one point of interest was the Life Line concept. This was to draw your life line and the highlights and low parts of your life make great topics, especially the low parts and how you overcame them. However be careful not to do this too much else if everyone's speeches are dramatic and life changing it kinda looses the impact...

 

Speaking with R.E.S.P.E.C.T Mark Thomas - Mark Thomas is one of those people that was incredibly shy in life but had a epiphany and worked to become confident and a professional speaker. The thing I picked up mostly was that if you hold your body in the right pose, your voice will naturally follow eg it's hard to do a sad, crying voice if your standing confident and smiling. I personally struggle with movement and Mark was kind enough to give me some private coaching; he asked me to stand confidently (which I couldn't do) so instead he got me to point out someone who looked confident and work out why. I will take this people-watching homework to heart!

 District Council Meeting - This is the "boring" official part of the conference but, with our new District Director Kevin Lee, it was efficient and actually quite amusing. It really helps to see how the district money is spent, the effect of different laws in UK and Ireland and the effects. There is also a section for people to bring forwards motions so you can see what people find important in their clubs. One thing I did not realise is that we only split the District from the whole of UK and Ireland into the current D71 (our club up North and Ireland) and D91 (south of our club) in the 2013-2014 year. This is a massive process and I heard all the controversial stories!

 

Contests - The club contests we do every 6 months continues through to Area, Division and District. So over the weekend we saw the top 9 speeches from the North UK and Ireland in the Humorous Speech Contest and Table Topics. Gerry French won the Humorous Speech with a speech about being a Grumpy Old Man - it was hilarious! The Table Topics speech was "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" which is a hard topic but all of the competitors rose to the challenge.

I had the pleasure of meeting Vicky Ferrer-Mustafa, Region 11 Director. Region is above District so she is in charge of Toastmasters in the UK and Middle East! The amount of clubs and languages involved is insane but when you meet her you can see why she is where she is and she is so nice.

I would highly recommend these conferences to any Toastmaster - we had people there who had been a member for 2 months and they thoroughly enjoyed it. I have many more memories and can't wait to go to the next one, Limerick May 2016 so let me know if you want to join as there are a couple of us going already. The amount of motivation you get from it is astounding. If not, you get a similiar, although smaller, buzz from the Area and Division Contests so join there for now :)"