New Club's Awards Beginning Next Year (2014)

Starting next meeting, January 4th of 2014, new ribbons will be awarded to those members who are working hard towards achieving the following awards:

• Ice Breaker Ribbon: 1st speech project for a new Toastmaster. To learn more about this project, you can find more details here.

• Competent Communicator Ribbon: CC Manual contains 10 speech projects each focusing on particular areas such as vocal variety, organizing speech, and others. For more information, please click this link.

• Competent Leader Ribbon: The Competent Leadership manual features 10 projects, which you complete while serving in various meeting roles and participating in other club activities such as helping with a newsletter or getting involved with a membership building campaign. An evaluator will give you feedback on each project, helping you to improve.

• Halfway to Competent Communicator Ribbon: Recognizes the accomplishment of completing half of the Competent Communication projects.

• Best Speaker Mini-Certificate

• Best Evaluator Mini-Certificate

• Best Table Topics Mini-Certificate

For more details about Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club, you can visit their website here.

Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development. Our membership is 292,000 strong. These members improve their speaking and leadership skills by attending one of the 14,350 clubs in 122 countries that make up our global network of meeting locations.

December 7 Meeting (Potluck Event/Pre-Holidays Celebration)

Hello Fellow Toastmasters,

I want to say thank you to all that attended our Dec. 7's very special Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Meeting.

Just a little re-cap of what went on:

We had 7 guests: Neeru, Shavon, Hamza, Ackter, Helen, Roshan, Tri

We had 14 CS Toastmaster members that attended: Jason, Connie, Samantha, Amar, Richard, Euna, Priya, Avi, Nadia, Rafiq, Odecca, Kyla, Sharon and myself.

Theme of the Meeting: Materialism. Rafiq, our Toastmaster/Chair of the day, did a great job in expanding with the theme of the day by exploring how Bhutan measures their quality of life or social progress. In fact, Bhutan is the only country that uses GNH, Gross National Happiness, officially. GNH value (versus GDP Gross Dosmetic Product) is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita of the following measures (source Wikipedia, sorry Raf I wasn't able to write everything down :) ):

1. Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution
2. Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic
3. Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses
4. Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients
5. Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits
6. Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates
7. Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.

An interesting theme which goes to say that money can't always buy happiness, and that happiness is dependent upon many other factors. We should all pay less attention to material things and spend more quality time to improve our relationships with our family, friends, and love ones.

Grammarian/Ah Counter: Samantha, with word of the day being 'Bumfuzzle' meaning to confuse

Quizmaster: Odecca

Timer: Jinky

General Evaluator: Connie

We had two speakers:

1. Priya delivered her third speech project (Get to the Point) and talked about Building a Successful Mentoring Relationship. Her speech was 6 minutes 47 seconds.

2. Kyla delivered her fifth speech project (Your Body Speaks) and talked about her experience doing the triathlon in 6:56:20 To Personal Victory. Her speech was 7 minutes and 10 seconds.

Our two evaluators were:

1. Neeru, a guest and a member of another Toastmasters' club in Burnhamthorpe, evaluated Priya's speech. Neeru's evaluation time was 3 minutes and 3 seconds.

2. Avi evaluated Kyla's speech. Connie's evaluation time was 2 minutes 22 seconds.

The 5 new members inducted during the meeting are: Avi, Priya, Richard, Sharon, and Amar.

Excellent Table Topics session by Rafiq. We had 9 table topics participants, both guests and CS members:

• Richard finishing at 1 minute 1 second
• Neeru finishing at 1 minute 13 seconds
• Ackter finishing at 59 seconds
• Amar finishing at 48 seconds
• Roshan finishing at 43 seconds
• Jason finishing at 59 seconds
• Shavon finishing at 1 minute 7 seconds
• Avi finishing at 1 minute 4 seconds
• Euna finishing at 1 minute 12 seconds

The awards went to:

Best Table Topics - Euna

Best Evaluator - Avi

Best Speaker - Kyla

We also collected a good amount of non-perishable goods to be donated to the Food Bank in support of our fellow Toastmaster Mark McKenzie's fundraising effort.

The meeting started a little bit late at 9:20 am, and finished early at 11:10 am.

We hope to see you on our next CS Toastmasters meeting on Dec. 14, which is our last meeting for the year 2013!

For those who have taken up roles last meeting and didn't get evaluated, please bring your CL manuals on December 14 and we will be happy to complete your evaluation for you.

We encourage you all to also sign up for roles and sign up to do your speeches for our upcoming meetings. If you have any questions, please feel free to email any of our executive members.

Have a good week everyone!

Jinky

What's Happening Next Meeting?

Updates: November 16 Meeting

Hello Fellow Toastmasters!

