doing its thing , okay , so , um , all righty , I'll start in three , two , one . Welcome , ladies and gentlemen , to episode 31 of the Talkative Toastmaster podcast this week . I need to be on my best behavior as I'm speaking with esteemed Toast Master Nikki Gerd .
Nikki is currently the Club Growth Director of District 69 , which is an executive leadership position and part of what is known as the trio , or the top table in our district . She's been a Toast Master for 25 years , is currently a member of the Cairns Speakers and Marlon Coast Toastmasters Clubs and was a District Conference Convenor in 2022 .
The last time I saw Nikki in person was at the District 69 Conference in Caloundra a couple of months ago , where she was rocking the perfect pirate outfit . Nikki , it's great to be speaking with you . Welcome to the show .
Thank you so much for having me , Mel . I forgot about the pirate . That was so fun .
Yes , the costumes at the gala dinner were fantastic . I think you and your fellow pirates were rocking it .
So I think we are one of the only districts in the whole world to have a costume party for our gala ball as part of our conference , and I feel privately just so proud of this . It was great to dress up with the fellow trio , so we talked a lot about dressing in theme that three of us should come matching .
You know , have good team spirit among us , and the pirate was honestly so much fun .
Yes , well , it was my first district conference , so to see everyone do the Toastmasters thing during the day and then let their hair down at night was fantastic . I think the rock lobster was one of the highlights . The rock lobster doing the rock lobster dance was unforgettable as well . So , yeah , what a fantastic conference .
But I'm really looking forward to hearing about your leadership journey in Toastmasters . But could you perhaps start by telling us why did you start or why did you decide to join Toastmasters ?
Ah well , it was a long time ago now . Officially I started Toastmasters in 1999 , and that's just because that's as far as the records go back and , um , that was 25 years ago .
But unofficially I actually joined in 1996 , okay , and so I had just started university and I was only 16 and as you know , we are not supposed to join Toastmasters until we were 18 , but I went along with somebody who was in my economics class .
I started university quite early and I had actually just turned 16 as well , so I still had two years , really , before I could officially be a Toastmaster . And this guy I sat next to in my economics class . He was a Toastmaster and he asked me if I'd like to come along to the meeting that night and I very enthusiastically said yes .
When I went there were only four members at that club and their area governor back then not area director , area governor and I was really keen to join and be part of it . And somebody said oh , I think Nikki has to be 18 before she joins .
And the area governor slid the form across to me and said Nikki , there's no date of birth on this form , you should just pretend . And so I did it for a couple of years while I was at uni and then I had a little bit of a break and then picked it up back again in 1999 . So , yeah , I really enjoyed it .
I loved it and I think I was always quite an enthusiastic speaker at high school and that's probably why I really took to it . I won a couple of speaking competitions at school and debating competitions , so I always did a bit of that .
I studied law at uni as well , so it kind of went with the territory and so , yeah , that's how my Toastmasters journey started , rather naively a long time ago .
Yeah , yeah , so it's really been a part of your life for most of your adult , or all of your adult life , which is great , more than not , yeah , and so what do you most enjoy about being a member ? I guess that's changed over the course of your time in Toastmasters , but yeah , what do you enjoy now about Toastmasters ?
That's a really good question . It definitely has changed . I try to set myself a new goal every year to keep myself engaged , but I think oh , I once told somebody this and it still rings true today is I'm a loud , boisterous person , and when you're a loud person , you spend your whole life being told to be quiet .
So I speak too loud when somebody's on the phone . At my office we have an open plan office and so someone across the room will be on the phone . I get this be quiet message in our internal messaging system because I'm too loud for their phone . Someone across the room will be on the phone .
I get this be quiet message in our internal messaging system because I'm too loud for their phone call across the room . And at school . You know I was always the chatty one on my report cards Nikki's fond of a chat . So Toastmasters is a place where I don't get told to be quiet .
It's great to be loud , it's great to project your voice and I get to show my extroverted side of my personality in a place where people just don't tell me to pipe down and I really appreciate that . Being able to exercise your personality is soul soothing to a sense .
Yes , yeah , definitely .
I think that's what it is . I once went to the basketball here in Cairns , I think that's what it is .
I once went to the basketball here in Cairns and my friend who took me said Nikki , this is one of the only places on earth where nobody will tell you that you're too loud . And he was wants to hone that skill . It's certainly . You know , there's plenty of opportunities to do that . So that was kind of .
You know , the beginning part and where I've evolved to now is , like I said , I try to set a goal every year , and my last year's goal was to practice speaking while being interrupted and being able to get back to my place , and that's because I do a lot of workshops these days and I try to encourage people to interrupt me at any time , because I do
workshops on technical topics and I don't want to speed past something and they're sitting there very confused for half my workshop . So I encourage that interruption , question and answer style and I wanted to get better at that . So that was my last year's goal and this year's goal is that .
Well , next year I'm going to be a district director and I feel like I'm not very good at inspirational leadership style speeches . I haven't done many , and so I need to have a good understanding of my leadership style and do some speeches around that and also be proactive about tapping people on the shoulder to step up .
I got tapped on the shoulder when I didn't think I was capable of leadership and I need to pay that forward yes , it's interesting what happens when you get a tap on the shoulder from someone and it's like , oh , I haven't really thought about that . And when you get tapped on the shoulder , has your first reaction been no or yes ? I could do that .
