Monthly Archive for December, 2008

Some thoughts on how to be a great evaluator

Published
by
Dan Smith, DTM
on 30 December, 2008
in evaluation
. 2 Comments

Be careful of asking audiences questions. Especially ambiguous question. The audience won’t always give you the answer you’re looking for and sometimes will give answers that are deliberately difficult.

Don’t ask the audience if they liked it. Or anything else for that matter. Certainly don’t ask for another round of applause. In fact, in 2-3 minutes don’t ask the audience anything unless the manual specifically requires it as you have just enough time to do what you need to do but not enough time to waste grandstanding. Even then, the manual probably should be changed in my opinion…

Too many evaluators use their evaluation as a chance to grab the limelight. Instead, focus on the speaker and let the quality of your evaluation draw to you the attention that you deserve.

Skip restating the speech. We’ve already heard it once – if we slept through it the first time, we might well sleep through your evaluation of it too!

Focus. Say what’s most important first. Be specific. Have only a few points – maybe three strengths and three points for improvement. Use your critical thinking to identify what’s most important and leave the rest to the written evaluation. Your audience won’t remember a long list anyway.

Make no apologies. When you give points for improvement, you are doing a service to the speaker and the audience – there’s no need for apologies or comments like “there’s always room for improvement…”

To me, there are just three parts to being an evaluator:

  1. Highlight (strenghts)
  2. Helpout (show areas for improvement)
  3. Handover (to the Toastmaster or General Evaluator – that means you shut up and sit down)

Being a good evaluator is not that complicated really…

One more thing: Speak in the third person.

Speak to the audience, not to the speaker – address your comments as “Mension had a strong, commanding voice and a dynamic, entertaining presence” (which Mension, the Immediate Past President of Lighthouse Toastmasters does of course!) rather than making it into a public conversation with the speaker.

Once you’ve delivered your evaluation you can give personal comments to the speaker, but save them until later. The oral evaluation is a speech in its own right – a speech should be delivered in the third person.

(Check Evaluate to Motivate for the formal Toastmasters training of course but really you just have to think about how strange it is to say “you” in a speech when you’re just talking to the speaker, you could probably work it out yourself.)

More thoughts from an evaluator

Published
by
Dan Smith, DTM
on 28 December, 2008
in evaluation and upcoming meetings
. 0 Comments

We’re always watching evaluations. Sometimes the General Evaluator will evaluator the evaluators, but rarely for more than a few moments. CAT Secretary Wendy Wang ACB ALB did a particularly good job at Lighthouse yesterday afternoon.

I especially liked how she broke up the five evaluators into four ’styles’ of evaluations. It was a speech marathon so there were a lot of evaluators, though each had a different style. Instead of just describing each the style of each evaluator, she highlighted the similarities and differences.

To me, this showed that Wendy wasn’t just passively watching the meeting, but that she was analyzing and thinking critically about what she was observing. And, as one of the evaluators myself, that made me know that at least one person in the audience was paying attention!

It’s the same when we give individual evaluations. A great evaluator won’t just repeat what was said but rather will add a layer of analysis so that the audience can understand the lessons contained in the speech more deeply. Like reading a review of a film might help us better appreciate it, or listening to a book review might help us better understand it, an evaluator can not only highlight the strengths of a speaker but can help their audience grow and become even more.

To me, a great evaluation is a mini-training session. The evaluator uses the speaker as a stimulus to which they respond to the audience – highlighting the strengths of the speaker as examples that the audience can emulate, and areas for improvement that the audience may seek to amend in their own speaking.

That’s why evaluations are so important. They can be more demanding than table topics. More challenging than a prepared speech. More varied than being the Toastmaster of the meeting.

CAT is preparing our members for the coming evaluations contest through the next few months. As well as our usual array of training sessions, we will be having evaluations of evaluators and having some CC-level speeches so that we can get more used to evaluating at per contest requirements. One of our members competed at the District (National) contest last year and we have an array of other experienced members.

Hope that you can join us!

