South Main Monthly

Vol. 2 No. 4 South Main Speakers, District 56, Club 8609 October, 2007

The mission of the Toastmasters club is to provide a mutually

supportive and positive learning environment in which every
member has the opportunity to develop communication and
leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and
personal growth.

IN THIS ISSUE:

*President's Corner
*Anniversaries and Milestones
Brenda Thorne, Trevor Gor
Jazon Samillano, Jane Shen
Sam Tsen, Jian Wang, Weilie Pan
Raghuram Arakalgud
*Calendar of Events
Oct 21: Division Q Table Topics and
Humorous Speech Contest
Oct 28: Education Session
*New Member Spotlight
Shabnam Zangeneh, Hande Sahin,
Mary Teng, and Mark Smith
*Features
How Toastmasters Can Help You
By Mark Smith, DTM
Make Full Use of Library Resources
By Jian Wang, CTM
Longwood Gardens. By Grace Hu, ATMB
A Day on the Farm. By Bob Hu, ATMB
*Ask the Master
How to Prepare the Ice Breaker Speech?
President’s
Corner
Division Contest, Membership Growth and Club
Elections
By Vivek Rajan, CC
Congratulations to Jazon Samillano and Jane
Shen for doing a marvelous job at the area Q-50 Table
Topics and Humorous speech contests. Jazon won the
Table Topics contest and will be representing our club
at the Division Q contest. The Division Q contest is
going to be held at the Jungman Library (5830
Westheimer Rd, Houston, TX – 77057), on Sunday,
October 21st, 2007 at 2 p.m. Be there to support and
cheer Jazon!
Our club is growing! We got 10 new members in
the last three months and our membership has touched
an all-time high of 38 members! Kudos to all the
members for keeping our meetings fun and educational!

The South Main Monthly is a monthly publication of the South

Main Speakers Toastmasters club. We meet every Sunday at
1:30 p.m. in 10305 South Main Street (Houston Chinese
Church), Room 411. For more information, please visit our
website at: http://groups.msn.com/southmainspeakers
If you have any comments, contributions, or suggestions
concerning this or future issues, please send them to
judycyan@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!
With fall in the air, it is time to think about the
club elections. We will hold the elections in the month
of November. Serving as a club officer is a great way to
help our members grow in their personal development
and to take our club to new heights, and in turn improve
your leadership skills. Becoming a leader in life takes
practice – so practice!

– Judy Yan, Editor

 Anniversaries & Milestones
• Congratulations to Brenda J. Thorne,
DTM, who celebrates her fourteenth year
anniversary with South Main Speakers!
• Congratulations to Trevor Gor, who
celebrates his first year anniversary with
South Main Speakers!
• Congratulations to Jazon Samillano, who
won first place in the Area Q-50 Table
Topics Contest! Jazon will compete at the
Division Q level on October 21.
• Congratulations to Jane Shen who stepped
up to represent our club and did a
wonderful job in the Area Q-50 Humorous
Speech contest!
• Happy Birthday to Sam Tsen, Jian Wang,
and Weilie Pan!
• Goodbye and good luck to Raghuram
Arakalgud, who will be moving to Seattle
due to job relocation. During the 4-month
with South Main Speakers, Raghu has
made tremendous improvement in his
public speaking skills and won the recent
Club Humorous Speech contest. Way to go,
Raghu!
New Member Spotlight
added members this month, the club approaches a total of 40 members, representing about 30%
growth rate in the last 3 months!
Please give a warm welcome to our newest members, Shabnam Zangeneh, Hande Sahin, Mary
Teng, and Mark Smith!
October
October 21: Division Q Table Topics
and Humorous Speech Contest
Who: Toastmasters and Guests
When: Sunday, October 21, 2007
2 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Where: Frank Jungman Branch Library
5830 Westheimer
Houston, TX 77057
PARKING in front and back of Library
DIRECTIONS:
From the intersection of 59 and Chimney Rock, go
North on Chimney Rock. Turn left onto
Westheimer. The library will be on the right.
http://www.houstonlibrary.org/branches/jun_home.h
tml
October 28: Education Session
Michael Plaks will share with us the video of the
2007 Toastmasters International conference in
Phoenix and show the winning speech of
International Speech Contest on October 28. Mark
you calendar and don’t miss this great learning
opportunity!
South Main Speakers Toastmasters Club has been
experiencing tremendous growth lately! With 4 newly
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New Member Spotlight

