A toastmaster, who presents an agenda, a theme and introduces the participants, emcees the meeting. Meetings can last 2 hours. There are functionaries that make the meeting formal. These functionaries evaluate and keep track of different meeting components: grammar, time, and verbal intercalations, and someone evaluates the whole meeting. There are speeches, of course I was one of three speakers this evening, and there are people who evaluate the speeches and introduce the speakers. The emcee asks a General Question of the Day to ensure everyone has an active part during the meeting, which serves to introduce everyone. A Table Topics Toastmaster will ask a variety of questions to attendees chosen at random later during the meeting, but not usually directing questions to the evenings’ speakers.
All this generally follows the theme created by the meeting’s emcee, formally introduced as the meeting’s toastmaster.
The meeting’s emcee opened the meeting with a film clip showing toastmaster members who won public speaking contests. The emcee had more clips to present throughout the evening that would show the power of dreams, such as the old Apple commercial. And the question was: what is your biggest dream? I answered it as my biggest goal: to use my creativity as a means of financially supporting myself. I embellished my answer a little to take up 30 seconds, the suggested timing for such answers.
The room was set up seminar style and it has an audience capacity of about 70, of which 35 or so were in the audience. Wednesday’s group is much larger than the handful on the Tuesday meetings I also attend. The room on Wednesday is also better equipped with a computer, speakers and a ceiling mounted light projector. The Tuesday room only has a functioning white board. I especially like the Wednesday group because I can enter the room well ahead of time to prepare my speech and I can also go there to practice my delivery without too many questions being asked.
I arrived tonight at 17:30, which is 90 minutes before the start of the meeting. I had to load my Power Point presentation onto the computer and then test the equipment. There is a remote to operate the light projector but I have to ask for the one that works every time. One day, it will have no batteries. I also wanted to work on my delivery with the slides one more time but it was not meant to be.
Here is how the slice of my life in this foreign country works. I have a mentor to assist me with creating my speeches. On Monday I met with my speech evaluator, gracious enough to sit through my speech and help me better structure it. He is not my mentor. My mentor arrived early before I actually got myself technically prepared. As he is my mentor, officially, I thought to get his comment on my speech ahead of time. It would have been nice. My evaluator contacted me before my speech to organize our meeting. My mentor ignored me. Not much of a mentor, if you want my editorial.
So, with my mentor sitting in the room I went to get the functioning remote. I do not speak the language so twisting someone into doing something right is not possible for me to do verbally. I need to rely on the kind nature of people wanting to help me and on my trying to be careful how I express my request and show gratitude. Countless times I meet opposition from people who appear as dumb as sticks and this was one of those evenings. Despite my request having been made 3 or 4 times to the same person over the past 3 months, he was still unaware of what I wanted when I came up to him with a fresh, nice smile on my face and a defective projector remote in my hand. He had to come with me to the room and then tell me that the defective remote was working perfectly. Also, there was no other remote.
Yes. It is childish.
However, I am not using but the basics of the language, body language, demonstration and brand names. The remote that works is a Logitech remote. It is possible that the Logitech remote is in use in another room, which easily translates to there is no other remote. But, though I have no children of my own, I have been in this country long enough to know there is much better odds that someone would rather work harder to avoid being helpful than to actually help. Essentially, when I come up to the man sitting at reception with a defective remote and play out a scene he and I have played out a handful of times already, he can just take the Logitech from his desk drawer. Instead we do the whole process again.
Only this time the corridor filled up with toastmasters. 80 minutes before the meeting, 4 toastmasters arrived by the elevators. These people were gathering to have a meeting and were surprised to see me; they being the management of the club and me being a simple member. My mentor is also a member of the management. All know English and the language of my host country. My mentor is a native from here.
So as I was trying to explain that I wanted the Logitech, two toastmasters came to my rescue. My mentor came out from the room and a gentleman named Jerry. Jerry tried to persuade the man at reception to help. The man resumed his dance with him. The Logitech I was asking about was unavailable because it did not exist. Again, this could be a translation problem but I was unconvinced because I tend to dream in bed and not when I am walking around. My grandiose mentor sidled up next to me in his knowing way and guaranteed to me that someone, he did not know whom, would bring a functioning remote in time for my speech. This pompous penguin totally missed the point of my coming early to prepare my equipment and myself.