Speaker to Trainer: 17 January 2009

Published
by
Dan Smith, DTM
on 23 December, 2008
in events and upcoming meetings
. 10 Comments

You can entertain, inform and inspire, but can you train?

Learn how to become a trainer.

CAT will be starting 2009 with a very special event: Speaker to Trainer.

Delivered from 1pm on Saturday 17 January, experienced Corporate and NLP Trainer, Daniel Smith DTM will deliver the training with Wendy Wang ACB ALB and CAT President Emily Minor CC CL.

Speaker to Trainer is the Toastmasters International program specifically designed to help you become a trainer – to bridge the gap between being a public speaker and being able to deliver effective trainings.

In this program you’ll discover the five steps involved in preparing and presenting a training program using adult learning principles. You’ll also learn the role of trainers and the difference between public speaking and training. You’ll learn how to make learning experiences enjoyable, too.

As the package is professionally produced by Toastmasters International – including a certificate of completion – we are charging 250RMB 100RMB for this event.

However, in the spirit of Christmas and bringing this event to as many people as possible, registrations are only 70RMB when received by our meeting on 8 January.

Please note we are not publishing the venue – and because of the nature of the training, there will not be tickets available on the day.

15 January update: We have filled this event to capacity but to register to be kept in the loop about future events, you can put your details below. We’ll probably put on another event in the next few months.


Record DTMs, organizing your speech and Carlo Wolff ACB CL

Published
by
Dan Smith, DTM
on 19 December, 2008
in past meetings
. 2 Comments

Congratulations to our newest Advanced Communicator Bronze, Carlo Wolff.

We enjoyed a series of great presentations at CAT last night. Here are some of the things I noted from the training on organizing your speech from Sam Jones DTM:

  1. Are going to entertain, persuade, inspire or inform? Keep your speech aligned with that purpose.
  2. Beyond the basic outline (introduction, body and conclusion), look for alternative structures. Sure, there’s the basic three points, but there are other structures too – like compare and contrast, time (past-present-future), and telling a story (with a lesson).

A few other things that I noted from the evening:

  • Delete everything you can. If you are evaluating a speaker and don’t have something to say on a point, just move to the next point rather than saying that you don’t have anything to add. Focus on what you are there to say and do your best to skip the rest.
  • Test humor one-on-one. To find out whether a joke is funny, try telling the joke without much emotion to someone in general conversation – if they smile, you might have something worth using (thanks Warwick).
  • You might feel like you don’t have enough time, but don’t bother telling the audience – they probably won’t learn better by you telling them that you’re rushing. Instead, act like you have all the time in the world.
  • And thanks to Emily Minor CC CL for demonstrating how when you are introducing a speaker, you can just keep clapping until they get to the front of the room – it’s a simple courtesy but looks very professional.

For me, one of the highlights of the evening was having the majority of DTMs in China in the room at one time, something that usually only happens at Conferences and Conventions. Our whole individual evaluation team consisted of DTMs – Rebecca Hong (also Lt Gov Education and Training), Warwick John Fahy (past Chairman of China) and  Sam Jones (our Immediate Past President). This yielded what I think was the most rewarding, stimulating and valuable evaluations session I can remember – thanks to each of you for your contributions!

Videos from the night to come soon.

Our next meeting is 8 January next year when we’ll have a training on body language delivered by Spike Gu ACB CL.

Get your speech organized this week at CAT

Published
by
Dan Smith, DTM
on 15 December, 2008
in upcoming meetings
. 0 Comments

This Thursday night – from 7pm

Summiting Session: Organizing Your Speech Sam Jones DTM

Speech Carlo Wolff CC
Speech Jenny Ni CC CL Woman? Woman! Woman…
Speech Spike Gu ACB
Speech Dan Smith DTM

TTM Emily Minor CC CL
GE Wendy Wang ACB ALB
Timer Joyce Hu CC

And do checkout the post from our President, Emily Minor CC CL, about her Summitting Session on “How to Say It” from our last meeting here.

And have a look at our flyer with the next few months planned Summiting Sessions…

Continue reading ‘Get your speech organized this week at CAT’