Improving Canned Speeches -Episode7

I call them Zombie Speeches.

You know the ones I’m talking about – the 21 speeches that Toastmasters has created to be given to every club – the Successful Club and Better Speaker canned speech series.  They give you an outline, a PowerPoint presentation and expect them to be presented annually.

No offense, Toastmasters International, but these had better be at the top of your re-write-these-things-before-anything-else in the Revitalized Education program to do list.

Because they’re… not good.

It took me a long time to get myself to that – the words “appalling,” “horrible,” and “awful” came first.

Today On the Table – Topics for Toastmasters

How one DTM took the canned Mentoring speech to “Jedis on the Yellow Brick Road.”

[INTRO]

My home club is pretty small.  Because of that, pretty much every meeting is an officer meeting so we have our club success plan meeting in our regular meeting time.  That means at some point, everyone knows that you need to do to get your education awards – and I’m one of the few who can pull in an Advanced Leadership award before next June.  So I have to do two of the Zombie speeches.

But which two?

I’ve done a few of these speeches over and over.  I can probably do the Meeting Roles and Responsibilities speech in my sleep – as long as I can get to a bakery first.

Yes, a bakery.

See, I can’t give these speeches straight. I just can’t.  I have my pride.

I don’t disagree with the material.  In general, those canned speeches do cover important information that can help a speaker improve and a club grow.  It’s just… so boring.  SOOOO boring.

Humor is one of the best ways to keep an audience involved.  Don’t you pay more attention when you’re getting laughs instead of graphs?  Me too.  We’re not alone.  It’s human nature, combined with the constant reinforcement on the internet and media – to laugh and learn.

So the canned Meeting Roles and Responsibilities speech now has various visual aids, such as comparing a blueberry muffin to the Table Topics leader, or the Toastmaster as a submarine sandwich bun.  I compare the officer roles to a Rolls Royce, among others.  Some are obvious, like the treasurer and an armored car.  Some take a bit more of a stretch – like a library book mobile for the Vice President of Education.

Taking on the Mentor Speech is taking on a speech that’s in need of a lot of work.  It’s very logical and has several good points, but the outline isn’t very compelling.  Now, we do have this right on page 2:

In Your Own Words 

The outline is not a script and should not be read word-for-word, instead, use the document as a guide for presenting the material in your own words and with your own narrative style.  The outline is a structure on which to build your presentation.  Use the points of the outline to develop your speech, but be the author of your own oration.* 

Then the suggestions to study the material, build a speech using your own words, prepare your notes and be expressive on delivery.  Visual aids – such as the provided Powerpoint presentation slides that might be used as a flip chart – are encouraged.

Ok.  [sigh]

I find the mentoring material flat.  With Google, I’ve found a lot of other information that’s far more interesting about mentoring – Forbes Magazine, National Mentoring Month (which is January, by the way) and even a number of decent quotations.