South Main Monthly

Vol. 2 No. 1 South Main Speakers, District 56, Club 8609 July 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 President’s

*Anniversaries and Milestones
Wei Zhang, Wen Zhu Corner
Brenda Thorne, Grace Hu
Renay Jacob, Vivek Rajan, Vivian Li
South Main Speakers Toastmasters Club Recognized as Way to Go, South Main Speakers!
President’s Distinguished Club By Vivek Rajan

*Calendar of Events We achieved the President's distinguished club

Education Session with Invited Speaker:
Yolanda Bynum
*New Member Spotlight
Ronald Seo
*Features
“Dragon Boat Festival” by Jane Shen
“A Word (or Two or Three) to the Wise" by Renay Jacob
“In Praise of Dictionaries” by Annie M. Ballatore
*Ask the Master
How do you make your speech more interesting?
The South Main Monthly is a monthly publication of the South
Main Speakers Toastmasters club. We meet every Sunday at
1:30 p.m. in 10305 South Main Street (Houston Chinese
Church), Room 411. For more information, please visit our
website at: http://groups.msn.com/southmainspeakers
If you have any comments, contributions, or suggestions
concerning this or future issues, please send them to
judycyan@hotmail.com. Thank you for reading!
status, 10 out of 10, four years in a row! This is an
outstanding achievement, and my congratulations to all of
you! The success of our club is a direct reflection of the
success of our club members. Our club is raising
standards every year, and we need to push it up a notch.
For all the new comers, I encourage you to work on
achieving your Competent Communicator and Competent
Leader awards. And for the veterans, I urge you to work
on achieving the advanced communications and
leadership awards.
In August, our club will hold our biannual club
contest, and this is a great opportunity to take your
speaking skills to the next level. The two categories that
you can compete in are: Humorous Speech and Speech
Evaluation. Contests are challenging, fun, and a great way
to grow. Toastmaster contests are not about winning; they
are about improvement. So I encourage everyone to
participate in the contest, especially our new members.
Compete and see yourself grow!

-Judy Yan & Vivian Li, Editors

 Anniversaries & Milestones

 Congratulations to Wen Zhu and Wei

Zhang who celebrate their first year
anniversary with South Main Speakers
this month!

********
 Congratulations to South Main
Speakers for achieving the highest
Honor, President's Distinguished Club
for the 4th year in a row under the great
leadership of Annie Ballatore!
********
 Congratulations to Brenda Thorne for
winning the award of President's
Distinguished Division Governor!
********
July 15: Education Session
Yolanda Bynum, who is the 3rd place
winner at the regional level for International
Speech Contest this year and the 3rd place
winner at the district level last year in the
Humorous Speech Contest, will talk about
her experiences in contests and especially
how to inject humor into our speeches to
prepare for our club's Humorous Speech
Contest in August.

 Congratulations to Grace Hu for

winning the award of President's
Distinguished Area Governor!

********

 Congratulations to Renay Jacob for

earning his ACS (Advanced
Communicator Silver) award, Vivian Li
and Vivek Rajan for earning their CC
(Competent Communicator) awards.

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 New Member Spotlight
Please give a warm welcome to our newest member, Ronald Seo! In his own words to
the club:

“I'm a born and raised Houstonian and after graduating from the University of Texas at
Austin, I lived in Hawaii for almost 2 years. It's great to be back home, and I'm looking
forward to making the most of my time here. I'm teaching Middle School Science during
the day and attending law school part-time in the evenings. Being a great public speaker
is helpful in both fields so I'm dedicated towards improving my skills in this area.”

fifth lunar month. Gradually, the Chinese

Dragon Boat Festival became a significant
festival, and people have been keeping this
tradition for over 2,000 years. Also, boat
races in the shape of dragons became the
most important and exciting activity of the
Dragon Boat Festival.
Dragon Boat Festival
by Jane Shen

