Been quiet on the blogging lately...
At yesterday's meeting I finally gave my 10th speech from the Competent Communicator's manual. The 10th speech is designed to "Inspire your Audience". Entitled "One Hourglass" I spoke about living a fulfilled life, using the hourglass as a metaphor. Everyone has an hourglass, some are big, some are small. When you are born, the sand starts pouring. When the sand has finished pouring, your life on earth has ended. Quite simple really.
I spent about three minutes talking about the story of Terry Fox, a boy who lost his leg to cancer, then decides to run across Canada, on one good leg and one artificial leg, to raise awareness for cancer research. Using him as an example, I talked about how we could live more fulfilled lives. In a nutshell I expounded on three points: time wasting, passion in what you do, and setting challenges.
I think it was well received by the audience; I hope I went as far as to inspire them. But the main thing is that after doing 10 speeches I finally earned my Competent Toastmaster (CTM) award, the basic award a toastmaster can achieve.
After the CTM, there are other progressive awards, which mean doing more speeches, but in a specialised field, e.g. entertainment, persuasion, public relations, humourous speeches, etc. I haven't chosen my specialties yet. The awards are Advanced Toastmaster Bronze, Advanced Toastmaster Silver and Advanced Toastmaster Gold. There are also Leadership courses to do as well. So there's no room for boredom there.
There's still a long way to go if one hopes to earn a Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) award (the one after Advanced Toastmaster Gold). But I won't think that far ahead....
