The Speech on the Boat. 26 June 2011

              Dear Ladies and Gentlemen
When Jarda Sladek announced a tall tale speech contest on the boat I was not sure if I would like to participate. I said to myself:  ”You are sixty, a serious man, a newly elected VPPR and exaggerating and fantasizing, making up stories, no.”
 And then I heard: ”Successful people do what unsuccessful won’t do…” So I decided:”I must speak!”

           Hi I’m George Rusky and here’s my true story.
Last Wednesday evening I was on my way to Deivicka by metro to take part in our regular toastmasters meeting.
I changed the line on Mustek and waited for the train when I saw an unusually strange group of men and women wearing one stile t-shirts and all carrying identical bags. On both shirts and bags I read: “Toastmasters International.”
They were eating toastmasters sandwiches of Commendation, recommendation and encouragement and practicing toasts having glasses in their hands
“Oh, oh,…”
        The train arrived and not wanting to stay off-board I went with the flow. In 10 minutes I heard this announcement: “Dear Ladies and gentlemen, you have arrived at the final station Deivicka. Please exit the train. Attention for the contestants of Prague speakers TM club. You ‘ll be met at the upper platform by DTM Mr Ruzicka”
“What the heck is going n?” I kept on asking myself. A young man with a smile of the size I have never seen before or after was dancing next to me. I immediately recognized him as my compatriot.
“What’s going on here?,” I asked.
“You don’t know brother, read ziz” He gave me yesterday’s Lidove Noviny where I read:
”One Membership seat at Prague Toastmasters. Run!”
“You see, brother, I want to win this membershit”
        I was just about to correct his mistake, when he went on: ”I hired one of the best Prague speakers DTM jarda Sladec who mentored me for one month. They have no chances because I have ziz powerful ice breaking visual aids: Russian vodka, Kalashnikov and Balalaika! Wiz zis I will break any ice!”  
        I felt like perhaps Alice felt in the Wonderland.
But most exciting was the podium,the stage prepared for the contest on the square next to the station: a huge table on which were sitting DTM Sarma Gintere, the author of the project, DTM Hana Masoupostova, an Ah-oh Expert and the veteran of the club DTM Piter Pelchip.
All was ready for the contest.
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Dear Ladies and Gentlemen
very often we take all modern wonders of human progress around us for granted, forgetting that once they all were born in somebody’s mind and imagination.It’s our time to imagine, that one day people will queue and fight for the membership of our TM clubs more fiercely than for the appointments with local dentists.”
Imagine also that we live in the society where all grow in supportive and positive living environment”
Now, let me ask you a question: “Do you want it to happen?”???  Do you really believe it?”
Napoleon Hill once wrote: “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”
 “Achieving the greatness together, fulfilling your dreams!” is the motto of District 59.

Dear fellow toastmasters,
Let’s turn tall tales into real stories!

A School of a New Toastmasters Club Member

            Dear Friend

Are you interested in developing your communication and leadership skills?

Well-done!

Toastmasters International is the right place for you.

      What and how should you act now?

You certainly have some thoughts, expectations about Toastmasters and surely have a lot of questions to ask.

To help you with getting a good orientation in this business I have prepared  a set of questions you should answer before making a final decision of joining a club.

As son as you know the right answers to all the questions, making a decision will be‘a piece of cake’ for you.

       From understanding this simple truth, you will be able to make your choice and decision.

       After that, prepare a list of questions you would like to make clear before making the next step. E-mail VPM (vive-president membership of the club) and ask for explanations or invite her for a cup of coffee and ask to give you all necessary explanations.

      You can also come to another meeting and try to find someone in the club to answer your questions.

By the way, try to visit all the toastmasters clubs in the city and find the club you like more.
How to choose a club. A few basic ideas.

These are the questions you have to answer before joining the club. It is a serious step and you should prepare for this step seriously.

      I. Before the meeting.

1.      What is the website of the club like?

2.      How to contact an officer of the club and ask if you can visit a club meeting?

3.      The location: how far from the city centre the club meets?

4.      What is the building like?

5.      What is the meeting room like?

6.      How often do the club members meet?

            II. At the meeting.

1.      Where you introduced as a first time visitor?

2.      How many club members are there in the club?

3.      How many speakers are assigned for each session?

4.      Did you receive a chance to talk on your first visit?

5.      How did you find the atmosphere of the meeting?

6.      Were you invited to share your first impressions of the meeting at the end?

      III. After the meeting

1.      Did Vice-President Membership talked to you after the meeting?

2.      Were the members friendly and eager to answer your questions?

3.      Did any members want to talk to you? Did they show interest?

4.      Did anyone invite you to join them for their usual pub gatherings after the club meeting? To spend some time over a coffee or a beer?

Here are the main questions you should answer before you decide to join a Toastmasters club. Please, don’t hurry to make a decision based on seeing only one meeting of one club. 

And the last:

Do you want to know my answers to all these questions?

