South Main Monthly

Vol. 1 No. 4 South Main Speakers, District 56, Club 8609 April 2007

The mission of the Toastmasters club is to provide a mutually

supportive and positive learning environment in which every member
has the opportunity to develop communication and leadership skills,
which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth.

IN THIS ISSUE:

*President's Corner

*Anniversaries and Milestones

Taichun Qin
Renya Jacob
Steve Graham
President’s
Vivek Rajan
Grace Hu
Judy Yan
Corner
Jazon Samillano
Madness, contests and leadership!
*Calendar of Events by Annie M. Ballatore, CTM
Easter Holiday
Division Q Spring Speech Contests
"A little madness in the spring is wholesome even
*Features for the King." I find this quotation from the poet Emily
“Please Don’t Go Away Print” by Renay Jacob Dickinson quite appropriate as the South Main Speakers
“From Beijing to Houston” by Wei Zhang kick off a new month. Following our April Fools' Day
“Best Ever Muffins” by Bob Hu tradition, we will show a little vernal madness and
*Ask the Master
challenge our minds and imaginations with a Backward
How do you write and deliver a humorous speech? Meeting where the speech evaluations come before the
prepared speeches. Just wait until you hear the table
topics answers before you even know the question!
Congratulations to all our club members who
The South Main Monthly is a monthly publication of the raised to the challenge and participated in the different
South Main Speakers Toastmasters club. We meet every area contests! They all did a superb job. On April 23rd,
Sunday at 1:30 p.m. in 10305 South Main Street (Houston our Tall Tales winner, Vivian Li, will represent Area Q-50
Chinese Church), Room 411. For more information, please
at the Division Q contest. Let's all go and support Vivian
visit our website at:
http://groups.msn.com/southmainspeakers as she spins her amazing tall tale!
The Toastmasters year is quickly vanishing. With
If you have any comments, contributions, or suggestions May fast approaching, it is time to think about the club
concerning this or future issues, please send them to elections. With this in mind, we will hold educational
floatingcomma@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!
sessions on Leadership toward the end of April.
-Vivian Li, Editor
 Anniversaries & Milestones
• Congratulations to Taichun Qin, who
celebrates his first-year anniversary
•
with South Main this month!
Congratulations to Renay Jacob,
ATMB, who celebrates his fourth-
year anniversary with South Main!
• Congratulations to Steve Graham,
CTM, who celebrates his second-year
anniversary with South Main!
• Congratulations to Vivek Rajan, who
celebrates his first-year anniversary
with South Main!
• Happy birthday to Grace Hu, ATMB,
Judy Yan, and Jazon Samillano!
Kudos to Area Q50 Spring Contests Contestants
April
April 8: Easter Holiday
Due to the Easter weekend, there will be no
Toastmasters meeting.
April 23: Division Q Spring Speech Contests
Come support South Main’s speech contestants at the
Division Q Spring Speech Contests. It will be at 7
p.m. at the Houston Department of Health and Human
Services, First Floor Auditorium.
8000 North Stadium Drive and Old Spanish Trail
Houston, TX 77054
Congratulations to Michael Plaks,
and Vivian Li for representing
South Main Speakers at the
Area Q50 speech
contests on March 31.
Michael won second place for the
International Speech Contest and
Vivian won first place
for the Tall Tales Contest.
Way to go!
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Please Don’t Go Away Print
by Renay Jacob, ATMB
Every morning I wake up in my Houston
townhome, I make a large cup of coffee, eat
sweet bread, and catch up on the news. I’ve
become accustomed to going to my front
door and picking up a fresh copy of The
Wall Street Journal. I actually get it for free
because I convinced my boss that I needed it
for my MBA classes, and my company pays
for it.
Sadly, in recent weeks, I haven’t been able
to read the newspaper thoroughly because of
the time I spend on the aforementioned
MBA classes. Instead, I pry myself from
whatever I’m doing at work and peek at a
few of my go-to news sites: CNN and The
New York Times. They're easy to navigate,
with the news I want: World events, media
developments, a story about a cat nursing a
litter of orphaned puppies.
But something's missing. Not the ink-stained
hands — no fondness for that. Not the
inserts that cascade across my floor and
under the couch either.
The Headlines! The big, brash, screaming
and often hilarious and heart-stopping
headlines that come in print newspapers just
don't pack the same punch online. The
words are there, sure. But they come on
gradually as they "load," and once they're
