Faces of Four
A monthly tête-à-tête with a District 4 Toastmaster.
May 2012 - Elaine Lung
Elaine Lung is the District 4 Conference Chair. Get to know her better and see what she has to say about the 'Take the E Train' Spring Conference!
1. We heard you are very close to completing requirements for your DTM! What are you waiting for?
The last piece is finished: my HPL in April 2012, and my ALS and DTM appeared on the TM reports on 4/25/12. When I joined TM in 9/99, I never dreamed I'd achieve the lofty DTM status or take 12 years 7 months to get there. If you've lost your momentum working on your DTM, don't quit. Set your next goal and take a first step toward it.
2. Tell us about your experiences organizing two District Conferences. What leadership lessons did you learn?
First, put together a great team and let them do their jobs. District 4 Toastmasters is full of amazing, gifted people who work together as a fantastic team. Don't overlook the value of setting a vision first. Most surprising: how much fun it was to chair the conference. My advice: if you want to enjoy a District conference the most, get involved with the planning team.
3. What do you have in store for us at the Spring Conference 2012?
ED-ucation: We are fortunate to have 2000 World Champion, Ed Tate, a top-notch trainer, coach and speaker. He has made himself available in 3 separate sessions to transfer his knowledge. Truly a don't -miss opportunity to learn from one of the best. Followed by 3 outstanding D4TM speakers: Anthony Hogan, Rita Barber & Paul Hebert.
Entertainment: speech contests, Hall of Fame recognition, *the Business Meeting* all with the "E-Train" theme.
Energize: be advised that exposure to 200 enthusiastic Toastmasters may change you . Be prepared.
4. After the conference, what next?
More speeches - working toward a second DTM. And not taking as long to get there! Join an advanced club to challenge myself and learn more. Continuing to contribute at my home club, the Xilinx Xpressionists, and at the District level too.
April 2012 - Elliotte Mao
Elliotte Mao is the VP Education at High Spirits of Toastmasters, mentor to the new club San Francisco Mandarin English Toastmasters and a sponsor of a prospective club called Wellness Toastmasters! Get to know this dynamic Toastmaster who keeps it fresh even after being a member for 13 years!
1. What are your current Toastmasters projects?
My current Toastmasters projects are:
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Sponsoring and mentoring a club at a bio-engineering firm called Genencor/Dupont in Palo Alto. They call themselves the Toasty Genes. Incredible scientists, they have become gifted speakers as well. The goal is to get them chartered soon, then watch out for them in the speech contests!
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Mentoring the SF-MET bilingual club in San Francisco. The bilingual nature of the meetig makes this new club quite a challenge since all roles and speeches have to be DOUBLED. The members and guests come to polish their English or their Mandarin or public speaking in both languages! Weaving two languages throughout the meeting makes for interesting attendance and participation.
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Creating a specialty club called Wellness Toastmasters to provide a forum for medical professionals, holistic practitioners, and other health advocates to improve their communication and leadership skills. This will be of great benefit to the community as members with a background in wellness, learn to exchange ideas more effectively and provide empowering information.
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Getting my DTM. Finally! I'm just one project away– long delayed because I never bothered to get credit for many CC and CL projects. Don't do this, folks! ??
2. Tell us about a time you felt like your toastmasters training came to your rescue.
When I decided to switch from my prestigious job as an art director to an unpredictable and less profitable work in wellness education and Tai Chi Chuan instruction, I had to leverage all my Toastmasters skills to promote this strange Asian exercise called Tai Chi Chuan. I found myself using persuasion, body language, visual aids, humor, organization .... every class was a speech project. Pretty soon my two classes grew into a dozen, and the number of classes is still growing.
3. What do you do for a living?
Formerly a full time graphic art director, teaching Tai Chi Chuan part time. Now a full time Tai Chi instructor, doing part time graphic arts direction.
4. What would you like to say to someone who is still deciding about joining Toastmasters?
Jump in! It's experiential. You will experience the improvement in your speaking skills. You will feel the confidence in your leadership skills. Everything that happens to you in life will be a speech worth telling.
March 2012 - Pieter Kark
Get to know Pieter Kark better! Pieter is the President of Toasters-R-Us, Synopsis.