“I am pursuing my PhD degree in Industrial Engineering in

which leadership and communication skills play an important
role. I found Toastmasters club while searching internet for some
classes related to leadership in Houston. After being as a guest in
three different Toastmasters clubs in different locations, I decided
to join South Main Speakers, a friendly and lovely group in which
I enjoy participating and sharing useful communication
experience.” - Shabnam Zangeneh

“I am a 24-year-old student, pursuing my Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering. It

inspired me to join Toastmaters that I can improve my analytical thinking skills while
speaking and make people really listen to me. And the best part is that I can get instantaneous
advice in a friendly environment without being graded or judged! I think Toastmasters will
help me to become an influential speaker in my future professional life as well as in daily
life.” - Hande Sahin

“I’m excited to be a new member of South Main Speakers. I’m not new to Toastmasters nor
to Houston. I lived in Houston from 2002-2006 and then moved to Utah for one year to
complete some job training. While in Salt Lake City, I joined a Toastmasters club, primarily
with the goal of preparing for an important, national oral examination in her field. (I
passed!) I enjoyed the friendships and speaking skills I developed in her Toastmasters club in
Utah. Soon after returning to Houston, I sought out a fun, friendly, diverse, and accomplished
Toastmasters club and found all of those things at South Main Speakers." -Jeanne Button
(Joined South Main Speakers last month)

Mark Smith is an advanced speaker. He recently received his DTM (Distinguished

Toastmaster) award. DTM is the highest recognition a member may receive. Congratulations!

Mark has been a member of over 20 Toastmasters clubs in Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Texas, and Indiana, and a visitor of 100-200 Toastmasters clubs. He is a former District
Public Relations Officer and Area Governor for District 77 and P-2 Area Governor this year.

Mark received BS/MS/PhD in Chemical Engineering, MBA, P.E. He worked for over 45
years in more than 25 industrial. He started up, designed and constructed multibillion dollar
chemical/petroleum/defense/process plants. In his spare time, Mark enjoys sports and finance.
He is an expert snow skier and a Marathon runner. He can instruct snow skiing too. (Anyone
interested?) He lifts weight daily and cycles 140 miles a week.

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How Toastmasters Can Help You
By Mark F. Smith, DTM1
Your success in business is based on how
effective you are. Through participation
in the Toastmasters Communication and
Leadership program, people from all
backgrounds learn to effectively speak,
conduct a meeting, manage a department
or business, lead, delegate, and motivate.
How Toastmasters Works
As your improved communication skills
become obvious within the workplace,
increased visibility, recognition and
promotion will follow. Your improved
presentation skills will win you the
respect and admiration of your colleagues
and employees - and make them wonder
what you did to change!
Leadership skills acquired through
participation in Toastmasters will
increase your management potential. As a
Toastmaster you will acquire an
increased ability to motivate and
persuade, making you more effective as a
supervisor or manager.
Members of Toastmaster Clubs have
access to a wide range of educational
materials, including books, audio and
videotapes, and seminar programs
available at reduced cost through the
Toastmasters International Supply
Catalog.
1
DTM – Distinguished Toastmaster
How Toastmasters Meets Your Needs
Established in 1924, Toastmasters
International uses time-tested programs
that are continually updated to meet
participant’s needs.
Self-paced programs allow you to
progress as rapidly or gradually as your
needs dictate. The hands-on
Communication and Leadership program
provides the "how-to" and the practical
experience so critical to progress.
Toastmasters Clubs meet at various
locations in the morning, at noon and in
the evening. You'll be sure to find a Club
that fits your needs.
The Toastmasters program is cost
effective, especially when compared to
seminars charging hundreds of dollars
per day. There is a $20 new member fee
and $27 dues every six month. Clubs may
also assess local dues to cover local
expenses.
An atmosphere of professional
camaraderie makes your Toastmasters
Club a unique learning environment --
informal, yet dedicated to learning.
The Toastmasters program can be
tailored to meet your personal objectives.
Whether you desire improvement in
prepared or impromptu speaking, greater
skill in the use of visual aids, experience
and knowledge is to be gained in the
areas that most interest you.
How the Program Works
The Toastmasters program exposes each
participant to a wide range of
communication experiences.
Each new Toastmaster receives a New
Member Kit. The kit features a copy of
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the basic Communication and Leadership
manual, general orientation materials and ************
information regarding skill improvement
in areas such as speech evaluation and the
use of gestures.