there, they're cluttered by all sorts of
features and tabs and search options.
Until I fell into my online habit, I would go
outside to my front door and look forward to
reading the headlines. I'd get a small thrill as
I approached the paper. What did the
headline writers cook up late last night?
Then Pow! "Lust in Space!" for the
astronaut love triangle story. A few years
ago when First Daughter Jenna Bush was
caught underage drinking? "Jenna and
Tonic." I miss the tabloid newspapers from
my living in New York; The Wall Street
Journal isn’t as sensational.
Sporting my newspaper in public, I'll ride
the airplane or sit in a restaurant. And I'll get
a thrill when, out of the corner of my eye, I
see someone notice my headline or the
reputable title of the newspaper and smile.
It's more than a moment. It's a bond. (I don't
get out much.)
Please don't go away, print. Toastmaster,
Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal I’ll meet
up with you soon enough. I appreciate the
efforts of your flashy digital cousin, but
aren't we glued to our computers enough?
Without you, print, I'll have no headlines to
share — and that'll be really lonely.
************
From Beijing to Houston
by Wei Zhang
It has been almost one year now since I
came to Houston. Before that, I have been
living in Beijing for more than ten years.
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Compared with Beijing, Houston is a rather
young city, a city with a different style, a
city bringing me new experiences and
changes to my life.
Living: When I first came to Houston, the
most satisfying thing for me is the low rent.
It is not so difficult to live in Houston. The
low price in renting or even purchasing a
house might be a reason why many people
move to Houston, while Beijing now has
become one of the cities with the highest
house renting price in China.
Shopping: Similar to other big cities, there
are many shopping malls both in Houston
and Beijing. However, they have different
manners in procedures. In Beijing, the
holiday season is a big chance for the seller.
Almost all of the shopping centers will
elongate their hours during holidays or on
the weekends. Some even stay open
overnight. However, in Houston, most of the
shopping centers will close early on
weekends or even close during holidays.
Driving: In Houston, without a car means
without legs. Sometimes riding the
Metrobus will cost several hours or even
more. Although cars are more and more
popular in Beijing, I still consider bicycle as
the best choice while living in Beijing.
There are many small alleys in Beijing
(called hutong). The real Beijing stories are
hidden in these narrow alleys—a traditional
family, a craftsman, or antiques. You might
miss the mystery of this city when sitting in
a car.
Dining: At least there is one common point
between Beijing and Houston. They both
have many types of food from various
places. I can enjoy Italian or Vietnamese
restaurants in Beijing and also Mexican,
Turkish or Indian food in Houston. In
Chinatown, I can still try foods from
different places of China just like in Beijing.
Although life is changing much more than
before, it is enjoyable both in Houston and
Beijing. One year ago, during leisure time, I
used to sit in an ancient house near the
riverside, drinking jasmine tea. Now I
usually sit in a bakery with a cup of coffee
in Rice Village ☺. These two different cities
have the same attractive sunshine and clear
blue sky. A friend told me before, “With
peace in the heart, any place is your
destination.”
************
Best Ever Muffins
by Bob Hu, ATMB
INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205
degrees C).
2. Stir together the flour, baking
powder, salt and sugar in a large
bowl. Make a well in the center. In a
small bowl or 2 cup measuring cup,
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 beat egg with a fork. Stir in milk and
oil. Pour all at once into the well in
the flour mixture. Mix quickly and
lightly with a fork until moistened,
but do not beat. The batter will be
lumpy. Pour the batter into paper
lined muffin pan cups.
3. Variations: Blueberry Muffins: Add
1 cup fresh blueberries. Raisin
Muffins: Add 1 cup finely chopped Ask the Master
raisins. Date Muffins: Add 1 cup
finely chopped dates. Cheese Dear Master,
Muffins: Fold in 1 cup grated sharp
yellow cheese. Bacon Muffins: Fold In the spirit of April Fools’ Day and rumors
1/4 cup crisp cooked bacon, broken that the fall contest will be Humorous
into bits. Speech Contest, can you give any pointers
4. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden. on how to write and deliver a good
humorous speech?
PREP TIME: 10 minutes
COOK TIME: 25 minutes —Funny Bone
READY IN: 35 minutes
YIELD: 1 dozen best ever muffins
Dear Funny Bone,

