We Need YOUR Help!!

Ray Daley premiered as Toastmaster on July 10, 2020.  On his theme of baseball, he mentioned a story of Jackie Robinson who felt all alone before a riotous, insulting crowd.  One teammate crossed over part of the field to help him and silence the crowd.  

This has some real relevance to our Toastmaster club.

How you ask?  Well, we have one lone speaker, one speaker only to face a wide audience.  That speaker is the only one that has signed up for the next four months of speaking! ! !  One lone speaker  for four months.

Do we have such a riotous, insulting audience that speakers are afraid to speak.  Of course not!  So, why not offer to help that speaker and help that audience and sign up right now online. 

Just cross on over to the online schedule and support our club with this gesture.  Our club cannot exist without speakers, and that is the one role that you will never  be "voluntold" to do.  

In the next four months there are about 30 speaker slots needing to be filled!

Help us out!  Table Topics are good but . . . .

I've given two back pocket speeches in the last three weeks before another Toastmaster club where the sole speaker cancelled the day before.  In each case I was able to make the speech I wanted to give and make it fit, with little preparation, the basic format of a speech in Pathways.  One of these you may hear when we have a gap to fill, because it can be the "Evaluation and Feedback Speech," Level One, Project Two, which requires a speech revision or application based on feedback.  The other speech I have outlined as an example below, after the more complete Robinson story is told.

During his first swing through the National League’s cities, Jackie Robinson faced racist slurs from ill-behaved crowds, especially at Crosley Field, home of the Cincinnati Reds in two games in May 1947.  Such a normally reputable source as ESPN believes the support Reese gave him is the stuff of myths only.  I prefer to believe others who were there, like Nathan Tate, the visiting team bat boy.

15-year-old Tate  recalled, “Before the Reds first came to bat, just after the Dodgers took the field, the crowd started booing and cussing and throwing things onto the field. They were roaring and cussing at Jackie Robinson.”

Tate says that Pee Wee Reese, the Dodger All-Star from nearby Louisville, Kentucky, temporarily left his position at shortstop and traveled over to Robinson at first base and put his arm around the rookie, silencing the crowd.

Reese’s move shocked some of his teammates, too. “Some of the Dodgers weren’t all that thrilled having Jackie on the team,” Tate noted.  As the drama unfolded at first base, the bat boy said he stood in the dugout next to Duke Snider, the Dodgers’ famed center fielder.

When Reese hugged Robinson, Tate remembered Snider saying these words: “Oh my God! This is unbelievable.”

What was unbelievable was that such a crowd was silenced by just an act of empathy.  The statue that was unveiled in 2005 outside the Brooklyn Cyclones home field is one of those monuments that deserves to stand forever.

I unveiled a much less worthy monument to three black men in a speech to the Ridgefield Toastmasters Club on July 10th on Zoom.  It was a back pocket speech I chose to satisfy the "Effective Body Language, Level Two, Project Two.  It's title was "These Black Lives, especially, Mattered."

I had my theme stated in the title and in the opening.  Then in my preview I said that one of these was a mentor, one was a classmate, and one was a student of mine.  Three stories to make three points is often effective in the body of the speech.

In my body, I explained how Waverly was a share cropper on my granddad's farm where I worked for three summers hanging tobacco.  Waverly modeled someone that believed hard work mattered.  My second example was Lightning, a classmate in a newly integrated school who didn't value hard work as much as friendship, which helped save me from having to fight a bully.  My last story dealt with a student of mine whose parents embodied respectfulness.  They wanted a conference to find out how their son could improve his work.  This boy, John Paul, came back to my school after graduation to teach special education students and instill in driver's ed students a respect for rules of the road.

I made sure to use body language to show Waverly with the reins of the thousand pound mule, the punching of the bully diverted by Lightning, and the steering wheel of John Paul. 

I ended the speech with the same points I'd made on what mattered, with the lessons of work ethic, friendship, and respect.

You all have great stories you can tell.  Just figure what points you can make, how to organize, and how to fit this into a Pathways speech.

A Pathways speech can help your audience in three additional ways that a "normal" speech may not: 

1. ) It will follow a standardized critique format of the seven areas that Pathways looks for, which will help the evaluator and the listening audience. These are Clarity of language,Vocal Variety, Eye Contact, Addressing Audience Needs, Gestures, Comfort Level, and Interest Level.  Then it will add one or two additional elements that will help the growth of the speaker.
2. ) It will help award points to the club (in addition to badges the speaker may or may not want), with the club points helping earn the club distinguished status.  
3. ) It will make your newly-elected Officers especially happy.  These officers are anxious to assist you in using Pathways.  If you have questions, please let Susann, Stan, or Karen know.