I wonder how many other people would read him to be a time waster based upon this incident. I have other instances to base such a character read but he was proving to be a better obstruction than the man at reception. Jerry finally wore out the man at reception because he was able to allow me, through is precise interpretation, to get to the fact that the man needed to reach into his desk for the right remote. He did and I went back to prepare.
Yes, this is a tiring activity. It is tiring to write about. It is more tiring to live through. It is why I am so tired after living in the land of “impossible” for 10 years. Had I a Luger and a license to cull this crowd, I would have served several Darwin Awards to such obstacles already. I was a pacifist when I arrived in this European war theatre but I am not that now thanks to the Culture Of No” that dogs me. That’s right, CON for short. And I have a history of killing CONs but the effort here, because it permeates the people so thoroughly, makes the effort Herculean.
I got back to the room, followed by the waddling Penguin, and found the 2nd Speaker in the room. This is impressive because more people brought up in the local culture are lazy. After 10 years, I am becoming a master of lazy too so the kettle knows the pot for the fire were sit upon is from the same source. I am rather depressed at how easily I succumbed to it.
Anyway, I made sure my technicals were working and left the room to find another place to read through my speech. I have a terrible time memorizing. Like I wrote in my speech, anything written longer than 2 pages and I am asleep. My eyes actually cross before they give out. As an aside, I was experiencing trouble pronouncing words tonight before I did my mouth and tongue exercises. I arrived back into the room for the start of the meeting just on time, squeezing every moment I could out of my preparation time.
I was the 3rd speaker so I enjoyed the show, loosening up enough by giving written feedback to the other speakers in the form of short notes. It was helpful to me not to focus on myself sitting in the front row waiting my turn.
The 2nd speaker, after a smooth 1st speaker, experienced an utter failure. Alas, the difference between arriving early and arriving early to prepare! He decided to change his speech topic from something humorous to something deadly serious: the killing of infant girls in China. He repeated his former speech topic as he apologized for the last minute switch in topic but he forgot to announce the name or the theme of his speech. He just barreled right into it. After two slides accompanied by statistics about the disparate male and female growth rates in China compared to the rest of the world, his slide presentation ended. Apparently he had not even loaded it into the computer. He then disappeared under the desk to work out the problem abandoning his audience. This was after one minute of the speech.
The emcee decided it was a good place to call upon the penguin to tell a joke. The penguin leapt out of his seat – I kid you not – and ran to the center stage. He told an off colour joke, which got an easy laugh. Then we returned to the topic of killing baby girls, with the accompaniment of the Power Point Slides.
I used to fancy myself a specialist in communications before I came to this country. Perhaps this little vignette will explain why I went broke here and ended up living with Martha. This sort of thing does not only happen at a Toastmaster’s meeting sadly.
My evaluator introduced me by pumping me up with hyperbole. I am a good speaker. I have good healthy collagen chops. But injecting a speaker with Botox in the introduction of his speech is not helpful to any speaker. The measure should be under promise and over perform but this is part of the CON and I am not about to crusade against it. I do appreciate the evaluator was totally unaware of the Botox injection and was trying to pump the audience for me. So, bottom line, I am grateful and hope to have him as my evaluator again.
Aside from the over promise, he did pay me a huge compliment. He used a slide with my photo on it to recap my speeches. He told everyone that I joined the group at the end of December and gave my first speech at the first meeting in January. He recalled I paid on my first visit to become an official member. He informed everyone I am now 4 out of 10 towards my Competent Communicator certificate. He encouraged everyone to follow my model. This is what the author-da-fé is about!
Take that Paul Varjak! But my membership is paid off the back of Martha and my preparation is possible because Martha toils to keep me warm, fed, clothed and plugged into The Internet. Still, I am doing something! It is nice to get a back pat on the back from someone else's hand.
Now I was really nervous. My hands was shaking like a Parkinson’s victim. I had trouble reading my notes in my delivery practice. I tried to make a few revisions and cuts – just noting down places I could skip where I could shave time to be under the maximum time limit of 7 minutes. I was having difficulty pronouncing words and stumbling over my notes in practice. And I had just received my Botox injection.
I got up to shake my evaluator’s hand and looked at the timer to let him know I was going to stall for time. I did talk to the audience as I crossed the room, took a cup from the plastic wrapper and poured myself a cup of water. I even made the joke that I was so nervous I did not know if I wanted to drink from my cup or the bottle. I tried to bring down my hype and I tried for common ground as I essentially took the stage and tried to hold it through sheer will before I could begin to sort my speech and speak.