Please, go to my website and send a message

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

George Rusky VPPR, CC

www.georgerusky.net

How You Can Become A Good Storyteller

Dear Friends

In one of the units in the textbook New Progress to First Certificate there is a topic with the title:”Are you a good storyteller?”

Believe me or not, most of my clients always answered this question negatively”

Why is that so?

I think there are several main reasons for not being a good storyteller.

First. In many cultures speaking is a feature of something not serious and ability of speaking is often compared to the ability of doing. The first is a waste of time the second-the only one correct way of living.

“Yeh… You are speaking all right…How about doing?”

“Everyone can blah-blah-blah… To do it is always more difficult…”

Second. Starting from the earliest educational institutions, children are neither taught nor encouraged to express their opinions publicly.

And when they try to do so, their peers ridicule the brave unmercifully.

Third.  Public speaking as a school subject is a rare phenomenon in the majority of high schools and universities. The same or very similar situation is with communication.

And the last. Most young people do not see the importance of learning and developing communicative and public speaking skills for their future employment and personal career. They believe that speaking on public should be in the form of entertainment and nice, jolly show, something to make us feel good and relaxed after a hard working day.

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But what if someone decides to study communication and public speaking seriously and use these skills for her future personal and business growth?

Are there any possibilities to become a good communicator and public speaker?

Of course, there are a lot!

There are numerous courses, seminars, webinars, workshops on and off-line where these skills are taught. A number of books, reports, tutorials, CDs, DVD, is being produced and introduced on the market in good numbers.

Everybody is free to choose what she likes more.

I personally vote for the Toastmasters International.

You haven’t heard about this world-wide organization yet?

That’s not a problem, you are not the one. In fact, you can go now straight to the website toastmasters.org and get to know as much as you can there, or listen to me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s my story.

In November 2010 I joined the local toastmasters club Prague speakers and began my journey with the toastmasters organization. Naturally enough, I had a lot of questions of what to do and how and I wasn’t sure whether the club was really the right place for me.

The first meetings of the club made me think that I was not going to get as much as I had expected from the club, but suddenly I realized that the club was the only one place in my situation where I could and had the right to speak about what I loved and wanted to, and what is more, I could receive warm and friendly feedback and comments on my short speeches. I prepared my first 7minutes and discovered a lot of aspects that I could have performed better: the speakers receive feedback, short notes with comments on speeches. In addition to that one fellow toastmaster is assigned to evaluate a speech for two minutes in front of the club members and I must say, all these opinions are really helpful and supportive.

Another aspect of Toastmasters International is that anyone who wants to develop her career within the organization has a chance to grow from a position of regular member to a Competent Communicator and further awards that are given to a member who successfully delivered a certain number of speeches. A well-designed plan with a lot of supportive materials, such as manuals, magazines, newsletters, articles, educative sessions and so on and so forth is prepared for our growth and personal improvement.

In short, as soon as a member of the club decides to grow and develop her communicative skills and qualification, she has everything for that.

The second basic direction of Toastmasters International is becoming a competent Leader, learning leadership skills.

And again, the system of materials and learning criteria is designed for everyone who desires to be not only a good communicator, but an excellent leader as well.

As a result of hard work on both communicative and leadership skills, after several years a fellow toastmaster becomes an excellent leader with great communicative and public speaking skills.

Dear Friends,

In a short introduction it is not easy to tell you all about this amazing organization of enthusiasts of communicating, leadership and public speaking, and I could have told you much more…But,

Why don’t you come and see yourself?

Or, if you have any questions, send me a message?

Thank you for reading and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Wishing you the best of success

George Rusky, VPPR, CC
www.­georgerusky.­net

      

The War of Goals.

 In the book Goals, Brian Tracy describes his experience of rewriting goals every day.

As soon as I read, it I set off for a trip of rewriting my goals.

Brian also explained that rewriting goals daily is a powerful tool to prioritize goals and after several days or rewriting anyone doing that eventually comes to a list of goals in the most important sequence for the goal-maker.

Now, here is what I have discovered.

After two weeks of doing goal rewriting exercise I had an enormous headway in one of my goals connected with improvement of my financial situation.

 This rapid progress required a lot of time investment which made it impossible to work on my other goals: that goal devoured all the time that could have been devoted to other goals.

What to do?

1. Go ahead with the ‘left behind’ goals and try to work on them according to my plan. 
2. B. Reduce the number of the goals (not to feel embarrassed for not working on all goals simultaneously)
3. Postpone the rest of the goals and make them real at a later date.

Any of the above didn’t seem to work well.

I tried to sort the situation out and have finally come up with the following solution:

As the movement ahead is so powerful in the goal of the financial sector, which is my #2 goal, the Lord considers it of my high priority and thus plans the advancement in this direction.

’What a relief,” I said and took all the three variants as real ones and went on relying completely on the will of the Creator, praising Him for His holy help and support.          

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