I think I used to not feel so confident in my own skills , and so I was filled with self-doubt when people said that . But I now have this theory that I think Richard Branson was the person who highlighted .
This is an entrepreneur's journey is one where they jump off the mountain and build the plane on the way down , and so I've taken that on board as my say yes and work it out on the way down , which I think fits our Toastmasters space .
We are a constant training , learning space and we're not judgmental of people who are giving it their best , but not necessarily you know perfect in their job yet . So yeah , I've tried to adopt that same mentality . Someone asked me yes , yeah , so yeah , I've tried to adopt that same mentality . Someone asked me yes . And then .
I'll work it out .
I'll work it out . Speaking of tapped on the shoulder , you're an incoming area director , mel . Did this happen to you ? Did someone tap you on the shoulder or were you privately going ? Well ?
I really want to be an area director . I was sort of tapped on the shoulder , I think , I think , when I first joined Leading Edge about a year ago , and then when emails started to come out saying if you'd like to express your interest , I was a definite no , no , no , no , no , no .
I remember having quite sort of you know like no , that was , that was it was .
It was no for , uh , most of the year actually , and I think it was only in the last couple of months where , probably just before the conference actually , where I don't know what it is about the Leading Edge Club and being around you know , that particular group of people who are very inspiring , I think as well , being on the committee for the conference and
just having that extra exposure to different parts of the organisation . And then all of a sudden it was yes , okay , and so I actually then just nominated myself . It was a bit of a surprise to me actually , and I think it was a bit of a surprise to the actually , and I think it was a bit of a surprise to the people .
I'd said no to so , but yeah , I'm really excited about it now .
Yeah , that's great . Some years ago , when I was a division director we had a bit of an incident in that year with one of our chair members and it was a very difficult time for everybody involved , so the entire district executive council .
It was a really difficult time and I made this stern decision that I was never going to stand for trio because it looked too hard yeah how'd that go ? yeah , somebody who was a former district leader . He reminded me of this when I ran for club growth last year . I'm like I think I might have grown around it now .
I think I've overcome those tough times yeah , yeah and so so just on your leadership journey within Toastmasters have have you sort of done the area director and gone through that path and just progressed up until this , your current role Like how has that panned out for you ?
Yeah , not in a neat way . Yeah , it maybe could be best described as the journey of a drunken spider . I think I've been area director quite a few times , so I think I did it three times , not successively , so three times . And then I did division director , then a break and area director .
So some of those earlier times I was actually an area governor and they changed names and that's still difficult to remember which one it is . I also have done district PRM twice 10 years apart and district admin manager . So yeah , all over the place , lots of different jobs .
I think the area director is absolutely the best job by a very long way , and especially the first time , because most of us as Toastmasters never venture outside of our own club and I love going to other clubs and stealing the good ideas and taking them back to my club . For sure , my club is the best club in the world .
Nobody could argue with that you know Well , mine is yeah . Your club's the best in the world , everyone's yeah .
And if you can't say that I'm just talking about clubs , right ?
Exactly .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , definitely . So I think that first time of venturing outside your own club is actually pretty fun and quite eye-opening , that the way you do it isn't the way everyone does it . Yeah , you know , in the US they don't do table topics evaluations , oh oh what would be the point of that ?
Why do they even do table topics if they're not going to get feedback on it ? Anyway , they say how can you get good feedback in like two minutes ?
Oh , that's so interesting . Wow , I'm glad we do .
Yeah , I'm glad we do too .
I'd really miss it yeah for sure , and so is your role as club growth director , the first time in the trio sort of position .
Yes , and I think that's kind of how it should work as well .
I know other districts don't necessarily do it like that , but in our district it's tradition that club growth director is a contested role and then when you move up to the next job , program quality director , it's not a contested role , and then same when you move into district director , it's also not contested .
That's very similar to the way the international board works . So their board the contested job is the second vice president and then they move into first vice president , then international president elect and then international president . I think .
Right .
And then immediate past . It's a big five-year job .
Yeah , okay .
Yeah , they have that automatic succession in the same way that our district has as well . So I've never stood for a trio role before club growth director last year . I can't say that campaigning was fun . I didn't really like that process and maybe anybody who's in politics might say the same as the actual campaign yeah .
I don't know , it's not exactly kissing babies and toadstools , but you have this sense of always being on your guard and trying to lift your own professionalism and not necessarily be yourself because , yeah , you're looking to be elected , so you're maybe a more professional , better version of yourself during that period .
And how long is that campaigning period ? So how does that process work ?
So generally , nominations close in January and the elections happen in April , so it's not a very long period , and there are fairly strict rules around campaigning as well . So you can only have two communications with members of the council and that's all you're allowed to have .
So outside of those direct communications , getting as much face time as you can with people is quite challenging , especially in my case , because I live in Cairns and most of our district is in well , it's 2000 kilometres away , so it's a really fast distance , and that's the period where we have division conferences .
So that's , I guess in a sense a free campaign communication if you can get to those division conferences , but for me it was quite an expensive ordeal to go to them all .