I want to say thank you to all that attended our Nov. 16 Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Meeting.

Just a little re-cap of what went on:

We had six guests: Omar, Shavon, Gyongyi, Hamza, Thomas, Mario

We had 12 CS Toastmaster members that attended: Jason, Kathleen, Connie, Samantha, Venkatesh, Jocelyn, Amar, Richard, Euna, Priya, Avi, and myself.

Theme of the Meeting: Remembering Fallen Heroes. We honour and remember all of our family and friends who have served selflessly to protect and fight for peace, not only here in Canada, but also abroad, in other countries.

We had three speakers:

1. Priya delivered her second speech project (Organize your Speech) and talked about what one should do to Retire Happy. Her speech was 6 minutes 32 seconds.

2. Avi delivered his second speech project (Organize your Speech) and talked about the Essentials to get Hired. His speech was 7 minutes and 5 seconds.

3. Jason delivered his fourth speech (How to Say it) and talked about one of Life's luxuries, chocolate. His speech was 6 minutes and 39 seconds.

Our three evaluators were:

1. Jocelyn evaluated Priya's speech. Jocelyn's evaluation time was 4 minutes 38 seconds. She also elaborated on benefits of being an evaluator.

2. Connie evaluated Avi's speech. Connie's evaluation time was 2 minutes 22 seconds.

3. Mario evaluated Jason's speech. Mario's evaluation time was 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

Excellent Table Topics session by Connie. We had 6 table topics participants (Richard, Gyongyi, Avi, Jinky, Thomas, Kathleen) and all finished within 2 minutes.

The awards went to:

Best Table Topics - Richard and Kathleen

Best Evaluator - Mario

Best Speaker - Avi

The meeting started a little bit late at 9:20 am, and finished on time at 11:10 am.

I hope to see you on our next CS Toastmasters meeting on Dec. 7. We will have induction of new members of our club and a potluck event to celebrate Jocelyn's and Connie's 2nd place and 3rd place win at Division C Table Topics and Humorous Contest and also as our Holiday celebration.

For those who have taken up roles last meeting and didn't get evaluated, please bring your CL manuals on December 7th and I will be happy to complete your evaluation for you.

I encourage you all to also sign up for roles and sign up to do your speeches for our upcoming meetings here. If you have any questions, please feel free to email any of our executive members.

Jinky Austria

Chair l November 16 Meeting

Learning More About Meeting Roles

Are you ready to challenge yourself by taking some roles during a meeting? 
Do you know how you're going to successfully do it? Check out this video:



To sign up for roles in advance, kindly check this link. If you are unable to access the link, kindly email our VP of Ed at vped-1120086@toastmastersclubs.org.

Related links: 

• Toastmasters Meeting Roles
• Meeting Role Guides

Toastmasters

Where Leaders Are Made

We're Growing!

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club would like to welcome the following new members in our family:

• Avijit Bose
• Priyanka Taneja
• Amar Khan
• Mariella Rios
• Sharon

We look forward to helping you achieve your goals!

Kindest Regards,

Odecca Joy Ordonez

President

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Won Two Golds!!!

Toastmasters Jocelyn Vezina (DTM) and Connie Yuen bagged 2 1st Place awards during the Area 45 Humorous and Table Topics Speech Contests. The event details were as follows:

Date:  October 17, 2013

Time: 6:00 pm

Location: Peel Chinese Community Service Hub (Golder Square Centre) Unit 81

Address:  1177 Central Parkway West

We are so proud of you, Jocelyn and Connie!!

Let us support Jocelyn and Connie as they conquer their next performance in the Division Level. For more details, please register here.

See you all there!!!

Area 45 Contest Event Details

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Humorous and Table Topics Speech Contests (Fall 2013)

Hello Everyone,

Our event yesterday (Humorous and Table Topics Speech Contests) was a huge success!!!

Thank you to the following Toastmasters:

Contestants: Connie Yuen, Rafiq Qutub, and Jocelyn Vezina

Contest Chair: Marcia Cameron

Chief Judge: Nikita Pchelin

Judges: Raj Kang, Bhushan Rele, and Raj Chelleth

Ballot Counters: Jason Walsh and Mariella Rios

Timer: Euna Son

SAAs: Kyla Werrett and Samantha Kong

I also would like to extend my gratitude to the guests: Sam, Avi, Priyanka, Josemon, Tri, Amar, and Sharon.

Here are this year's Fall Speech Contests' Winners:

Table Topics:

1st Place: Jocelyn Vezina

2nd Place: Rafiq Qutub

Humorous:

1st Place: Connie Yuen

Jocelyn and Connie will be representing our club on the upcoming Area 45 Contest. The details are as follows:

Date:  Oct 17th

Time:  6pm

Location:

Peel Chinese Community Service Hub

Golden Square Centre

1177 Central Parkway West, Unit 18 (Behind B Trust Supermarket), Mississauga L5C 4P3

Major Intersection: Central Pkwy & Burnhamthorpe,

Registration Fee: $2

Kindly join me on that day and support our representatives. 

