Rick's Toastmaster skills page http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/3558/Achiever.htm
Rick's home page http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/3558
"I have been a TM three years and have given only seven speeches. You are right giving a speech takes lots of time. My speeches got side tracked while I was an officer..."
How many times have we heard someone say make the above complaint? I used to think that being an officer interfered with my progress on speeches. Then, I discovered being an officer gives you more topics to speak on and more opportunities to speak.
You often need to motivate the club members towards a goal. If you club is in the upper teens, it's time to start a membership drive. Are you getting the same people to volunteer to compete in the every club speech contest? Speech #8 in the old 10 speech manual "Make it Persuasive", #10 "Inspire your Audience" and "Manage and Motivate" from Speeches by Management are good speeches to give.
If you want to create new ideas for your membership drive, have yourself scheduled for Topicmaster and do one of the speeches in the Discussion Leader manual.
Officers often need to give status reports. I've heard some experienced Toastmasters give some very poor status reports. If you want an example of how to give a status report, speech #3 "Organize Your Speech", "A Fact Finding Speech" from Speaking to Inform and "The Status Report" from Speeches by Management are good speeches to use.
What is the difference between using a manual speech and just standing up and giving an announcement or status report? Just making an announcement often sounds like, "the Area Governor called, he need a speak for the Humorous Speech Contest in two weeks." A planned persuasive speech tells our members what benefits they will get from competing and works to build excitement.
When I need to give an "officer speech", I look though the manuals I'm working from and see what speech fits. (You don't have to go in order.) If I don't find one, I look in the past manuals that I've done. I've made copies of the evaluation page of each of my manuals. That way, I always have a fresh evaluation form no matter how many times I repeat a speech.
Because good speeches are part of good leadership, being an officer gives you more opportunities to give manual speeches not less.
Rick's Toastmaster skills page http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/3558/Achiever.htm
Rick's home page http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/3558
$Date: 1998/11/01 19:02:17 $ (GMT)