Yeah , so far away ? Yeah , definitely . And so what does that role ? What does your current role involve ? What does that role ?
what does your current role involve ? So the club growth director job is , if you look at the way I describe it , it's really looking after the building of new clubs in the district and it's not probably very well known , but there's actually a lot of administration that goes on behind the scenes in all of district business .
And in our case , our trio last year was very , very close and we made maybe a conscious and concerted decision that we would be collaborative in all parts of our jobs . And we would talk about those decisions rather than going on as a load ranger and making decisions that affect the other , the rest of the team , without actually consulting with them first .
Yeah , so for that reason , all three of us were very involved in all all of our jobs . So it is administratively heavy . The trio meets once a fortnight , yeah , and outside of that there's still a lot of business to do , and then you've got to do your club growth director job .
So I , when I look at our dashboard stats , I look at number one how many members do we have and how many clubs do we have ?
And although TI is all about the build new clubs part , there's also the reverse side of that is not losing anyone , not leaving any clubs behind , and so that's the other side is , yeah , club retention , keeping our clubs and , by extension , the quality of those clubs and and why ?
what is the push to create new clubs ? I mean , obviously we all want other people to experience the benefit of Toastmasters , but yeah , what ? What do you sort of see as the benefit of you know , driving that club growth ?
that's a really good question , and Let me frame it in a similar way to how I framed it when I was campaigning is post-COVID , when we had so many clubs that were with low numbers and in bad condition , you know , lost a lot of their stalwarts and the club structure had really changed a great deal .
It didn't feel right to compete against those clubs by trying to launch a new club near them compete against those clubs by trying to launch a new club near them and so I actively chose not to look at building new clubs when I became club growth director . Instead , I looked at how we could strengthen the clubs from within .
So that was really my core focus , and the clubs we built were off the back of new club leads , not ones that we have chased .
We are very fortunate that we have a high growth space in Papua New Guinea and we have a very proactive team there who are great at converting people from hey I want to start a new club in my company to actually having one on the ground and operational one on the ground and operational .
Yeah , when I went up there in March last year for their division conference , I also attended the sixth meeting of a brand-new club . Yeah , and how enthusiastic they are and the numbers they get are just incredible . So this was a brand-new launch club . This was their sixth meeting and they had 42 people at that meeting like absolutely insane numbers .
The whole room .
Their boardroom was full and they had a whole bunch of people online from their desks because they couldn't fit them all in the boardroom . Oh , that's so good . And that's a really common story . We see coming out of P&G really strong chartering clubs and yeah .
So I was fairly lucky in my year that our new club growth , which has been the best growth in our region , have all come from leads that have come to me .
I haven't had to chase them and I really could concentrate on trying to strengthen the clubs okay , and and so what are the other types of issues that , as a leadership team in in the district , you're trying to solve ? What are some of the other challenges that you know you ponder ?
Yeah , what do we ponder and how does it work ? So for most districts , a fairly major thing that they manage all year is conflict , and when we go to our we get trained by Toastmasters International twice a year . So they fly us somewhere and they train all the district leaders together . Conflict management is one of those topics that they talk us through .
We were so lucky We've had so little conflict in the last 12 months and , having been the admin manager and PRM twice , I've seen a lot of that district conflict and I've seen it break two district directors .
Like two district directors that I previously worked with are now no longer in Toastmasters because of the conflict issues that they either had to deal with or maybe they didn't manage that well or perhaps they took it too personally , but in any case , they're not with us anymore on the basis of that conflict , and so I think that's one of the big things .
For us it's been very minor . But also I know that if there was any conflict that come up , the other two would be absolutely behind me on helping me resolve that , and I can't say that for previous trios . Trios often have a sense of dysfunction about them , and mine didn't have that .
So I really appreciate that they stood behind me on anything Like we didn't have anything big but the little things . They were very steadfast in that support . So I think conflict is one , but also managing money well . So at the beginning of our year , when you're brand new to the job , you have to try and predict your spending for the next 12 months .
Yeah right .
And some of that are things like planning marketing campaigns that you haven't planned yet and the cost of bringing people to training . So we're going to bring all our area directors to training , probably three times this year , and we haven't done that before .
So being able to budget in those costs and spend our district money wisely , making sure we reimburse people quickly questioning anything that comes along . So , as a really good example , we're running club marketing grants for our clubs in District 69 . And they can have up to $300 to spend on club marketing , but we need receipts .
That's part of the financial governance , and have you had to download receipts out of Facebook ?
it's a massive ordeal oh yeah , for the ads and things .
Yeah , and I guess ads would be one of the most common expenses yep , it's really easy for clubs to run Facebook ads , so trying to make sure that they've got all of their ad invoices , even if they're like three dollars twenty yeah , yeah , yeah . Ti needs that for financial governance , so that's a fairly big job .
For us is to keep on track with spending , wisely , accounting for all of our dollars .
And I know , you know , certainly from my perspective , I saw you know , you and Denise and Lou , at certainly the division contest and you know , I know you guys have been around . Did you make your way around to all the division contests as well as the division conferences , as well as the district obviously ?
Yeah , to the best of our knowledge , we're the only trio to ever have done that . So the three of us attend all the division conferences .
Yeah .
And Denise's theme for this year was connections , and part of the reason that came about is because of dysfunctional trios in the past and , to an extent , the lack of trust that clubs and areas and divisions have had in their district leadership team .
