Toastmasters Kraków

“Coward: A man in whom the instinct of self-preservation acts
normally.” - Sultana Zoraya

On our next meeting our Table Topic Master Radek will as some questions about courage. Hubert no less courageously will deliver his Prpoject #8 speech: “A Solution to Your Everyday’s Problem”. It has to take some guts claiming to have such solution, and also to be evaluated by Piotr, I must admit ;)

The meeting will be conducted by Kasia.

Come join us!

"Murder Ballads"

In 1996 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released their album called “Murder Ballads”, which contained hell known hits like “Henry Lee” or “Where The Wild Roses Grow”, and… let me stop here, because when I start blabber about music, it’s hard to stop me. Let me just talk about our Toastmasters meeting this week.

This Wednesday, at the usual hour of 6:30 PM, as the darkness will fall and whe wind will howl (hopefully there’s gonna be some wind or even rain, with thunders and all that’ll bring proper athmosphere), we will tell some crime stories that I, as your Table Topics Master, will give some hints about.

Aside from that we’ll hear a confession, sorry, speech by Łukasz Wróbel, who will present Project 5 from CC manual, “Your Body Speaks”. Good topic for a meeting about murders, since bodies are always involved… Sorry, dozed off a little.

Anyway, the whole investigation, sorry, meeting will be led by Mateusz.

Can’t wait to kill, sorry, see you all there!

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince)

So many reasons to come to our meeting this Wednesday…

For sake of brevity (which is the soul of wit, as William Shakespeare once said) we’ll name just three:
1. Tomek Kruk and his Ice Breaker speech, “How I became a missionary”
2. Maciek Żywioł and his story called “The Misty Haze”
but most importantly,
3. Piotr Leszczyński and the amazing challenges he preapared for us in the Table Topics session.

And the whole meeting will be led as energetically as always, by Mr President, Radek.

Can’t wait!

Can you?

PS. Remember that we moved to different room in the building! We no longer meet at the ground floor in the main hall. Find us in Warszawa room on the first floor of Sabre Polska offices, which you can access through entrance 8 (first door to the right of the main building entrance, right next to BZ WBK bank).

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

– Steve Jobs

Toastmasters is one of those places to practive being innovative and creative in the company of friendly people who will give you constructive feedback and plenty of advice! It’s also the place where you can learn to be a leader. Don’t believe me? Come on Wednesday!

We’ll hear two speeches: one by our Club Secretary, Mateusz, and second by our Treasurer, Piotr, and the Table Topic questions will be prepared by the President’s Wife, Kasia!

WARNING! NEW MEETING PLACE! We still meet in Buma, but instead of old Vinotti shop, where we had our last several meetings, starting this Wednesday we’ll meet in WARSZAWA room in Sabre offices (first floor). To get there you’ll have to enter Sabre offices by the door from the outside of Buma, right next to BZ WBK Bank (look for it on the right of Buma’s main entrance). You will also have to sign into guest book.

“Away the ship’s on her way
Jolly Roger fights on top!
All the chicks are happy on Wednesday
We’re gonna speak and evaluate!”

Avast, me hearties!

Every day on September 19th the world is celebratin International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Next Wednesday, on October 26th, we’ll be having our own SPEAK like a Pirate Meeting!

The questions for Table Topic session will be prepared by our matey, Łukasz, and the meeting will be led by that bilge rat, Maciek. We will, I’m afraid, have to listen to that land lubber Radek’s speech from Technical Presentations manual, but we’ll prevail. All who agree say: ARRRR!

See you next Wednesday!

PS. “Arrrr!” will NOT be the Word of the Day at the meeting ;) We’ll use “pillage” instead :)

“The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working” — anonymous

Who could argue with that logic?

Hey, I know! We could! The verbal champions of Kraków! And you can too, if you join us on the next club meeting a week from now (Wednesday, October 12th, 6:30 PM). We’ll discuss various conspiracy theories in Table Topics prepared by our President, Radek (who, by the way, got in this position with help of aliens! Really!)

We’ll also hear two speeches - our guest from Ireland, Tom, will break the ice in his first project, and Hubert, our Vice President Education (you don’t want to know who helped HIM secure that spot!), will present the idea of improvisational comedy - another topic perfect for Toastmasters!

I hope to see you there! It’s going to be unforgettable…

…because after the meeting, your memory will be wiped using Martian technology. Or beer, we’ll see ;)

In case you didn’t know, on Thursday, October 20th 2011 the TEDxKraków event will happen in Kraków for the second time! This time it’ll take place in Manggha Centre for Japanese Art and Technology and the registration is open - there are still four days left for signing up! The event is free, you just need to convince the organizers to invite you :)

Last year our club was very strongly represented - there were six of us, wearing neat Toastmasters t-shirts, promoting the idea among the attendees. We also had a chance to hear speeches by personnas like Charles Crawford, Richard Lucas (whom the Toastmasters of Kraków owe a lot to), John Scherer (who also gave a speech at our club meeting once!) and Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński - the people behind the international success of the video game “The Witcher”. Not only speeches, though - we also experienced the performances given by Andrew Shapiro and Olga Szwajgier, and those were truly unforgettable!

This year the topic is “The New Normal”, and we’ll hear from such people as Jerzy Vetulani, Richard Lucas (again), Edward Lucas (not related… we think), Richard Berkeley, Srdja Popovic, Andy Williams (director of the British Council in Kraków) and Agata Wilam.

We encourage you to register while there is time! You can do in here: http://www.tedxkrakow.com/tedx.

We hope to see you there!

–Kraków Public Speaking Club team

There are many interesting websites and blogs around the Web on the topic of public speaking, and we will use this place to introduce some of them.

We’ll start with two (and a half) for today:

• First, there is renowned Toastmaster John Zimmer, born in Canada, living in Geneva, Switzerland, who, on his blog Manner of Speaking, shares a lot of information, insight and advice about public speaking. You’ll find techniques reviewed, recommended and sometimes discouraged, analysis of actual speeches (historical or from movies) and some quotes on public speaking. Subscribe to http://mannerofspeaking.org/.
• Second, there is Charles Crawford, a diplomat, mediator and speaker, with whom our club fell in love (OK, I did) after last year’s TEDxKraków event, where he gave a great speech about diplomatic disasters and how to avoid them. Since that time we stay tuned to his blogoir, as he calls it (blog + memoir), and we recommend the same to you - check out http://charlescrawford.biz/ !
• And the bonus half - the websites above are all about public speaking, but if you look carefully, you can find pearls of wisdom on the subject in places you least expect! Just like I did on a humour website Cracked.com, where an article about 6 Annoying Habits of Public Speakers was posted earlier this week. Read it, fellow public speaker, as a warning! I actually know people making such mistakes, and one of them I see in a mirror ;)

With that piece of knowledge I leave you now, unit our next club meeting on October 12th, where, if everything goes right, it seems we’ll have two speakers! Keep your fingers crossed!

–Maciej, VPPR

This time we’ll talk about technology! Our Table Topics Master, Maciej, will ask questions about marvels of technology and new inventions that’ll appear in years or months to come, and our speaker, Radek, will talk about his work in the fascinating world of IT in his speech “Under the Hood of Antenna’s Products”.

The meeting will be led by Piotr, also a leader in his professional life in Information Technology.

Come and join us in another fantastic Toastmasters meeting!