Pieter hosted a Division Open House - an excellent example of a Toastmasters event.
1. Please introduce yourself.
I'm Pieter Kark, currently President of Toasters-R-Us
(TRUS), a club open to all that is hosted by Synopsys in Sunnyvale/Mountain View.
TRUS has taught me and amused me for 6 years now. I've held a number of offices,
have been an Area Governor, coached a club to Distinguished, and have participated
in contests. Outside Toastmasters, I teach courses in mental tools to live
deliberately and am an executive coach and teach to top management how to turn
internal conflicts into opportunities to succeed and how to align groups into
high-performance teams. This comes from my work in an earlier career as a physician.
2. Tell us about the Open House you organized for Division C.
The club needed an open house to increase membership. In thinking about an inspiring speaker for a mock
meeting, TI President Michael Notaro's name came up. In inviting him, I asked the
District if others would like to come. They suggested making this a Division C open
house. The real work and organization came from the officers and members of
Toasters-R-US. Everyone pulled together, was creative, and worked to overcome
problems.
Despite terrible traffic in the South Peninsula that evening, there was
an excellent turnout of Toastmasters and members of the public who
wanted to explore toastmasters. There were extensive, focused
conversations before and after the formal meeting. Everyone who took a
role did a superb job in a way that illustrated Toastmasters at its best
and inspired the audience to explore. Michael Notaro gave a most
amazing, warm, speech in full connection with everyone in the audience
and that inspired on many levels.
3. What valuable leadership lesson did you learn from your Toastmasters club?
Dream and dare - if you persevere and inspire a team to align with you, you'll succeed.
4. How did you get introduced to Toastmasters?
My wife had been a Toastmaster in the Capital District of New York some years before. When we moved out here, she wanted
me to explore it and we joined Adlibmasters in Santa Theresa neighborhood of San
Jose. I got hooked at the first meeting. We switched to TRUS when we moved to
Mountain View.
5. What would you like to say to say to someone who is hesitant to join
Toastmasters?
Try it. Explore a few clubs. Find one whose culture attracts you.
Join. Work on the manuals. If after 6 months you don't like it, you can always
leave, but I'll bet you won't.
January 2012 - Mike McCreavy
Curious about what it means to be an Area Governor?
Get to know Area G4 Governor Mike McCreavy better. Mike's leadership is
helping Area G4 towards its goals to become Distinguished Area
(as reported by http://reports2.toastmasters.org/ as of Jan 8 2012).
Let your Area Governor know if you want to be the next Area Governor.
Serving as an Area Governor also meets the requirements for the
Advanced Leader Silver (ALS) award.
1. What do you do as an Area Governor?
As the Area G4 Governor, I visit the five clubs of my area and help them with anything they need to
meet the Distinguished Club Program requirements. I report the status of these clubs
to my Division Governor during monthly meetings. At these meetings I get to bounce ideas
off of other Area Governors on how to help all our clubs improve. Sometimes I get the officers in the clubs of my area to meet and we plan cross-club events.
Aside from these club-related duties, I get to attend several District meetings and see a lot of well-trained speakers in action. The biggest responsibility (also the most fun) is building a team to successfully run our Area Speech Contests.
2. How did you decide to be an Area Governor?
I first met Dorothy Liu (former Area Governor) when she visited my club to do our officer installations. I subsequently got to see her in action as Area Governor several times: at Officer Trainings and at our Area Contests. When her term was ending, she asked if I was up for the challenge of additional leadership responsibilities and I went for it!
It has been very enlightening and valuable experience getting a "bigger picture" of the Toastmasters
organization.
3. Tell us how you got introduced to Toastmasters.
A former employer paid for me to spend a day taking a public speaking course --
the course wasn't very effective because you can't learn everything you need to be a good speaker in 8 hours.
Sam Chow, a coworker and Toastmaster, told me there was "a better way" to get comfortable with speaking. He invited me to Macintalkers and I've been a practicing Toastmaster ever since.
4. Is there a Toastmasters related achievement you are proud of?
I'm most proud of putting the power-of-persuasion skills I developed while getting my CC and CL.