So , we really wanted to concentrate on repairing that relationship and strengthen the leadership of our district going forward for the next 10 years . So that was a very altruistic thing for us to decide that that's one of the ways in which we would do it .
But another way also is that traditionally , district leaders haven't been that great at replying to emails or reading people back or being proactive about communications , and so that was one of our other things is that when people email us , we need to get back to them quickly . We can't just let it lag .
Even if it's just say , hey , I can't get back to you right now , it's going to be a little bit before I can reply . So communications and connections that's why we did the division conferences . We love them .
It was so good to see all the table topics and all the internationals and then be rooting for everybody when we got to the district conference and oh , that was the best version of that one , wasn't it ? It was really great .
Yeah , you kind of almost had the sneak preview of it all , more so than anyone else , actually .
You know , what was amazing is every speaker stood up Like they all grew from their division experiences . And the biggest stage and the lighting and the microphones , the crowd vibe , the bigger group All of these things make a big difference .
So you were one of our competitors this year , so you know , what that feels like to be on the biggest stage and having to bring your A game there , but particularly the international speakers every one of them did their best version at the district conference final . So we were super proud of everyone .
Yeah , absolutely . And having seen a few of those speeches at the club level and the various competitions that led to that , yeah , definitely , people were at their A game and , yeah , you're right is it is a slightly different environment . You get up onto that stage and it's like , well , this is new , there's lights and there's a whole lot more people .
So , yeah , it's , it's um , and even just the raised stage experience .
That's something that we don't typically get in club or even at area division . Most of those venues don't have that raised stage and that sense of performance that comes with it . So I think all of those things make a big difference . Hearing yourself in a microphone not many people have had much microphone experience .
No no .
You don't sound the same when you hear yourself back .
No , and I'd sort of even at the division level . I think I was the only person in my contest that didn't use the microphone then and I was happy to project my voice , and I'd have been happy to project it at Caloundra as well , because I just but I obviously need to get used to microphones . I can't avoid them forever , but I certainly have tried .
Very early on in my speaking career um , my toast master speaking career , that is uh . It was when I entered my first contest .
Actually , I said no to using the microphone , and that afternoon there was an educational segment from two of our more experienced toast masters and um , actually , I'll tell you who it is it was mike and leslie stalky , and yeah leslie's advice was if there's ever a microphone , use it , because one of the deal breakers on the judging criteria is if a judge can't
hear you , they can't mark any other part of the form . And where you generally lose people is in that lower register . When you want to be quiet and give your voice some light and shade , that's when they won't be able to hear .
In those lower , more deep sensy kind of moments you know , when you're trying to impart a bit of emotional content , that's where you use them . So I think that's really good advice and I've always then taken that on board . If there's a microphone , I'll use it , if for no other reason than just to practice with a microphone .
Yeah , look , and I will absolutely take that advice on now too . Having managed to avoid microphones , you don't want to be in a contest situation the first time you're working at how a headset mic works , and yeah , so I think I will be adopting that advice too . So , thank you , leslie and Mike , for that . That .
That , uh , that pearl coming through you , let me tell you the other one in that same one .
They were talking about how , uh , dressing like you .
You want to look like you're a winner , and you can often see that , particularly in the international , the fellas especially , they get quite dressed up for it yeah and the day I competed , I was wearing a miniskirt and I was still , you know , very useful at that point and miniskirts were appropriate , but not necessarily when you're competing in the international yeah
, but it I guess that all becomes part of stagecraft and stage presence and and probably the more contests you see and you look at , you know you see the winners and it shouldn't be based on what you're wearing , but I think it's also . You know , what you're wearing can determine how you feel and how you sort of come across . So yeah .
I agree , Just something to consider , I guess . Something to consider , I guess . And so how much time do you spend , you know , on Toastmasters activity between your two clubs and your district roles and all of that ? You know ? How much of your week do you spend on Toastmasters ?
Look , I don't want to scare people off who want to come into one of the district roles , but I do track all my time being a business owner . I have software that tracks all my time automatically and I assign it to what I'm doing .
I average 10 hours a week , okay , so it is a little side hustle at this point yeah so 10 hours a week , at least 40 hours a week working , sleeping overrated yeah , um , I I will say that I'm even though I've spent that that much time for the past 12 months , I am really enjoying the role and I'm learning new things every day yeah and um , yeah , I think
, and yeah I think the time's worth it .
Yeah , yeah . And so you're Club Growth Director this year and you're moving into the Program Quality Director role for the next financial year . So what's that role involve ?
Oh , that's way more fun than Club Growth . That's the role I'm really looking forward to . Program Quality is around training . So whenever we do club officer training twice a year , that is under the auspices of the program quality director . But also we train our district leaders .
So at the end of June we're going to bring all of our area directors and division directors together that includes you and we're running training for all of those district leaders as well . Also , by extension , it's propping up club quality . So training our club leaders so that they can then have a much better quality club . Yes .
Yeah , yeah , and I think as well it's sort of trying to get the exec members to those training sessions . And yeah , it's , you know , certainly , as an outgoing president , I'm trying to impress upon my team . It's like training , do the training . Let's all get a very clear sense of what the roles involve .
