Toastmasters Ennis Commences Its 53rd Season

0:00Now if the thought of speaking in public makes you nervous or you'd simply like to become a more confident communicator, NS Toastmasters could be worth a look. The club's about to begin its 53rd season with the first meeting taking place next Tuesday evening. And new meeting time this season, but the same welcoming venue and to find out more about all of this. I'm joined in studio by the club president of NS Toastmasters, Breed Brady and Declan Joyce vice president of public relations. A very good morning to you folks. Thanks very much for coming in. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks to the two for being with us. So, Breed it's a pretty impressive run 50th third season. A remarkable milestone. Talked to us a bit about in general looking at the history of NS Toastmasters and being around at this point and still going as strong as ever. I suppose, yeah, the group has been going for 53 years and it's mainly down to the members. It's a very warm and welcoming club and the fact that we both travel from Galway to support NS Toastmasters is attributed to what a warm

1:03welcoming group they are and how committed they are. And I think it's mainly down to the commitment of a lot of the people within the group who've been there for a lengthy period, you know, the likes of Gerald and Greken who you've met before and Frank and Michael O'Brien and that sort of thing. Yeah. Oh, my God. So that is a commitment to have you come from Galway. Declan, how did that happen? Yeah. So I know Breed through, we have mutual, our kids go to the same school just outside Canvara. So about three years ago, Breed recruited me into the world of Toastmasters. She said, Declan, would you be interested in joining? It's like a social speech club Toastmasters. I had heard about it from other colleagues and I said, well, I give it a goal. So it really was an eye-opener joining the club because it's a lovely group of people from mainly around NS, but there's a mix of retired people, young people, workers, etc. Galway people.

2:06And even the Galway people. Yeah. Well, I actually from Mayo originally, so I'm tight my next speech for the club. Oh, I wonder. I'm trying to think it might be something about 75 years ago, a great thing happened and we were waiting for some great event occur. So yeah, that's my next prepared speech and we on the radar. Well, if you use your captains winning speech, you should feel a good 10 minutes at least. It could be although no plagiarism or anything like that. Original. Original. Original. Original or not. I think Mayo people would just be happy to hear it once again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It never grows old. Not for another five years. For five years. What enticed you or what got you involved with NS Toastmasters to begin with? I think, well, my brother had been involved in the Toastmasters Club in Galway and he spoke very positively about it, but it was following the pandemic. I was working from home and I'd be quite a sociable person and I think I struggled a little with Brian Fogg and my articulation. So I

3:09wanted to go back and kind of improve my speaking, but also it was mainly a social club because I was working from home to meet people. Yeah, and there was other groups online, but I really, the minute I walked into the NS Club, they were so warm and so welcoming and talking about my favorite topic, which is cakes. And that just got me straight away. Yeah, so bittersweet talking. Bittersweet talking, definitely. Yeah. Okay. And what does, you know, give us a sense, Declan, what a typical meeting it is like for NS Toastmasters. How would you describe it? Okay, so the way the meetings work is you, as the guests and members come in, they sit down, there's usually about between 20 and 30 folks that are there at the venue. And then when the menu kicks off, the president who currently is Breige would introduce the meeting and outline what the team would be for the night. And every night, so it's a mix of prepared speeches and

4:16random topics. So usually we have two members prepare a speech. So for example, one of my first prepared speeches was the solar system ship. So it was a talk about the solar system, the planets, etc. So you have the prepared speeches as one aspect. And can I ask you can the prepared speech be on a topic of your choice on anything at all? And the idea is the more varied the better, because the idea of a prepared speech is it gives the speech writer time to put together usually a seven minute long speech. So it tests their abilities to keep within the seven minute time frame. But also it's like doing a mini story, a begin, a begin, middle and end. And then after the prepared speech is given, there's a reviewer for each prepared speech. So they give the speaker feedback over about a minute to say, well, you did this particularly good and we have some

5:21suggestions to improve. So the whole idea is to continually improve your speech making abilities. Now the other aspect are the random topics, so which we might give you one now shortly, Breige's one prepared just to keep you on tap. So random topics might be… Evilina, we have to stop bulking in as toesmasters. Yeah. We like a little bit of mystery. But the random topics could be annotated. Usually it gives a person two minutes to talk about a random topic and we have a member who's there with timing the two minutes as well. It's about timing how long you can think on the fly. So as you're running out of time, close to the two minutes, an orange light goes off, and then when you've gone over time or read like it's off at the back of the room. But the random topic tests the speaker to think on the fly. I'll give you some random topic examples like name your favorite uncle around and explain why you like them or can you talk about