As Area Governor: I've convinced a few people to join Toastmasters, and I've gotten lots of restaurants to donate food and gift certificates for contest prizes.
In my job: I'm an engineer, but since we're a startup I find myself doing New Business Development at times. Being a Toastmaster makes cold calls easy: I treat them like Table Topics!
5. What do you do for a living?
I work at Luminate, Inc , a startup in Mountain View committed to making the static images of the web more interactive.
I focus on helping website owners monetize their images with engaging, context-aware advertising.
December 2011 - Jenny Cai
Get to know Jenny Cai better. Jenny is the President of the new Silicon Valley
Mandarin English Toastmasters and is helping start two more as the D4 Bilingual Club
Specialist!
1. How did you happen to join Toastmasters?
Nine years ago, my English teacher recommended that I join Toastmasters. What a fun journey it has been! Today after watching me being adventurous with my speech content and delivery in front of an audience, people can't believe that I used to be very shy. I was nervous when I met people I didn't know. In fact in college, in trying to avoid speaking with a good-looking classmate (who I really wanted to talk to actually) I frantically looked for a place to hide and ended up bumping myself against a tree. I have built a lot of self-confidence after finding Toastmasters.
The Toastmasters experience is "addictive" - one is not enough! I am a member of three great clubs: Mandarin English Toastmasters, Cisco Speaks, and Next Step.
2. Tell us about the Mandarin-English Toastmasters (MET) club. What challenges did you face in starting a new club?
MET is a bilingual club - our meeting is conducted in both English and Mandarin. Most of our members speak both languages and we also have members who do not speak any Mandarin right now, but hope to pick it up. This is a very energetic club. We have about 30 attendees at every meeting. During the English and Mandarin table topics at one meeting, the audience laughed 50 times! Many members go to dinner together afterwards. We also offer free Mandarin classes and English classes to our members.
Starting a new club has challenges similar to reviving a club with low membership. We needed 20-30 members to charter the club. We relied on members to spread the word and invited distinguished speakers to attract guests. During the first seven club meetings, we got generous support from District 4 leaders, officers from other District 4 clubs and Area, Division and District contest winners. Starting a club or reviving a club is a wonderful opportunity to practice the leadership skills of collaboration and motivation.
3. And now your club is helping start a new Mandarin English Toastmasters club in San Francisco?
Yes, we're helping Tiffany Fung to start a new MET club in downtown San Francisco. We would appreciate help in finding a meeting room near a BART station. We are also starting Sign Language English Toastmasters (SLET) and would appreciate help in spreading the word: http://slet.wikispaces.com/.
4. How has being a Toastmaster helped you in your work?
It has helped me a lot. It also helped my manager to write cool performance reviews. For example - "great hosting of technical discussions"; "I especially like your presentation style - both written and verbal which are always extremely clear and well thought out"; "superior collaboration skills." The above are my comments my manager made after my first, fourth and fifth year of joining Toastmasters respectively.
5. You helped at the District 4 Fall Conference in November 2011. What did you gain from the experience of volunteering at the conference?
The 2011 Fall Conference was shining bright with so many stars - Distinguished Toastmasters, past, current and future district leaders. I was dazzled! I was so excited about the conference that I barely slept the night before. By volunteering at contests and the conference gave us a chance to invite distinguished speakers to our club as well as recruiting members who were interested in the Mandarin-English Toastmasters club idea.
6. What is your Toastmasters goal for 2012?
Collaborate and have fun. I'd like to build collaboration among current and new Toastmasters clubs. During this fun journey I hope to help others and make great friends!
- Jenny Cai, ATMS
November 2011 - Soloman Salimi
Get to know Soloman Salimi! Soloman is a member of San Jose True Talking Toastmasters club and has been a Toastmaster for 5 months. Soloman is the Director, Fundraising & Opportunity Drawings for the District 4 Fall Conference 2011 and one of the first District 4 Club Ambassadors.
1. How did you get introduced to Toastmasters?
Toastmasters had been on my mind for a while. It was like splinter in my brain... unavoidable and needed attention! My family is very important to me. I go for lunch with my father and my uncles once a week and it is fun and relaxing for me. Toastmasters looked like an activity that my father and I could do together. We found a club within three blocks of my father's house and we both joined the club!
