The end of July proved a hectic time for the club as publicity was the key focus.
We started with an article in The News reflecting on Wendy Benson's appointment as Area Governor, which led to a request for Keith Oliver to be interviewed on Express FM to talk about the club and public speaking.
Brent Crouch, Michael John Smithson and Keith Oliver attended a table top display at Langstone Technology Park where they handed out literature and spoke to many of the staff, raising the awareness of Toastmasters.
Several committee members attended the Club Officer training in Chichester when we could share knowledge with our sister clubs, and come away inspired with ideas to improve our club still further.
For our second meeting in July Keith Oliver then presented a workshop on “How to Listen Effectively” from the Success Communication Series.
The audience, through a series of exercises, learnt the 9 techniques for better listening
Like to listen
Ignore distractions
Summarise
Tame emotions
Eliminate hasty judgements
Never interrupt
Inspire openness
Need to listen
Generate conclusions
The workshop was the final project in Keith's path to Advanced Leader Gold.
As well as all the other goings on several of our members also found time to help out with the Prince's Trust in Gosport and at Highbury College. Again the calibre of the presentations by the participants was astounding given their backgrounds before enrolling on the courses.
With such a hectic month over we now look forward to getting back to normality in August, although with our summer social “Speech on the Beach” to look forward to that may be a vain hope.