How to prepare an icebreaker before receiving manuals from Toastmasters International
Jennifer Cai
Thank you for preparing for your first speech.
This is the Toastmaster manual for first speech:
http://www.toastmasters.org/icebreaker
Below is an email on icebreaker as well.
See you at 6pm free Mandarin class or 7pm Toastmasters meeting Wednesday!
Jenny
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jenny Cai <qcai...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:44:36 -0700
Subject: Three ways to select content for the ice breaker
To: mandarinenglish <mandari...@googlegroups.com>
Several weeks after joining Toastmasters, I began to prepare my first
speech - the ice breaker. It's hard! I told a friend, "what should I
talk about? My life is same as those of hundreds of thousands of
people - come to the U.S. for graduate school then begin to work at a
high tech company. Who wants to hear it?"
She replied, "whatever you talk about, I would love to hear it." From
her smile, I knew that she really meant that.
The manual says "talk about yourself" in the ice breaker. There are
many ways to select content. Here are just three of them that I saw.
First, select one period of your life or just one event to talk about.
For instance, Rajeev talked about several interesting events during
the time he's studying in Taiwan; Karl's ice breaker is about his
first Marathon. Both speeches were very engaging!
Second, talk about your hobbies. For example, one spoke about his
three hobbies (technology, hiking, volunteering); another brought
three magazines to show the audience and said, "you can know a
person's interests by the magazines she subscribed". Then she talked
about each of her three hobbies.
Third, select several important things in your life and link them with
one theme, whether it is art, dreams, or something else. For example,
one member said "art defines her". She showed us printed art pictures
and explained why those are her favorites. Then she said "art even
finds her a husband" and told the story how she and her future spouse
met: at a holiday gift exchange party where most people bought gifts
from stores, she made an oil painting herself, so did he.
In another example, a member used "dreams" as a theme. She said that
she had two dreams since she's a little girl in Mexico - have a family
and have a career. She then talked about how she went back to school
after initial obstacle; how one of her classmates hired her into a
high tech company. After adjusted to the challenges at work, she said
to herself, "what about my other dream?" The story naturally
transitioned to finding love. It was unforgettable and inspiring!
Back to my ice breaker. I selected several interesting events in my
life. I printed out my draft and planned to look at it as notes.
During the presentation, I were unaccustomed to so many pairs of eyes
looked at me so I just read my draft from the beginning to the end.
The audience was attentive and gave big applause like they always did,
for each and every speaker. It is a tremendously proud feeling.
Whatever you talk about, your fellow members would love to hear your
icebreaker...
Look forward to the icebreaker from Karen, Jared, Glen, Meg!
Jenny
--
Best regards,
Jenny
Fun Toastmasters clubs:
http://sf-met.wikispaces.com/
http://fridaytm.wikispaces.com/
http://mandarinenglish.wikispaces.com/