2. Tell us about the bathrobe and the sock at your club contest.
Hahaha!! You must be talking about the very first Club Humorous Speech Contest this Fall. In the break I went into my Yukon, slipped into my robe, took off my shoes and put on some comfortable socks. However, I was running late for the contest and I was the Toastmaster. So I was only able to put on one sock with my house slippers. The audience broke into laughter when I was introduced as the Toastmaster. I began to apologize for not having both socks on and an audience member discovered the missing sock behind my bathrobe stuck on the belt loop. I enjoyed taking this chance and I am glad it worked out. The tone was set for the rest of the Humorous Speech contest!
3. What does T.T.T. stand for? What do you especially enjoy about your club meetings?
T.T.T. stands for True Talking Toastmasters. San Jose True Talking Toastmasters has given me great friends. We go hiking, have lunch or dinner at a restaurant or even gather for chai at a member's home. It has become an extended family and one that I really appreciate and need in my life. I love that Toastmasters has given me great mentors who are kind and understanding. They are also not afraid to tell and share with me what I need to hear and where I need to improve. Each member has helped me grow in so many ways. I've connected with each and every one of them on so many levels. Toastmasters is more than learning how to become a better speaker and building leadership skills for me. It has become a vital part of my life and a constant source of therapy and recharge.
5. What do you do for a living? Has Toastmasters helped you in your profession?
They call me "Idea Man". I am a serial entrepreneur. In fact, a member at our club and I are working on a business project as we speak. We complement each other's skills very well and I appreciate how detail oriented, organized and humble she is. At this stage in my life it is important for me to combine my passion for business and health. Our business concept, which we are not yet ready to unveil is in the nutrition market and will be coming to a farmer's market near you. Before the New Year of 2012 we will be live.
6. Have you set a Toastmasters goal for yourself this year?
I plan to deliver my tenth speech before the District Conference on Nov. 12th*. Before the District Conference I plan to complete my CL as well. I need to completed the final leadership project by being a a Toastmaster and General Evaluator Role to Complete all ten projects. Today I just received my HPL packet and I am in the process of organizing a team for the District Conference Fundraising Team.
(* And Soloman achieved his goal! Soloman received the Competent Communicator award on October 21 2011.)
7. At one point you wanted to start a Toastmasters club in Afghanistan. Still want to do that?
Toastmasters has given me a lot in such a short amount of time. I met District 4 Leaders at the 2011 Spring Conference in Milpitas. I was inspired to attend the 2011 International Convention in Las Vegas with my father. Together with our District I was able to meet and make friends with so many great Toastmasters from around the world. I even got to joke and dance with Immediate Past International President Pat Johnson.
At the Opening Ceremonies of the Toastmasters International Convention I noticed that the Afghanistan flag was not present. During dinner Past International President Chris Ford shared with me he has been in Afghanistan and together we could make it happen.
October 2011 - Cole Fox
Get to know Cole Fox - Vice President, Public Relations of Toast[in], the Toastmasters club at LinkedIN. Cole placed third at the Area Speech Evaluation Contest -
excellent for a club that chartered just a few months ago in June 2011.
Congratulations Cole! You are also our first Face of Four!
Why did you join Toastmasters?
I joined Toastmasters to share my thoughts clearly. Stage fright undermines communication!
What do you do for a living?
Sales at LinkedIn, and being intellectually curious.
What did you discover about yourself because of Toastmasters?
I like mastering things.
Do you have a goal as a Toastmaster?
Several, actually! 1) Get through my CC manual (10 speeches) by December 31, 2011. 2) Be a great VP of PR 3) Pass on my newfound skills and inspire others ...I just joined in August!
Met any cute girls because of Toastmasters?
I did, actually at a regional leadership event. Turns out her interest in speaking afterward was merely to use me for operating LinkedIn more effectively; nonetheless, I should still be grateful for this and future networking opportunities!
What would you say to someone who is undecided about joining Toastmasters?
You need it, unless you're Mark Zuckerberg.
Cole Fox can be found on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/colefox
Do you know a fellow Toastmaster who should be featured? If so, e-mail pro@d4tm.org with the details!
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