The initial prepared speeches, as outlined

in the basic Communication and
Leadership program manual, are designed
with the new Toastmaster in mind. A
variety of assigned speeches help the
participant develop competency in areas
such as organization, voice inflection and
Make Full Use of Library Resources
persuasiveness.
By Jian Wang, CTM2
After giving a prepared speech, each
Book is the origin of knowledge,
Toastmaster receives a constructive
information and wealth. We all love
speech evaluation. This process
reading books, either for fun or to gain
recognizes speakers for their strengths
more to advance our career. However,
and provides valuable insight into
sometimes we are warded off by the
problem areas.
skyrocketing price of some books. Well,
in this article, I would like to offer you a
During the meeting's Table Topics
tip to get around this barrier: make full
session, members learn to think on their
use of library resources.
feet by delivering short impromptu
speeches, lasting one to two minutes.
The first place I would recommend you
to go to is the Google books website.
Upon completion of the basic
Once you entered the title, key word, or
Communication and Leadership program,
author information, a list of your favorite
Toastmasters may participate in the
books will appear. Following the link,
Advanced Communication and
you can find the table of contents,
Leadership program. Participants may
introduction, and even excerpts of the
choose from specific business oriented
books. Due to copy-right limitations,
topics such as Speeches by Management
Google can not put all contents of all the
and Technical Presentations.
books on its website. However, there is a
very useful link to each book: “Find this
Workshop style Success/Leadership
book in a library”.
programs are also available, offering
opportunities for further skill
Once you click through this link and
development in areas such as leadership,
provide your zip code, you will be
public speaking and conducting business
amazed to find all the libraries in the
meetings. These programs are especially
world where there is a copy of this book
effective as in-house training and can be
are listed. I think that we are very lucky
tailored to meet the needs of your
to live in such a big metropolitan city as
company.
2
CTM –Competent Toastmaster

