Toastmasters International is launching a fun and engaging video series of time-tested tips for improving communication. The first two videos in the series provide five basic public speaking tips and job interview tips.

Five Basic Public Speaking Tips

Master a topic and present it well. Following these tips will ensure your next speech goes smoothly and your audience gets more from the experience.

Job Interviews

Interview with confidence through focused listening, articulate responses and effective body language. Following these tips will empower you to impress others.

The competition was very tough and all the speakers great!
Milena Paluchowska – our President of the Club – won the first price in International Evaluation Contest in English and a second prize in the International Speech Contest in English.
Congratulations!!!
We are very proud of her.
You will find the competition result on the contest website: www.contest.speakingelephants.pl.

Watch her speech and evaluation.

The April 24, 2012 meeting, hosted by Iga Korneta, ACB, ALB, celebrated the life and works of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare, the author of 38 plays and over 150 sonnets, was also a great innovator and standariser of the English language. He  introduced over 1700 new words and coined over 150 expressions that entered the popular language.

One of the phrases coined by Shakespeare was “to break the ice”. The meeting featured two Ice-Breaker speeches, by Ewa Chojecka (evaluated by Jarek  Piotrowski) and by Patrick Libuda (evaluated by Adam Jeziorski).
Ewa spoke of her journey that brought her to Toastmasters, while Patrick spoke of the diamond within himself.
The third  speech was by veteran Toastmaster Ania Witkowska, CC, CL – Ania congratulated  her friend Ania Nowicka on having been the quickest Toastmaster in the club to  finish the CC manual.

All’s well  that ends well, and good time was had by all.

Other interesting phrases coined by Shakespeare please find on the following websites:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/phrases-sayings-shakespeare.html
http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html

Listen to the broadcast about the competition:
http://www.polskieradio.pl/10/483/Artykul/583826,Bo-przemawiac-to-trzeba-umiec

The best speakers of Katowice, Kraków and Warszawa will be sweating on April 14, 2012.
We start at 12:00.
Warsaw, Twarda 18 Str.
Movie Theater in the building of Telekomunikacja Polska
Entry: 10 zł

Sweaty palms, dry throat and ten million voices at a time screaming in your head to run away, far away from the stage you’re on, and the tens of eyes directed at you and only you in this moment. You know the feeling. You may not know that top performers feel the same, they’re just better at hiding it.

The best speakers of Katowice, Kraków and Warszawa will be sweating on April 14, 2012 in a contest of top stage appearances:

• the International Speech Contest, and
• the Evaluation Contest,

both held in English and in Polish. They will fight for their right to perform in Berlin on April 28, against other top speakers of Western Poland and Eastern Germany.

You need to be there. Contestants from your club need you to cheer for them. And you do know an outstanding performance when you see it. Grab your family and friends – everyone is welcome.

Saturday April 14, 2012
Warsaw, Twarda 18 Str.
Movie Theater in the building of Telekomunikacja Polska

Starting around 12:00, entry 10zł.

Register now at: http://contest.speakingelephants.pl

Last Tuesday’s main topic ‘Clash of the Titans’ was very puzzling to all of us. However the 2010 film production that everyone made the connection with is indeed very popular it turned out to be just an introduction to our real point of discussion which was competition. Our host, Michał Paluchowski,  talked about how we compete in our everyday life and how companies compete with one another. When asked about the most competitive moments in their lives, participants were mainly giving examples of sport adventures, among which swimming was the most frequent. We listened to 3 great speeches. First one was Iwona Ksiądzyna’s Financial Report on Toastmasters International. Not only did we understand what happens with all the money we pay to our Treasurer but also we realised that it is very well managed and our participant’s fee seems to have a reasonable price in this case. Iwona researched her topic thoroughly, thank you Iwona for your insightful speech. Our next speaker captured our attention with his great project titled “The Full Monty”. The author, Chris Bolliger, proved that there were no limits using visual aids. There were chocolates as winning prizes, bank notes flying in the air and even jackets being took off (no striptease whatsoever). Last but not least was the humorous speech by Iga Korneta “Bees”. As a scientist she decided to investigate the issue of the people’s reaction to the bees dying out. As it turned out, the protesting youth weren’t as informed in the subject as she was hoping them to be and what is even more, they didn’t know what they were really protesting against. We had a great time listening to these entertaining stories, Iga!

Our last meeting was hosted by Iga Korneta CC, ALB.
The theme of the meeting was “The Dunning-Kruger Effect”. The Dunning-Kruger Effect can be summarised as follows: there are some people who are so stupid that they do not realise that they are stupid. The question: how would you know that this does not apply to you? After all, would you know that if it did?
We listened to 6 speeches.
Tomek Jędruszak presented his CC1 project Ice Breaker speech titled “Moving places”. Tomek did a great job. He told us about his places he lived and gave us advices from his experience. Congratulation Tomek to your first project.
Kasia Wdowiak proceeded with her CC2 project Organize Your Speech project titled “Mars vs. Venus”. At the beginning of the speech Kasia counted man and women in the class and the she did a test and convinced that somehow women might have a male brain and men might have a female brain. She encouraged us the learn about the brain differences in women and men.
Wojtek Arłukowicz presented his CC2 project Organize Your Speech project titled “Sweet Story”. Wojtek told us a lot of interesting facts about chocolate and made us feel like eating chocolate. I am sure everyone had a piece of chocolate the next day.
Jarek Piotrowski advanced to his 5th CC project – Your Body Speaks, titled “Being a Great Public Speaker”. Jarek presented us a speech about being a great public speaking for the second time. His speeches are very interesting and useful as everyone of us is trying to be better and better at public speaking.
Adam Jeziorski finished with his CC6 project – Vocal Variety, titled “Nothing to Say”. Adam did a great job and we could observe how big improvment he did with his body language. Congratulate Adam. Great Job.
See you all at the next meeting.

Last Saturday, 10th March, we celebrated the 4th Birthday of our club. We had lots of guests from others clubs and friends. Thank you for coming and celebrating with us.

Haven’t you been there?… Have a look how much fun we had.

On March 10, 2012, our Club will be celebrating 4 years serving the Warsaw community, not just in the area of public speaking, but in the area of developing leadership skills.  Our toddler years are over and we are proud to see our Club being stronger today than ever. For the last four years our Club has become an extraordinary community of people of different walks of life who meet Every Tuesday to share their thoughts and observations, making Speaking Elephants one of the most vibrant Toastmasters Clubs in the 59 district.

The following film is a tribute to you, our dear Club Members, who have made Speaking Elephants what it is today. Thank you.

Come out and join us in our celebration next Saturday!

Toastmasters Speaking Elephants invites you to celebrate its 4th Birthday.

WHEN:   Saturday 10 March 2012, at 7 pm

WHERE:
LEGENDS British Bar and Restaurant
Emilii Plater 25
Warszawa
Tickets: 5 zł

Do not hesitate to invite and bring your friends and family.
We look forward to meeting all of you on that evening.
This will be the best event in Warsaw this night.

Karaoke & Dart & Great Toasts !!! Be there with us!

For more information, please contact Iwona Ksiądzyna on +48 605 408 226
or e-mail iwona.ksiadzyna@gmail.com