For those of you who were not able to make it, I hope you could join us on our next contests (International and Speech Evaluation) on Feb/March 2014. You might be the next WINNER in our club!! See you next meeting (October 5, 2013)!

Fall Speech Contests (Humorous and Table Topics)

Comfortably Speaking Club's Open House Event on September 7,2013

Media Contact:

Nadia Qasmieh

905-782-8840

vppr-1120086@toastmastersclubs.org

August 12, 2013

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Hosts Open House

Event is free to the public

Mississauga, ON – Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters (http://cst.toastmastersclubs.org/) invites residents to its open house to meet members and hear them talk about how to become a comfortable public speaker and an effective leader. “If you’re looking to improve your public speaking and leadership skills in a fun and positive environment, Toastmasters International is the answer,” says Odecca Ordonez, Club President of Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters. “Our club executives are here to help members with their journey

in Toastmasters.” After a brief meet-and-greet period, members and guests will enjoy a regular Toastmasters meeting that will include prepared speeches, Table Topics (impromptu speeches) and evaluations. Members will share their experience in Toastmasters and how the club has helped them achieve their personal and professional goals. Finger foods and refreshments will be served. “Members receive verbal and written feedback to learn about their areas of strengths and where they can improve,” says Rafiq Qutub, Vice President Education of Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters. “Toastmasters has helped me achieve my goals of speaking to large groups of people and becoming a

better meeting organizer and leader at work.” 

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Open House

Date: September 7, 2013

Location: Mississauga Central Library, Room CL 2

Time: 9:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.

For more information, email Vice President Public Relations Nadia Qasmieh at

vppr-1120086@toastmastersclubs.org

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters meets every first and third Saturday of the month from 9:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. in Room CL 2 at Mississauga Central Library, 301 Burnhamthorpe Road West, L5B 3Y3. For more information about this event and the club, please visit http://cst.toastmastersclubs.org/.

About District 86
District 86 comprises more than 200 corporate and community clubs in Ontario. To learn more about District 86, please visit http://toastmasters86.org/

About Toastmasters International
Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs. Founded in October 1924, the organization currently has more than 280,000 members in 13,500-plus clubs in 116 countries. Each week, Toastmasters helps more than a quarter million people of every ethnicity, education level and profession build their competence in communication so they can gain the confidence to lead others. For information about local Toastmasters clubs, please visit www.toastmasters.org. Follow @Toastmasters International on Twitter.

# # #

Civic Holiday Meeting With Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club

It was, indeed, an exciting and special day yesterday in our club meeting because we had fun with our club members and with more than 10 special guests from College Boreal. Thank you to Madam Sahar for bringing all your amazing students!

Our amazing VP of Education, Raf Qutub, suggested for us to have a theme that talks about Civic Holiday. Since I was the chair yesterday, I shared great facts about Civic Holiday that it is celebrated on the first Monday of August. It is known by many names in different provinces like Regatta Day in Newfoundland, Saskatchewan day in SK, British Columbia Day in BC, Natal Day in Nova Scotia and PEI, Simcoe Day in Toronto, Colonel By Day in Ottawa and Joseph Brant day in Burlington, ON and the list goes on and on.

Our humorist, Jason, provided us an interesting presentation on how other countries celebrate their August Long Weekend. For example, Spain celebrates La Tomatina, a food-fight festival where  participants throw tomatoes, held on the last Wednesday of August. 

During our Educational Session, our beloved guests and new members were able to hear 2 great speakers in our club (Nikita and Raf). Great information about Toastmasters International was shared by Raf and Nikita told us his personal and original story about his encounter with an old lady who gave him a bread when he was in Russia. The speeches were very informative and inspirational.

Great evaluation was given to the speakers by our club mentor Jocelyn Vezina. Our General Evaluator, Jinky, did a great job for evaluating our meeting as well as for calling all the reports at the end of the meeting. 

But before I will end this blog, our Table Topics session was an interesting one (as always) especially if the Table Topic Master is Nikita. Some topics were creepy (yeah, creepy but fun!), "out-of-this-world", and very creative. As a matter of fact, our guests enjoyed the topics and they seriously answered Nikita with their eyes rolling (Just kidding!).