And yeah , yeah , I think when people understand their roles clearly , it helps everyone involved . It sure does . Yeah , yeah , I think when people understand their roles clearly , it helps everyone involved .
It sure does , yeah , it brings also a sense of seriousness to it . So when somebody attends training , they're much more likely to carry out their role . Some roles don't tend to attend training as much as others . So , presidents and VPs always have a very high number of people who come along to training , whereas we don't see many sergeant-at-arms not too many .
Secretaries and treasurers yes , Public relations people also . No , Don't see so many of them either .
Which is interesting because so many clubs are struggling with , you know , with membership and just that . Yeah , I just think there's . I've run VPPR Club Officer Training Sessions and yeah , I was surprised at the number of how few of them there were . Like it would be helpful if you came .
When I was PRM the second time , I referred to PPPR as the sleepy seat on the committee . It's the seat that you could take up and not do anything all year and maybe nobody would notice .
Yeah , yeah , but we won't tell them that .
No , we don't want it to be like that Just about no club in our district that could say no , we don't want any more guests , we're good . Thanks , there is one , but that's one out of 150 .
exactly the the rest of us all have have work to do , but , uh , yeah , okay . So training , this this year is the focus . And and do you ? Do you actually deliver the training or are you sort of organizing it , or a bit of both ? How's that work ?
probably a little bit of column a and a little bit of column b , but mostly our district is much too big for a single person to deliver all of that training yeah and when you consider that , um , we have quite a lot of space in between all of our divisions generally , we we have a division-focused team when it comes to training and they choose local trainers
to deliver whatever topic it is that is their specialty . It actually takes a lot of trainers to deliver club officer training , because you have seven jobs that need a trainer ?
Yes , and generally all those seven jobs are running concurrently , so everyone's doing the same thing Sergeant Armsman is going to Sergeant Arms training and VPPR person is going to VPPR training .
So that all runs at the same time for at least an hour , sometimes a bit longer than that , and then you have some plenary sessions , so typically they would be different people . So two or three plenary sessions . So you need at least 10 people to run training , in our case probably at eight separate locations across the district . So you need a lot of people .
We need 80 volunteers .
Yeah .
Hey , anybody out there want to do some training for us ? Generally it's not that hard to find trainers for club officer training roles . Yeah , Sometimes we struggle in some locations , but mostly we always have volunteers who are happy to step up .
Yeah , yeah , I mean , I guess that's one good thing is , there's always sort of the diehard Toastmasters who are going to volunteer no matter what , and they keep volunteering , and you know I , think we call them tragics in our town now , don't we ?
Yeah , Toastmasters tragics .
Yes .
You know I am mindful that we want new tragics .
Yes , you know we don't want to overwork the ones we have Exactly , and we have a lot of people out there who maybe haven't been tapped on the shoulder or asked to do things before , and so that's one of my focuses this year is to find some new people who we can continue to develop and want to do some professional , personal , personal development in the
training space yeah , definitely it's .
It's a great opportunity and if people are wanting to get into that training space and I mean , what a great way to practice you know talking about , even if you've done the role once , it's just facilitating a conversation amongst other people who , yeah , it's , it's .
I don't think it's it's particularly hard to run that kind of training , but I guess it's just getting the people there , you know , making sure they understand what the role is . And yeah , yeah and all of this .
You know these skills that you're , you know , amassing in these leadership sort of situations , are you able to apply them outside of , you know , in your life , outside of Toastmasters ?
Yeah , in lots of ways you sometimes don't expect . So let me tell you a couple . A few years before COVID , our district piloted running training online . We'd never done it before . We had special permission from Toastmasters International to do it . And now that we look at the way the online world has transitioned from COVID , it kind of seems weird .
We weren't doing it for a long time before , but we took the job really seriously . We had to evaluate different programs to deliver that training and we settled on Zoom . And so there were 11 of us who were online trainers , who practiced how to use Zoom , how to share PowerPoints , what's the best way for interacting with people .
And then , when COVID come along , I was a Zoom expert . I ran heaps of training for organizations as to how to use Zoom to its best , but also I then emceed major events on Zoom as well , because I was one of the only people who was a true master at using it , whereas everyone else was dunking into that space for the first time .
So for me , who did a lot of speaking in public , the COVID year was actually very good for me , whereas most public speakers did not get much work during that time . They didn't yet know that technology well , but I put it out really early that I was a Zoom trainer and I've got heaps of work in that space , so I think that was one of the big ones .
For me is it had a dramatic impact on my income during COVID because I was already trained with those skills from a pilot from someone in our district who was quite innovative . So , that's been one thing I'll tell you . Another one is most clubs hate doing business sessions . Hey , parliamentary procedure . Oh , why do we need to do this ?
Like hate , really hate , yeah yes and correct . I had my first club president was very enthusiastic about business sessions and we did them at every meeting . So a serious one every couple of months , but we did a frivolous one at every meeting .
And he was a bit of a dictator , this guy , but you know , a good-hearted dictator and he didn't want people to just not say anything during business sessions . So every now and then he would be the chairman and kind of force us to talk . So we all had to get involved in this process which you're like how am I ever going to use this ?
