Congratulations and a big thanks to all the St-Lawrence Club members and friends who attended and participated in the Fall 2011 Toastmasters District Conference that was held in Gatineau, Québec on November 18 to 20, 2011.

Mathieu Savage competed in the French humorous contest and came in third place.

Véronique Sangin-Gagnon competed in the French evaluation contest and gave a great performance, as did Nicholas Kepper who competed in the English evaluation contest..

Other club members were also there to help make the weekend a fun experience through their involvement.  Alex Chan gave the toast at the Communication & Leadership Award Lunch.  Pietro di Benedetto was Master of Ceremonies for the Saturday evening banquet.

And best of all, Alena Motorina, Marie-Paule Gagnon, Rosie (Pietro’s special other) and Charles Cron (who came with his family) were also present to help encourage everyone.

The next district conference will be held at the Château Vaudreuil on April 27 to 29, 2012.  All the details can be found at the Toastmasters District 61 Spring Conference website.

Un chaleureux accueil à Tobi, qui se joint au Club St-Lawrence Toastmasters.

Tobi est déjà très à l’aise à s’exprimer en public, et aimerait pousser plus loin ses compétences d’orateur.  Il est convaincu qu’il sera en mesure de rencontrer ses objectifs dans notre club.

We would like to extend a warm welcome to Karen, who recently joined the St-Lawrence Toastmasters Club.

Having visited our club on a few occasions before joining, Karen was then convinced that Toastmasters can be an asset in her career as fashion designer. In fact, she has been so impressed by the club culture that she even invited other friends to visit our club even while she was a guest herself.

Are you interested in visiting us?  Click for more details in the Come Meet Us page.

One of the overlooked benefits of Toastmasters is that it can help us during some of the hardest times, for example to give a eulogy (praise of someone recently deceased).

On the Toastmasters International website, there is an article with tips and techniques to speak from the heart when giving a eulogy.

“Speaking at a funeral or memorial service is probably one of the most difficult speaking assignments imaginable. It’s one thing to speak coherently in front an audience; it’s another to keep from falling apart emotionally when giving a tribute to a deceased family member, friend or coworker.

But speaking at such an important event is a gift. By communicating what’s in your heart to people who need help to deal with grief, you fulfill a collective need for comfort.”

Here is a link to some inspiring eulogies that were given for the recent passing of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple.

Nous souhaitons la grande bienvenue à Alexandre, qui se joint au Club St-Lawrence Toastmasters après nous avoir visité à quelques occasions.

Alexandre est chercheur et aimerait éventuellement devenir professeur.  Toastmasters serait donc un atout pour l’aider à s’exprimer plus aisément et aussi à acquérir les qualités de leadership nécessaires pour être un prof passionnant et inspirant.

Nous sommes fiers de pouvoir t’aider dans tes démarches Alexandre!

Congratulations to the members of our club, who came in a remarkable first place for each of the four Area 53 Contests that were held on October 3.

English Evaluation Winners:

1. Nicholas Kepper (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

2. Alain Cliche

French Evaluation Winners:

1. Véronique Sangin-Gagnon (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

2. Cristina Anton

English Humorous Speech Winners:

1. Charles Cron (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

2. Daniel Gélinas

French Humorous Speech Winners:

1. Mathieu Savage (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

2. Daniel Gélinas

== PICTURES, PICTURES! ==

You’re probably asking yourselves “Where are the pictures?”.  Well you’re in luck.  A big thanks to the CN Collaborators Toasmasters Club for having organized the Area 53 Contest.  Feel free to go to their Facebook page to see pictures of the evening.

Here is an example of a picture from their album:

== NOW WHAT? ==

The winners will move on to the Division F Contest will be held on Friday October 21^st at 7pm at the St. James the Apostle Church (1439 Ste-Catherine ouest, Montréal, H3G 1S6).  Good luck to everyone!

Nous aimerions souhaiter la bienvenue à Olivier, un membre qui s’est récemment joint au Club St-Lawrence Toastmasters.

Qu’est-ce qui l’a motivé à se joindre à nous? En ses propres mots: ”Je sentais le besoin de développer mes talents de communicateur et améliorer mon leadership en groupe. Mes trois premières rencontres m’ont déjà beaucoup appris et j’applique à présent ces changements positifs à tous les jours!”

Vous cherchez à améliorer votre discours en public? Venez nous rencontrer pour voir comment St-Lawrence Toastmasters Montréal peut vous aider.

Voici le programme Toastmasters de la soirée du 27 septembre 2011.

Félicitations aux gagnants des concours du club St-Lawrence Toastmasters Montréal, qui ont eu lieu la soirée du 21 septembre 2011.

Voici les heureux gagnants des concours français :

Concours de discours humoristique Toastmasters:

1. Mathieu Savage

2. Michel Gadbois

Concours d’évaluations en français Toastmasters :

1. Véronique Sangin-Gagnon

2. Mathieu Savage

Les premiers gagnants iront donc au Concours du secteur 53. Si un premier gagnant ne peut être présent à ce concours, le deuxième gagnant participera alors à sa place.

The English contest winners were :Toastmasters English Humorous Speech Contest:1. Charles Cron

Toastmasters English Evaluations Contest:

1. Nicholas Kepper

2. John Fowler

The first winners will go on to participate in the Area 53 Fall Contest. Should a first winner not be available for the contest, then the second winner can compete instead.

You might be interested to know that the meeting of Sept 20th is a special meeting not like our usual weekly meetings. We will be holding a club contest (i.e. humorous speech contests and evaluation contests).

Although it won’t be in the standard weekly meeting format, it’s still quite interesting to check out. For example, this is how the evaluation contest usually unfolds:

There will be a target speaker (i.e. someone presents a speech, and this person has been selected secretly beforehand to prepare a target speech to give for the purposes of the contest). All of the audience will get to hear and appreciate the speech. The evaluators will all be evaluating the same speech.

Then the contestants (the evaluators) will be asked to leave the room and take a few minutes to prepare their evaluation notes.

The Sergeant-at-Arms then collects all the notes, which will be handed back to each evaluator as he/she comes back into the room to present his evaluation. (The order of evaluation will have been been previously determined by drawing straws.)

The each evaluator has a chance to give an evaluation, making sure to provide constructive feedback to the target speaker and making sure to speak within the allotted time.

Finally, what makes it quite interesting for the audience members is that we get to have a sense of the different evaluation styles and we notice what the evaluators pick out in common as well as any special points that each individual evaluator may have noticed that the other evaluators have not mentioned. Finally, we compare to what we would have said ourselves had we been asked to evaluate the target speaker. This is a great learning experience because it allows us to, in a sort of way, “learn through osmosis”.

Here is the program for the evening of September 20.  Good luck to all the contestants!