June 19 is the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival

this year. This festival is celebrated on the
5th day of the fifth month of the Chinese
lunar calendar and was derived from the
story of Qu Yuan, who was a great poet
about 2,300 years ago. He did much to fight
against the corrupt officials, so they hated Rice dumplings, the traditional food for the
him and pressured the emperor to exile Qu Dragon Boat Festival, are made of sticky
Yuan. Finally, he committed suicide by rice with different fillings, wrapped in a kind
drowning himself in a river on the fifth day of special bamboo leaves. The fillings can
of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. As he be eggs, red beans, walnuts, meat, or a
was so loved by the people, fishermen combination of them. They are generally
rushed out in dragon boats, beating drums to boiled in water. Basically, they are in
scare the fish away, and throwing rice pyramid shape.
dumplings to feed the fish so that they
would not eat Qu Yuan’s body.
In order to commemorate this great
poet and patriot, people row dragon boats
and eat rice dumplings every 5th day of the

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Since the Dragon Boat Festival is
around the beginning of summer, when
diseases are likely to strike, people also wear
talismans or hang healthy herbs on the front
door to protect them from evil and disease
for the rest of the year.
************
A Word (or Two or Three) to the
Wise
by Renay Jacob, ACS
What with millions of words to choose from,
you wouldn’t think the English language
needs any more. You’d be wrong. Here are a
few new ones that dictionaries should start
making room for. Here are my favorites
from unwords.com:
abdicake (ăb'dĭ-kāk)
1.. (v.) To give up the last piece of cake to
someone else.
Example: Is anyone going to eat the last
piece of cake? I was but I'll abdicake in your
favor.
accidue (ăk'sĭ-dü)
1. (n.) Small pieces of broken glass, metal
and other debris that remains at the scene of
an accident for months after.
calorosity (kăl'ə-rŏs'ĭ-tē)
1. (n.) A desire while dieting and eating out
to see the dessert menu and still possessing
the willpower to not order dessert.
flabbygast (flăb'ē-găst')
1. (v.tr.) To be over come with astonishment
that despite excessive dieting you haven't
lost a pound.
2. (v.tr.) (adj) As if struck dumb with
astonishment that you haven't lost a pound
after a rigorous diet.
manorexic (măn'ə-rĕk'sĭk)
1. (adj.) Characterizing a male who eats an
extremely large amount of food and yet
gains no weight.
Example: Renay ate that whole pie and he is
still manorexic.
nostralgia (nŏs'trăl'gə)
1. (n.) A reminder of one's past brought on
by a familiar or more recently unfamiliar
smell.
plaquack (plăk'wăk)
1. (n.) The one mysterious dentist out of five
who doesn't provide advice such as
recommending sugarless gum for his
patients who chew gum.
************
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 English is my second language and my
pronunciation gets a bit shaky at times!
Every morning I sip my coffee with
my friend Merriam-Webster, savoring the
Word of the Day. Today's Word of the Day
is "unbeknownst" which has a challenging
spelling:

unbeknownst • \un-bih-NOHNST\ •
adjective
In Praise of Dictionaries
: happening or existing without the
by Annie Ballatore, ACB, CL
knowledge of someone specified
Example Sentence:Unbeknownst to
At four years of age, I would sneak
Clarice, we had been planning a
to my brother's bedroom, grab his prized
surprise baby shower for her for
dictionary and spend a wonderful time
weeks.
looking at the pictures in it. My brother's
dictionary was marvelous: each letter of the
I find looking up the Word of the Day a
alphabet had its own page illustrated with
great way to increase my vocabulary,
plants, animals and objects starting with that
instructive as well as enjoyable.
letter. I used to spend many lovely hours
After the Word of the Day, I move
guessing the names of the different items.
on to the Game of the Day: Citation tests my
When I was seven, Santa put a
encyclopedic knowledge. The Spelling Bee
fantastic present in my little shoes under the
is excellent to sharpen my listening and
Christmas tree: my very own illustrated
spelling skills. I love the Dictionary Devil
dictionary! Its glossy pictures had bright
who has disheveled the dictionary and
vivid colors and I loved to read the
mismatched words and definitions. Today's
explanations underneath. I read with avidity
game is my favorite one: Syn City which
the biographical part, wanting to know the
deals with synonyms. Every day I find
lives of the famous people. I devoured the
something new and exciting on the
geographical section, fascinated as I was by
Merriam-Webster site. What a way to start
the foreign lands.
the day!
My love of dictionaries had started at
By giving you a glimpse of my love
an early age because, at my father's house,
for dictionaries, I hope that I have aroused
dictionaries were valued companions. We
your curiosity and that you are all running
had one in the kitchen, one in the living
toward the Merriam-Webster online! Have
room. We even had one in the bathroom, for
fun!
Dad was the pioneer of multitasking.
It is no wonder that the web site I
enjoy the most is Merriam-Webster online
************
(http://m-w.com/). There I can find easily
the meaning, roots and pronunciation of any
word. No need to decipher the obscure
phonetics anymore: just click on the red
audio symbol and listen to the correct
pronunciation. What a plus for me as