Anyway, I did it all with a smile and went through the speech. It was not my best outing but I was glad to have it done to get back to the rigor of speaking in public and the self-discipline of preparing for a deadline. I was happy with the comments I received back and with the evaluation, which was presented in the second half of the meeting.
Jerry, the same Jerry who was surprised to see me so early, was a little upset during the evening. He came to sit next to me during the break. His opening gambit in conversation was to tell me how upset the man at reception was at me, and by suggesting in his tone that I was abusing a privilege by practicing my speeches in vacant rooms. This was an awkward approach because Jerry is a consummate performer. I had met him 10 years ago when he first came to Toastmasters, fresh off the boat from the USA. I was member of Toastmasters when I first arrived but I chose to give it up to pour my entire heart and soul into the bones of the failed retiree I am. Jerry and I (and another familiar face in the crowd) are familiar with each other from those days. If you need something done, he will tell you directly if he can do it or not. Moreover, he give the impression that if he does it, it will be done right no matter how long it takes. In fact, it will be a work of art because he is a craftsman, and the timings of his speeches suffers from this subject dedication overkill. Public speaking is a true challenge for him, on a few levels, and he takes his tasks as serious as a heart attack. So he knows the value of preparation.
In my experience, when an argument sounds hollow it just signals that the internal conversation has broken through to the surface. As it turns out, as I let Jerry talk himself out, he was upset with himself. He was to give a speech two weeks ago but did not. I was to evaluate it, and happy to do so. Jerry deserves a kind and solid evaluation. Since I used to train people in English presentation skills, I would have given him one of the best he has ever had. I like this guy but I just cannot stand his boorishness. Perhaps, as often is the case in such emotional reactions, it is because I am a boor myself.
He confessed that he could have done the speech but he fell into the lazy trap of this CON. I did not judge him. That would have been a rich and unforgivable thing indeed! He did not prepare and, because he is who he is, he cancelled his speech at the last minute. It hurt him to feel his disappointment when he saw me in the room early preparing myself, just as it hurt him to see how unprepared was the 2nd speaker.
The comment was made that the speech failure was not the fault of the speaker but of the technical equipment during the evaluation. That is a big steaming load of unadulterated bullshit in the springtime. Everyone in communications knows it is an unforgivable sin to shift the speaker’s blame onto his equipment. Jerry saw how I had to fight through my barriers to get the remote control. He saw the opposition I had in people telling me it was impossible to get what I wanted, even something so small. Knowing all this, Jerry was uncontrollably pissed. Sitting next to me when the evaluation of the 2nd speaker was presented, he uttered the loud guttural throat clearing we all recognize as disgust no matter where we live.
Jerry’s like that, if a little hypocritical in this situation. It is the whore who makes the Madonna with the strongest voice; the lady protest too much me thinks, and all that. You have no need ask why I like this guy though I recognize he can be a bore.
After the short 10-minute break, the film clips continued. Old grainy films of Ghandi, Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Amelia Earhart, and other great people recognized as dreamers and status quo challengers were presented between the different sections: the return from break, the Table Topic session and at the close. They were part of the emcee’s underlying theme and he made a few remarks of encouragement to us.
Every time the film clip ended, the slide with my face came up on the screen. This was the slide that my evaluator used to introduce me. It amused me, now that my speech was done, and it was a little embarrassing. I know how these things work being what I thought of as a competent communicator before I realized the truth to the old admonition never to argue with a fool for he lowers you to his level and beats you with experience. I did that crusade for 6 years before Martha came to my rescue, and I never won once. Tonight I was the product placement, experiencing the halo effect of the many great people who challenged the status quo but fared far better than I.
This was a bittersweet moment for me too. Paul Varjak does not deserve it but I was not always his minion. Even the emcee made a nervous comment on how I fit in with this crowd. It happened naturally.
Now the Toastmasters know me from my introduction. I am retired at 42. And I have not tried to explain why I am retired. I do not even tell them I live with (or off-of) someone. Most of my fellow Toastmasters think I am a rich success, retired at an early age. Really, I am a miserable middle-aged failure just trying to write one more post before I succumb to a habit of masturbation developed over the last few years of life less living.
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