Well , one time we had a business which went into liquidation and we had to attend a creditors meeting and me and my business partner , who'd been in Toastmasters at that time for 15 years , we knew parliamentary procedure way better than the chairman of that creditor's meeting . And that was a great advantage to getting our way .
So I think if you maybe ever want to maybe buy an apartment as an investment and there's a body corporate as part of that , the body corporate has to have meetings . Parliamentary procedure is an absolutely a skill to know .
Yes , I agree , and having been in a large body corporate before , and that's what actually made Toastmasters parliamentary procedure interesting , when you could see , okay , when you've got 180 apartment owners in one body corporate , it becomes a bit of a nightmare real fast and it gets very political very quickly , lots of disagreements .
But when there's someone following that procedure , that I think is what made the meeting process at Toastmasters relevant and interesting for me . I completely agree with that example .
So there are a couple of transferable skills that I didn't really expect to pick up along the way . Another one , also unexpected , is I had a friend call me who said I'm supposed to be speaking at a conference in an hour and I can barely talk . Like he's got this scratchy , cold voice . He's , you know , he can barely get a word out .
And he said can you stand in for me by any chance in an hour ?
with this material .
Okay , that was the first time I thought , hey , maybe I could be a short notice speaker . I have to do this at Toastmasters all the time . Somebody doesn't come , so you fill in on the program at short notice .
So I started doing that and I put the word out with a local kind of events organization bureau that if someone was having a conference here I could stand in if they needed a speaker at short notice .
And I've done that a few times and it's super lucrative because you know if there's a big gap on the program they'll pay very well to fill that gap when they've got paying ticket holders .
Yeah , yeah , oh , oh , wow . And what types of topics have you found yourself speaking about in those situations ?
well , all sorts of funny things , um , usually general business , marketing kind of ones that are standing ones . But only one time have I had to deliver someone else's material . Usually I can . I can suggest a couple of topics that I speak on and they're like oh yeah , that one sounds good , do that one .
Yeah , wow , okay . And the keynote style speeches or facilitating workshops , or any or all of the above ?
Mostly keynote . Okay , so the under an hour style at a big conference , so somewhere between I don't know , 500 to 1,000 people , that kind of space , sometimes some smaller events , but usually they're the big , serious ones .
Okay , and so do you have a couple of almost signature stories basically tucked away that you can pull out at notice , and that's kind of your story .
Sort of yes , not stories , though . So my speaking style is I try to teach people things , and so I want them to walk away with an improved knowledge on a topic and some practical implementation . And because I speak on tech , I also try to make it very easy in plain English .
I try not to go over people's heads and bamboozle them , because I have been in that position from other IT professionals and so , yeah , generally I am trying to teach them things and then walk away with some practical knowledge and also the confidence to implement that . So that's usually what I talk on Lots of different things , but that's usually it .
At the moment , everyone wants to know about AI . How can AI change a life for the better ?
Oh , yeah , yeah , and it seems to be pervasive , like in all the marketing automation platforms and all the platforms you know . Plug in AI and let it create content for you .
And yeah , I think what some companies don't realise is , if they're trying to plug their entire marketing plans into chat , gpt , that that's becoming part of the learning library and it's like yeah you maybe don't want to do that so much yeah .
There are some great things that have come out of the world of AI , and we've also learned some ways in which it's really dumb as well . Yeah , there is that concept of rubbish in , rubbish out and so yeah , if you feed it bad stuff , it'll give you back bad stuff . And it hallucinates a lot .
It fibs about all sorts of things , like if you say , um , write a bio for nikki judge , she's an awesome web developer , it will like , full on , make stuff up about me .
I haven't tried that . I must give it a go and see what I can make it say about me and you . How about I do the show notes with AI this time ?
Well , I use it a lot for business related stuff and I got it to write a bio for me at a workshop the other day and it said that I was a beekeeper and a jiu-jitsu master .
Well , there you go , and I'm not either of those things . Well , okay , but it missed the obvious part about being a part-time pirate .
So you know , I mean it's wrong Did not include that I need to work on this on this , and I mean even at your local Toastmasters meetings .
Now , how do you find that process of giving a speech when you're out there , you know speaking professionally and speaking at a you know senior district level . And yeah , how are you sort of when you go about just creating normal speeches for Toastmasters ? You know speeches ?
So I try to use everyone as a learning opportunity . So that's sort of my internal perspective . Butters , you know speeches , so I try to use everyone as a learning opportunity . So that's sort of my internal perspective . But also , you know what you don't get in the professional world ?
You don't get a sympathetic , enthusiastic Toastmaster who gives you ways in which you can improve your performance , and you walk off stage with this awful sense of emptiness Did I do all right ? Did people like that ? Yeah , no feedback . Oh , did I do all right ? Did people ?
like that . Yeah , no feedback . What did I do ?
well , oh , what could I do next time ? How could I do this differently ? And so you have to have these solo debriefs that are not nearly as nice as an evaluation .
Yeah .
And I absolutely crave that . If I ever see a Toastmaster in my audience , I always ask them afterwards for some evaluation comments . But I'm not always that lucky , that's for sure . Yeah , some evaluation comments , but I'm not always that lucky , that's for sure .
So , yeah , that's the part that I really enjoy about Toastmasters is being able to incrementally sharpen my own saw and get a little bit better each time .