6:24hairdressing and or another one that's for example put me in the spot, one of my first random topics was talk about porky creve. So I'm a male man and my knowledge of porky creve is limited. As you walk up and you're in front of the goods of 60 little eyes looking back at you, you have to think on the fly. You can either say, well actually I've never been there and I'm not that comfortable talking about which is fine or what I did was I said, I don't know anything about porky creve, but I know something about McAle Park and then I an other stadium and then I spoke about the Colosseum. So it forces the person to think on the fly and it's like little trap really, but it's a great way for folks to improve their talk and public speaking, think on the fly and get in confidence over looking at all of those eyes looking at you etc. So yeah. And I suppose it's a very positive encouraging environment because there's a lot of clapping and some people find that

7:25it's strange at the beginning and it's very structured, but the benefit of the structure is people who are maybe never speaking or afraid of being talked over. That doesn't happen because you get a stage to speak and nobody will interrupt you while you're speaking, but they will give you positive encouragement about what you did right and they might make a suggestion as to how you could improve and it's very good for people. A lot of people use it for work. People maybe come to it because they want to give you a wedding speech, but a lot of people use it because they need to do presentations and work, but every week you can volunteer for a different role and it's all about teaching leadership skills. Correct. Yeah. Would you like a random topic just to keep you going? Go on, throw it at me. Okay, so if your car could talk, what kind of story would it tell you today? If my car could talk, my car would tell me that it was delighted to have me purchase it just over a year ago and that was very sorry that for the first couple of weeks it was in and out of

8:28the car and the garage on a number of occasions with a variety of issues. So the relationship started out promisingly and then after that it looked very rocky. It looked like it may be very short-term relationship, but thankfully those early kings were ironed out and the relationship pardon the pun has moldered along nicely ever since. I think that's what my car would say. Although if my car started talking, I might begin to worry about my own mindset. I might have to go to my doctor and have a chat. My doctor doctor, my car has begun speaking to me. We have a little window now into the psychology of your car, so I'll tell you what it's like. There you go. Did you think you're going to go to window into the psychology of my car on this morning show? I bet you didn't. You couldn't have possibly conceived of that. I have no idea how keen or tidy it is. You watched there. I have two children. I put a hoover that I stick into quite regularly. Look, for anyone who likes the sound of getting involved, maybe they are someone like, as you've both said,

9:29is getting into a sphere and work where they have to do more presentations or they just want to, as you said, Bruges, you want to address brain fog and things like that and speak. Difficulty speak and publicly. How can they get involved in NSTOS Masters? Well, Tekken is the BPR of public relations. We have a Facebook page, an Instagram page. But mainly, just come along. You don't have to pay the first few nights. You can come along and observe. You're not expected to talk. There'll always be a ward. Warm welcome. There's a welcoming person there the first night. We can arrange for you to have a mentor as you go along. There's a pathway that you can follow an educational pathway if you choose. What else have I missed in their deck? Yeah, there are the main aspects. We interact with other clubs as well. Sometimes we have guests that come to the NSTOS. Friends can come and if they can't make the

10:31NSTOS club, there's always options to go to other clubs like Hirush as well. And Shannon, yeah. Sometimes we have competitions together like the humor, speech competition, or the table topics competition. Just like what you did there, there might be three people given the same topic and judge as to who performed the best. And it's not necessarily what you say, it's how you say it. So, you know, did you use a lot of ours and on's, your vocal variety, did you walk around the room, did you use gestures, that sort of thing that we're looking for to improve the speech. Very good and you're very good with the gestures there, but they've come along nicely. I'm not sure where you started out from, but they're right on point at this stage. And just to mention again, so the 50th season begins next Tuesday evening, the 8th of September from 730 in the Maria Sumter, a parish Holland station road, and Declan Joyce and Breed Brady from NSTOS Masters, guys. Pleasure having you in. Thanks very much. Thank you. And enjoy the rest of your holding on to Sam there, Declan as well.

11:36Thanks to the lads for being with me.