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Ask the Master
Dear Master,
How do I make my speech sound more
interesting, and not so dull and bore people?
—Seeker of New Ideas
Dear Seeker,
There are certain steps that storytellers
follow. They select a story appropriate to the
occasion, interests, and age of the audience,
commit it to memory, prepare the audience
by sitting them in a circle, and begin the tale.
Professional storytellers generally memorize
seven stories a year and have a repertoire of
about 20 stories handy at all times.
If you are an inexperienced storyteller, look
for short stories with repetitive phrases.
Choose tales that you like because Beavers
can sense when you aren't keen on what
you're telling. You want stories that build up
suspence to a good climax, preferably tales
where characters speak for themselves
rather than straight narratives. Length is
important - never more than 20 minutes for
Beaver-aged boys. Leave them wanting
more. Generally, children's magazines are
not a good source of stories because the
material is meant to be read by the child, not
out loud.
When you've chosen the story, you need to
memorize it. It will take a few hours spread
over time. First, read it silently and try to
see the story in your mind's eye by
visualizing it as a series of pictures. Then
learn it by reading it aloud repeatedly,
enjoying the words and the sound of the
phrases. Think about words that may be new
or unfamiliar to your audience and
incorporate their meanings into the story so
that you won't need to interrupt it during the
telling to explain.
Time yourself when you read the story aloud.
After you have memorized it, time yourself
again. If you use less time, you are either
telling it too fast or skipping parts. If it takes
much longer, you are telling the story too
slowly. Tell your story to anyone who will
listen. Before going to bed, read it aloud
again. If you can, tape or videotape yourself
telling the story.
Once you've memorized the story, you are
ready to tell it. These points will help you do
it more effectively. Smile and make eye
contact with your listeners. Vary the pitch of
your voice and use facial expressions and
hand spirit of the story - unless you do, don't
tell it. In choosing stories it is a good idea to
select a theme for the hour, week, etc.
(Honesty, courtesy, loyalty, safety).
Be sure to read the story out loud first
because some are better read than told.
Don't be afraid to use high and low tones to
impersonate characters.
Be sure of your sequence of events; then
practice out loud, in front of a mirror if
possible, until you are used to the sound of
your own voice and gestures. These gestures
should be very simple - if used at all.
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Be sure your facial expression interprets the
mood of the story. Your eyes are most
important - use them.

Atmosphere can make or break a

storytelling period. Be sure it is quiet,
secluded, and that there will be no
interruptions once the story begins.

Try some of the tricks used by experienced

storytellers - a "story hat", which goes on
when the story begins and comes off when it
ends, or a mascot such as a teddy bear, doll
or hand puppet to tell the story to or take the
part of a character. This is a simple device
for taking your mind off the listening
audience if you are a little shy.

And the opening sentence! Don't always say

"Once upon a time..." Why not try:

 "Once, in the long, long ago and

very far away..."
 "On the very highest mountain in the
whole world lived an old man..."
 "Those were the days when mighty
beasts roamed the jungle..."

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