Yeah , yeah , I think you know the whole evaluation process is just . It's so important and so valuable . It's just this ongoing value that the organization provides . It's the best bit .
I think so too . You know what else as an audience , toastmasters are a very generous audience , so they're quiet . They don't tend to have side conversations . They're not primarily on their phone , you don't have to compete with their personal life . Their phone doesn't ring and they don't run outside in the middle of your presentation .
We're a very forgiving audience and I think that's my biggest challenge in the professional world , because I use interaction a lot and I do let people have little side conversations and I get them to do exercises . That's my big challenge is to be able to pull them back from something like that and get their attention again and keep going .
So , yeah , we're a lovely audience to speak for .
Yes , definitely . And at what point did you sort of realise in your speaking career that you were going to start to do it professionally and really put yourself out there ?
It was a long time ago . I think my first paid presentation was in 2003 , and it was a government group . I think they were called State Development back then , the Queensland Government State Development Division .
Oh yeah .
And they wanted people to improve their online presence . They saw that as sort of vital to economic development and so they would run presentations , different kinds of technical topics , but mostly around online presence , and there wasn't many females in IT back then .
They're still not that many , and so I think they saw me as kind of ticking two boxes tech person female young Can speak . Yeah , can talk about stuff , string a few words together , and so for me it was really early . And they were mostly smaller workshop groups of around 20 people , so they were a good space to cut my teeth on .
Yeah , definitely , and I think you're right in terms of you know that females in the IT space . I've started my career as a developer or computer programmer and yeah , it's just at a time when actual positive discrimination was trying .
They were actually trying to attract more females into the industry and you know there's way more females now but yeah , it's still a very low you know lowish female to male ratio , for sure it is .
Every time I talk to you , you I feel like we're peeling back the layers of an onion . I did not know that you're a developer . That's amazing .
I wasn't a very good one , which is why I ended up in marketing . So I had I had way more the personality for marketing . But yeah , I was a COBOL programmer for about 10 years , which which was horrifying , so I could have made it . Oh , mel , you're a legend . I remember working on code in the banking systems .
That was older than me and that was a good 30 years ago . So it was a bit scary that , you know , in the days of the big , wide paper and you'd print out the programs and yeah , it was pretty crazy . So I wasn't a very good programmer , though .
I used to have to work on non , non urgent things and if any of my code was going into production , everyone would be like brace , brace .
So that's excellent . I'm sorry to say that code that's older than you is probably still there .
Oh , I have no doubt . I mean , they don't call them legacy systems for you know , for no reason . They certainly , yeah , but it's been interesting to sort of weave in and out of that tech space , yeah , whether it's , you know , getting involved in web development or , yeah , web marketing , as we were sort of talking about earlier .
So , yes , now in terms of your goals for the coming year , you said that you like to pick your goal for , you know , for each year . So what is it looking like going into this coming year ?
Yeah , so I need to improve my presentation performance around leadership speeches . I just don't have a lot of experience in speaking on those topics and I don't think I've really defined well my leadership style . I don't like servant leadership and we talk about it a lot in Toastmasters . I don't love the concept .
I don't like how naturally most people are not a servant leader anyway .
And .
I'm really much more of a transactional leader and so I probably want to talk about that a bit . I don't know if I'm going to upset the powers that be by going , eh , servant leader's not really for me , but I think that's going to be . My direction is , yeah , to develop a bit of a presentation style around a different leadership style .
Well , I mean , it's got to be . My direction is , yeah , to develop a bit of a presentation style around , around a different leadership style well , I mean , it's got to be authentic .
If nothing else , right , you know , it's that's , that's , that's got to be authentic . And if any organization can handle authenticity , it should be this one it should be this one .
Yes , I often think about you've probably seen a few TED Talks in your time but I often think about how similar the concept of a TED Talk , that idea worth sharing , is to our international speech contest . And that you know that contest is about delivering value to its audience , and I always lament . We didn't invent TED , but we should have .
Yes .
Yes , we totally should have .
Yes , yeah , yeah , I mean definitely , definitely . And what I found interesting about seeing our conference , you know one weekend and literally the Malaysian District 102 conference the weekend after , which was completely unplanned and absolutely unexpected , but awesome it they were . It was the same types of speeches and I'm just it was .
It was like a mirror of each other , but with a malaysian slant , which was fantastic , and some malaysian , you know , and , and asian humor generally , and , but but that message , you know the , the , the , the message at the end and the , the rah-rah , the call to action , and yeah , it's just like , wow , we , it is a formula for a , a way of presenting and ,
and I saw it , you know , two weekends in a row . It would have been three had I gone to Singapore , but I couldn't quite , did they have a costume party for their ball ? I didn't actually go to the gala dinner , but I think the theme was batik and like traditional gear . So I think they dressed up but not costumes .
Yeah , it's not sea creatures . No , not sea creatures .
No , but what I found really interesting was that there was a whole other contest , the four contests running in English in one room and in Mandarin in the other room , and then when the so I obviously didn't watch the Chinese competition , but when the announcements came in for the winners , they went crazy . It was like the Olympics of cheering .
They completely blew the English competition out of the water . And when the Chinese contingent came into the room and they started announcing winners , it was quite something else . So they were very vocal , very enthusiastic . It was really good . I would like to see that . Yeah , it was um . Yeah , well , district 102 it was .