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Houston. There are many public libraries
around for us to find our favorite books.
Here we have the University of Houston
libraries (the main campus, downtown
campus, clear lake campus, and etc), Rice
University library, Houston Public
Library, Harris County Public Library, as
well as other local colleges’ libraries.
Most of these libraries would allow you
to register a library card with your ID.
Given such an ample source of libraries, I
do not think you will have difficulty in
finding your favorite book. And you can
also pick the closest library to check out
the book. Isn’t this amazing?
Recently I have been immersed in
reading some interesting books. And I
was surprised to learn that almost all of
the books, even including some latest
releases, are available in the libraries.
Right now I am checking out books from
Rice University, University of Houston
libraries, as well as the Houston Public
Library. Some books that I am reading
include: “The world is flat” (Rice
University library), “Make your contacts
count – Networking know-how for
business and career success” (Rice
University library), and “Think like a
billionaire by Trump” (Houston Public
Library). Not only did I use these great
library resources to learn the topics that I
am interested in and expand my
knowledge base, but I have also enjoyed
reading those books in my leisure time.
As a toastmaster, we all know that stories
have the paramount power to convey the
message in our speech. The biggest
hurdle, however, is to obtain great stories.
I think these libraries provide the greatest
sources of information that can empower
us with a vast reservoir of stories, which
can be incorporated either into a prepared
speech or a Table Topics speech. Why
not check out some books from these
library resources to make yourself better
equipped?
Here are the links to the books and
library information mentioned above:
Google books: http://books.google.com
Rice University library:
http://www.rice.edu/fondren
University of Houston libraries:
http://info.lib.uh.edu/
Houston Public library:
http://www.houstonlibrary.org
Harris county public library:
http://www.hcpl.net/index.htm
************
Longwood Gardens
By Grace Hu, ATMB3
I took a little time off to visit the
beautiful Longwood Gardens near
Philadelphia when I was on a business
trip during Labor Day weekend.
Longwood Gardens is dedicated to
preserving the spirit and beauty of the
early twentieth-century gardens of Pierre
S. du Pont who was once the chairman of
the DuPont and General Motors
companies. Longwood is a display
garden promoting the art and enjoyment
of horticulture for the public, while
3
ATMB – Advanced Toastmaster Bronze
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providing opportunities for research and
learning. If you are in Philadelphia area,
you ought to visit the Longwood Gardens!
Blooming lotus flowers in Longwood Gardens
Natural Beauty in Longwood Gardens ☺
************
A Day on the Farm
By Bob Hu, ATMB
On our recent trip, Grace and I visited a
retired couple, Dave and Rebecca, living
on a farm about an hour north of
Dallas. It was quite an interesting
experience.
Their two story house is probably 80
years old, comes with a barn and a 200
acre backyard. On the farm they have
about 50 heads of cattle, 6 horses, 3
donkeys, and maybe a dozen chickens.
Dave proudly showed us around the farm,
pointing out the newborn calves, horses
that they rescued, and the hens hatching
eggs. The animals knew Dave too,
comfortably eating out of his hand. Some
of them were quite friendly, as you can
see from the picture. One of the horses
walked right up to Grace and Ping-ting, a
former member of South Main Speakers.
We did not know much about raising
livestock and maintaining a farm. Grace
had always lived in a city, while I could
only brag that we had a chicken coup in
our yard when I lived in Taiwan. We can
see now it is a lot of work to feed the
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animals, mow the grass, fix the fences,
and repair the farm machinery.
Did I mention that they also have three
dogs? I didn't mention them because
they are almost the "family". The dogs
have the run of the house; they can come
in and go outside as they please. They
each have their place at the foot of the
dining table, as well as their individual
sofa in the living room. Below is a
picture of me bonding with the pack.
How many dogs do you see in the
picture?
(Hint: Bob was born in the year of the
Dog.)
************
Ask the Master
Dear Master,
I just joined a Toastmasters club. I am
excited yet anxious to give my first
prepared speech –the Ice Breaker. It is
like many things in life it's not as easy as
you think! Do you have any tips on how
to talk about yourself without boring
everyone to tears or revealing too much?
How to find good topics and “break the
ice” with ease?
—Miss Ice Breaker
Dear Miss Ice Breaker,
Do you know that even experienced
speakers who join a Toastmasters club
find their Ice Breaker assignment nerve-
racking?4 Do you know what they do?
Ask the master! You have come to the
right place.
The purposes of your first prepared
speech are:
 To begin speaking before an
audience
 To help you understand what
areas require particular emphasis
in your speaking development
 To introduce yourself to your
fellow club members
This is a 4-6 minute speech, so you don't
have very much time to say everything
you might want to say. Instead you can