The following are ten tried-and-true tips on

how to find that funny bone in you. I also
threw in an extra golden rule at the end just
for luck:

Do the Opposite

When you’re developing the topic of your

humorous speech, you might try "doing the
opposite" of your first instinct. Give your
speech an unpredictable twist. Want to give
a speech on gun control? How about
advocating that everyone have guns—even
family pets? How about making an
impassioned speech about eliminating taxes
for the very rich? Or perhaps take the
position that we should all watch more
television.
************
Humor will come out of the absurdity of
your position. Presenting the position that’s
the opposite of what you mean gets the

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audience engaged, and gives them
something they didn’t expect. Surprise, after
all, is one of the fundamental tenets of
humor.
Play It Straight
A key aspect to giving a humorous speech is
for the speaker to not be in on the joke.
Think about times when you’ve heard a joke
delivered by someone who laughs at their
own joke. Just doesn’t seem as funny, does
it? It’s the same with a humorous speech.
The humor is for your audience, not you.
Play it straight.
Stick to the Game Plan
The most important thing about not getting
the results you expect is to not get derailed.
Stick to the game plan. Simply move on. (Or
as they said in a recent ad campaign: "Never
let them see you sweat.") And under no
circumstances should you resent the
audience for not responding the way you
feel they should. Many a performer has
made the mistake of commenting on how
uptight an audience is, or how they just
don’t "get it."
Instead of getting defensive, just keep
moving. If you’ve done the proper
preparation, you’ll have a number of
opportunities for the audience to come
around. A clever way to safeguard against
jokes falling flat is to not have any jokes in
your speech. That’s right. Be Bill Cosby, not
Rodney Dangerfield. The difference?
Dangerfield’s style uses one or two liners.
Set-up, punchline, set-up, punchline. Every
joke has to be a winner. Too much pressure,
if you ask me.
But if you’ve ever seen Bill Cosby perform,
he tells stories. Funny stories, but stories
that do not rely on "jokes" per se. It takes
the pressure off.
There’s actually a popular theory in comedy
circles, especially among sketch, play and
sitcom writers, which puts forth that a joke
should never be able to stand on its own as a
joke. It should come so organically from the
concept being delivered that it won’t hold up
on its own. Personally, I wouldn’t dare give
a humorous speech if I wasn’t sure I had a
couple of sure-fire jokes sprinkled
throughout, but it’s something to consider.
Don’t Step on the Laughter
Here’s a tricky one. Let’s assume all is
going according to plan. The audience is
with you. You throw out a line: "My car is a
convertible. I call it that because when I turn
the key, it converts into a piece of junk."
The audience responds. There is a delicate
balance struck between a humorous speaker
and the audience. If you speak during the
laughter, one of two things will happen: 1)
your next comment won’t be heard, or 2) the
laughter will abruptly halt so you can be
heard. (From there on out your audience is
likely to be inhibited—they won’t want to
miss anything, so they’re less likely to let
loose with laughter again.)
So, here’s a good rule of thumb. Say the
duration of an audience’s response is a
period of time measured from one to ten,
with three or four typically being the peak of
the laughter. You can avoid "stepping on the
laugh" by waiting until about eight to begin
speaking again. You don’t want to wait until
10, as that’s nearly silence—and that’s too
late because you’ll lose your momentum.
The Rule of Three
It’s also important to remember the Rule of
Three. That’s the age-old (and for good
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reason) guideline passed down through the
generations from humorist to humorist—
namely that three jokes on a given subject is
fine, but no more. The next time you
observe a speaker you admire, who makes
you laugh and who seems to have the perfect
sense of what to say and how, pay attention
to how many jokes he or she gives to
punctuate any particular point. That’s right.
Three’s the limit.
Incidentally, the Rule of Three also applies
to how many examples you should give on
any topic within your speech. If you put
forth a concept, support it with three (or
fewer) examples.
Save Your Best Joke for Last
There’s a temptation to throw out all your
best material right away—to get the
audience on your side. But it’s far more
important to have a great closer. That final
payoff is what the audience (and perhaps
more importantly at a contest, the judges)
will remember.
Master the "Callback"
A key comic device is the "callback." The
callback is simply a reference to something
that was presented earlier in the speech.
Callbacks give a humorous speech a sense
of cohesion, and rarely fail to bring a
positive response from an audience—either
because the callback is intrinsically funny,
or at the very least because it’s something
familiar.
Find Friendly Faces
During your speech, seek the support of
fellow club members. The effect of being
able to look out into an audience and find
friendly faces can’t be overstated.
Watch the Clock
As Toastmasters, we pride ourselves on
being disciplined when it comes to time.
However, humorous speeches, unlike other
kinds of speeches, rely on a widely varying
time aspect that can have a serious impact
on your chances of winning a contest—
audience response.
If you do your job correctly, your speech
will elicit gales of laughter. The problem?
It’s impossible to know exactly how much
time that laughter will add to your speech. In
contests, going over the allotted time can
result in disqualification.
In most cases, this will mean you’ll want to
build in some time for audience response. If
you prepare a speech that runs seven
minutes without breaks for audience
response, you’re in trouble. (The typical
time limit in Humorous Speech contests is
5-7 minutes.)
Discover the Seed of Truth
No matter how absurd or silly a topic you
choose, the most memorable and resonant
speeches—though funny and entertaining—
also hold a seed of truth for the audience to
take home with them. They have an
underlying theme, or position that just plain
sticks with audience members.
The difference between a merely funny
speech and a winning funny speech is that
the winning speech provokes and inspires,
and can stand a critically important test—a
winning humorous speech would still be
provocative and inspiring even if all the
humor were removed. Just because it’s a
humorous speech doesn’t mean it can or
should be frivolous. Going for obvious or
easy laughs isn’t enough. Seek out the
message, the story only you can tell. Just
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think of humor as an "idea delivery device,"
nothing more.

Go for the Gold

So, what are you waiting for? There’s a

funny person in you waiting to get out. The
best piece of advice you can receive about
good Humorous Speeches is this: Dive in.
That’s right. Be fearless.

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