Ginza! March 25th, 2018

1. Meeting We've had another great meeting on Sunday 25th March at Kyobashi Plaza Kuminkan, including a Success/Communication Workshop Part I delivered by Yukimasa Matsuda(“How to be happy”), two storytellings from Tomomi (“The North Wind and The Sun”) and Bing (“Cowboy and Weaver girl”), and Competition speech from Drian, and all finished off with a table topic master led by Makiko. Meeting award recipients were: Best Speaker Award, Drian Von-Golden; Best Table Topics Award, Eva Aoi; and Best Evaluator Award Paul Malone. We will have our next meeting on Sunday 22th April at Kyobashi Plaza Kuminkan at 14:00. Masayo will be Toastmasters. Come over to practice your public speaking!

2. Speech Tips "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, take someone with you."

A good speech is not defined only by the relevance of the content and the quality of the structure.

A good speech is designed to help the audience process the information and images made available to them.

For instance, making pauses is very important. A pause is a moment when the listeners have a little bit of time to really "see" what you mean... and to connect it with what they already know on the subject.

A pause is also a pause for the listeners, and we should never forget that listening intently is tiring.

When we are using filler words because we fear to come across as awkward if we keep silent even for a split second, ...... (pause) ........ we are depriving our listeners' brains of a precious moment of rest.

Repetitions have a similar function. If a listener missed a bit, they won't be lost until the end or try to catch up guessing what you might have said. Those who heard well straight away will enjoy the repetition, as it will give them extra time to see what you mean and process your content....

When we write and rehearse our speeches, we should keep in mind that it is part of our job to help our listeners process what we are telling them!