only focus on a few highlights.
Is there a particular subject that you can
speak passionately about?
4
Roadrunners Toastmasters
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 Sports
 Hobbies
 Community service
 Your career
 Your family
 Your aspirations
You wonder how to talk about yourself
without boring everyone to tears or
revealing too much. One way around
your difficulty is to talk about yourself
indirectly yet constructively. When you
introduce yourself to a stranger, you
don't go through your resume in
chronological order from birth to the
present. So why do it in your Ice Breaker?
You can talk about a seemingly unrelated
topic, and still fulfill the assignment
objectives. One of the most thought-
provoking Ice Breaker speeches I ever
heard was about the sun. The speaker
told us how, when he was a child, he saw
the sun as a God-given fact; later, as
physics major, he saw it as burning ball
of gas in space. By telling us his views on
the sun, he was indirectly revealing his
life's events and how they shaped his
personality. Remember, there are often
stories behind how we see the world and
how we make decisions and changes in
life.
When you find a subject, think of three
different short stories that you can speak
about on that subject. Telling personal
stories is easy for many people to present
and the audience tends to love hearing
them. For example, if you like to camp
outdoors, you might have one story about
camping with your parents, a second
story about camping as a single adult,
and a third story about a camping trip
with your spouse and kids. The focus is
on camping but it opens the opportunity
to talk a little about where you grew up,
what your family was like growing up,
what you aspirations were as a young
adult, and what your current situation is.
A recommended format is the five-
paragraph speech. The speech would
consist of an introduction of how
important outdoor camping is to
understanding who you are, three stories
with a short transition between them, and
then end with a conclusion which sums
up your experiences. You could also give
the club a short preview of what else they
might find out about you in future
speeches.
To help come up with three stories you
can look at the subject versus time, the
subject from three different perspectives,
or the subject from three different results,
etc.
 Before, during, after
 In the past, in the present, in the
future
 What my father says, what I say,
what my son says
 What I wanted, what my boss
wanted, what the customer
wanted
 The first time I failed miserably,
the second time I almost
succeeded, the third time I was
successful.
Alternately you could find three different
stories that are unrelated except they
involve you. Then look for a theme you
can use to glue the three stories together,
for example, a close relationship with a
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family member, a career highlight, and
overcoming loss or disability. The glue
may be simply what leads you to tell
those three stories in particular.
When talking about a place or other
people in your speech such as your
family, refer to them by name. These
helps the audience connect with you and
makes you seem much more
approachable and personable. It also
helps the audience to visualize your
speech. For example, instead of "My
husband" say "My husband, Dan."
Instead of "I grew up on a farm." say "I
grew up on a farm in Haxtun, Colorado."
To further help them visualize with your
speech you could include a description.
"My husband Dan, is four foot eleven
inches tall." "Haxtun, Colorado is on the
dry plains near the north-east corner of
the state."
Lean on your fellow club members for
support. Every Toastmaster has been
through the Ice Breaker experience;
many will let you have a copy of their
first speech or share how they
approached their first assignment. Ask
more experienced Toastmasters what
they would change about it, or ask them
to tell you about a particularly
memorable Ice Breaker they might have
heard.
Prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare!
Speaking in public can be a terrifying
experience; even old hands get nervous
before an important speech. Through the
ages, people have tried many ways of
controlling their panic, but only one way
seems to work -- excellent preparation.
This doesn't mean learning every word of
the speech verbatim in fact, learning a
speech word-for-word is counter-
productive because it will come across
wooden and over-rehearsed. The right
way to prepare is to be thoroughly
familiar with your speech's outline and
its major points. Then, when it's time to
deliver, you can still be spontaneous
within your speech's outline.
Don't set your sights too high. No matter
how well you have prepared, you will
probably never feel completely ready to
deliver your first manual speech. You will
always feel that, with just a little more
preparation.
You can deliver a truly excellent speech.
Remember, this is only your first
assignment. You are doing it precisely
because you are inexperienced and want
to learn. Nobody is expecting you to be
the next JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr.
Just concentrate on eliminating "ahs"
and "urns" and getting through it. The
rest will follow, step by step. Now only
one thing remains: Get out there and do
it! Inexperienced speakers tend to make
the same basic mistakes.
Hope this helps.
Good Luck!
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