It was a great um , a great sort of um . Yeah , just contrast between our conference and and theirs .
But our district . Winner of international often gets a standing ovation , but I haven't seen the room go crazy before . We should try to set this up for next year . Mel , I want to do this .
Yeah , I'll share a video with you . I just took a little snippet and it doesn't really do it justice , but it was enough to sort of go like , wow , this is really . They're very , very excited , wow .
Yeah , that's cool , that's really cool .
It was very cool . So what they lacked in sea costume outfits , they made up for in super clapping .
Yeah , enthusiasm overload , that's amazing .
Yeah , and so do you have to do more international travel again as part of your incoming leadership role .
Yeah , so Toastmasters trains the district trios twice a year . So our next lot of training is just before the international convention in Anaheim so the trio will need to go over there and do training .
They work us hard so no rest for the wicked , they , they put on breakfast yeah and then we finish dinner .
So we're 15 hours in training for two days . We don't see the sun , or at least we didn't last year , yeah , so we don't see the sun , and then they train us again in January . So August and January are the two lots of training .
Last year I really enjoyed the January one a lot more because it was more practical and we get to interface a lot more with our district leaders . So we get to talk through some of the issues we've been having and propose some solutions as a bit of a group think as well , whereas the first lot of training wasn't like that .
I didn't really love the first lot of training , to be honest . I kind of went into it with a deer in headlights kind of feeling and . I left with the same feeling .
Oh well , this year you'll be better prepared .
Yeah maybe I am kind of cognizant of not doing that to our district leaders as well . We want to give them the sense of confidence that when they leave training they know what they have to do to be successful , and that's what I really learned from that training is .
I didn't get that feeling of confidence and I want to make sure other people have that from us .
Yeah , yeah , you kind of want to know what's expected of you . I mean , I think in any new role there is a sense of like am I doing it right ? Am I missing anything ? Are there any got tos ? And you know , and sometimes , thank goodness for some of the very experienced members of the club who are like , oh , do you know we have to do this ?
Are you okay to do a changeover meeting or a this or a long service award ? No , but thanks for pointing that out , you know . So , yes , I think , certainly , as an incoming area director , I'm like help , I have a rough idea of what I , you know what needs to happen . But yeah , the details like how does that work ? Who does that ?
So I'm looking forward to it .
Lots of questions , yes , you know I often think that , when it comes to speeches , I don't want to deliver a speech that someone else could deliver . It's how I think of my own sense of authenticity that I'm delivering a speech that only I can deliver . It's got my learned experiences and my flavor of things applied to it .
Yeah , so that's going to be my advice to you as the incoming area director . Even if you've got an expectation to do a change over , give it the maltreatment like yeah , I don't know . Deliver it in the style of how you might change over the game of thrones committee , for example . Yeah , yeah yeah , give it the male flavor yeah , definitely it's , it's .
I mean , I definitely I have a script and that was provided as soon as I , sort of you know , put my hand up and asked for one . But yeah , it's okay , I get , get what has to happen . But it's also one thing when you're sitting and watching something happen and quite another when you have to do it yourself .
Oh , all right , I should have paid more attention , you know , last year to that changeover meeting . But yeah , I guess you know there's always people to help and people to you know , give you a bit of a nudge about how to do things .
I love scripts , but I also love not following them . It's like recipes don't follow the recipe .
Exactly , that's my theory .
It doesn't have to be Mel's theory .
Oh well , I was trying to find myself a Malaysian husband , chef actually , but failed , which was very sad .
So , um oh , I need one of those too .
Oh , my goodness , the one . One of the amazing things about the Malaysian conference was the buffet lunches , and it's like oh another opportunity to eat , because I haven't done that enough on the holiday . So , yeah , the food was pretty good , but is there anything else that you'd like to share before we wrap up ?
Well , I'm inspired by your Malaysian feasts at the conference . I'm going to make a promise that at next year's district conference there will be no sandwiches .
Yes , I'll second the motion . Let's vote for no sandwiches .
I'll tell you my last little thing I want to share .
Yes .
It kind of hit me when I was elected as the club growth director that suddenly all of the complaints I ever had with district teams past were now mine to solve and mine to repeat , and the pressure of that was , oh well , it was kind of sobering actually , and so in my mind constantly I'm thinking , oh , I didn't like it when people didn't give me enough
notice . I better give everyone enough notice and what they've got to do and be really clear about that . And I hated going to club officer training year on year when it's the same old boring stuff . I better not do that . And so that's kind of my goal for this year is to not carve the same path of the problems that I complained about previously .
There you go , there you go , there you go .
Well , I certainly look forward to participating in the training that I know that you're going to have some oversight of , and it's been a pleasure to hear about your perspective on Toastmasters and those senior leaders , senior leadership positions and just that different perspective that really , I'm guessing , a lot of Toastmasters don't ever see , and so thank you for
sharing that with us today , and I wish you all the best for the year and in your new role and look forward to seeing you at one of the next district events .
Thank you for having me on your podcast and I can't wait to work with you on this year's district leadership team .
Well , thank you , and likewise I'm glad I said yes , and I'm looking forward to working with you too . Woohoo , all right , see you in training , see you .