Creativity

 Are you creative? Would you think Toastmasters is somewhere that could help you tap into creativity? It isn’t the first thing I think of when I ponder Toastmasters.

Surprisingly Igniters is a feast of creative Opportunities. Each time a member delivers a speech their topic or speech approach can be very creative. Our Speech Evaluators are extremely creative! Many of them use a 3 letter acronym to give their 3 aspects of feedback (what was good, where could you improve for the future, what did I like best)? The 3 letter acronym, usually derived from the speech topic, creates an easy way to recall the feedback.

Our meeting on October 13 was very creative, lead by Nandini, with a theme of Around the World in 90 minutes. 

We had 2 tour guides (aka scheduled speeches) that took us on virtual world tours. Tamil spoke about Hong Kong being more than just a layover city while Elaine spoke about hunting in Africa. They both painted pictures that took us through bustling city streets and 8 feet tall grass. We also had a wonderful Icebreaker speech from Em who spoke about her “Gratitude for Growth” taking a creative view of the things she was thankful she quit. It was very thought provoking.

Back to where I started from, creativity coming from surprising opportunities. Have you delved into AI? Well, our Toastmaster, Nandini has. She is using AI to create thematic virtual backgrounds for our zoom meetings. She is creating backgrounds to match our meeting themes. I must say I love seeing a zoom room full of meeting theme backgrounds. On Sept 15 we had Fall into it. On Sept 28 we had Health and Wellness. Most recently, on Oct 13, we had Around the World in 90 minutes. The time and creativity Nandini put into making our zoom meetings more fun is effective! The fun continues when I log into another meeting after forgetting to change these themed backgrounds. It opens up conversations about Toastmasters and Igniters.

There are so many opportunities from participating in Toastmasters. We’ll add Creativity to the list of Toastmasters’ benefits. If you’re interested in improving your creativity, please join us at our next zoom meeting, which will be on Wednesday October 28 5: 45 - 6:45pm (take note that it is a Wednesday, not our usual Tuesday evenings, and earlier than our usual start at 7pm) we are joining with another club, WAAMtastic for a murder mystery. Some of us will be giving speeches as our assigned characters while we try to solve the Haunting of Blackwood Manor. To be extra clear, there won’t be a meeting on Tuesday Oct 27. Instead the meeting will be on Wednesday October 28. Email us at info@igniters for the zoom link if you’re interested in attending this creative murder mystery night.

Emma VPPR