For the business session, I covered 3 important things. These are:

1. Room Change: August 17-December 7, 2013 meeting is going to be in Room CL-2
2. Open House: September 7, 2013 (Please don't forget to invite your friends on this event. Spread the news, we are here to help you improve your communication and leadership skills)
   
3. Speech Contest (Humorous and Table Topics): We are still in need of contestants. In case you are interested, please send me an email me at president-1120086@toastmastersclubs.org.

Overall, we had fun and enjoyed every session of the meeting. Thank you to all our amazing club members and to all our guests for spending your Saturday with us. Please don't forget that our next meeting is on August 17,2013 from 9:15am-11:15am at Mississauga Central Library's Room CL2.

Important:

To all Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters members who would like to sign up for roles, please click this link.

Progress and Upcoming Events

Yesterday, our President and VP Education presented the club with Toastmasters Achievement Charts for the Competent Communication (CC) and Leadership (CL) tracks.

(Example of a Competent Leadership Achievement Chart)

This is a great way for our members to map out their progress and be proud of their accomplishments. It also motivates each member to plan ahead by coming up with a tentative schedule to complete their CC and CL manuals.

If you are actively planning the completion of your CL, we have a number of events coming up. You can take part in organizing them and, by doing so, a credit will go towards your CL.

Below is a list of events and possible activities to take part in. If you are interested in chairing a project or in helping out, don’t hesitate to contact me for a list of vacant roles.

1. Open House – Our Open House will be held on September 7, 2013. It will be a potluck event for our members and guests. This is an amazing social event that also includes inspirational speeches from our members.

2. Club Contest – Our Club Contest (Humour and Table Topics) will be held on September 21, 2013. Let us know if you want to compete (if you haven’t already)!

3. Newsletters – You can serve as a club newsletter editor for one of four newsletters to come out on the following dates:

·         October 5, 2013

·         December 7, 2013

·         March 8, 2014

·         June 7, 2014

4. Befriending a guest – You can do so by welcoming a guest and discussing his/her goals and concerns. You want to also make yourself available to the guest outside of the club meeting to continue discussions and to encourage them to attend another meeting or join the club.

5. Speakers’ Bureau – If you have an organization or issue you’re passionate about, let us know. This is a great way to gain public speaking experience outside our club. 

Nadia Qasmieh

VP Public Relations 2013-2014

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club

We Are Still Looking For More Contestants

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Featured Video from Toastmasters International's 

Youtube Channel:

Here are the 5 basic public speaking tips brought to you by Toastmasters International. Check out more of Toastmasters International's video here.

If you're from Mississauga and looking for a club to learn these tips, visit Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month from 9:15 am-11:15 am. 

Toastmasters International

Where Leaders Are Made

Sharing is truly caring!

During our meeting today, we shared stories, humour, advice, experiences, and even cookies! A comment we always get from our guests and members is how we are constantly able to create a supportive, friendly environment for people to grow and thrive in. We attribute that to our encouraging community and the values we build each meeting on: honesty, trust, and constructive feedback.

Our members didn’t even hesitate to share their spirit to make today’s meeting a successful one. Our president and chair decorated the room and brought props fit for the theme of ‘O Canada, eh?’ Some stepped up and filled available roles. Others pushed their boundaries and volunteered for an impromptu Table Topics speech.

The contributions continued during our business session, where the executives shared their plans for the new term with the members and the members, in turn, shared their views. We realize that any major change needs to be a majority rule and that everyone should be given the chance to voice an opinion. Keeping this communication between executives and club members going is crucial to designing a club plan that includes each member’s own individual goals. We want our meetings to be a venue for all members to achieve their targets. After all, that’s why we joined Toastmasters, right? :)

I also want to mention that after our next session, July 20, 2013, we will be attending Amacon Mississauga Rotary Ribfest! It will be just outside the library in Celebration Square. This is a chance for us to mingle amongst lots of food and live entertainment. Feel free to bring any guests! As always, we welcome any comments or thoughts about how we can serve you better. See you all on the 20th!

Nadia Qasmieh
VP Public Relations 2013-2014
Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club

Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters New Executive Officers (2013-2014)

We would like to welcome and congratulate the following new Executive Officers of Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters Club who volunteered to serve the club this year (2013-2014): 

President: Odecca Joy Ordonez

VP of Education: Rafiq Qutub

VP of Membership: Jason Walsh

VP of Public Relations: Nadia Qasmieh

Treasurer: Euna Son

Sergeant-At-Arms: Kyla Werrett

Secretary: Jinky Austria

Our club is open to the public and our regular meeting is every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month from 9:15am-11:15am at Mississauga Central Library (301 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W., Mississauga, ON L5B 3Y3) Room CL4 (until August 3, 2013) and Room CL2 (from August 17-December 7, 2013).

For more information, kindly contact our VP of Membership, Jason Walsh, at vpm-1120086@toastmastersclubs.org.

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