The Beacon October-November 2015 · 2016. 2. 28. · THE BEACON January– March ’16 Issue 08 “Bringing Your Best Voice ... 2015, Mohammed Qahtani, a Sau-di Arbian Security Engineer,

THE BEACON January– March ’16 Issue 08

“Bringing Your Best Voice Forward” 1

(L-R) Marcia Howard winning the award of Best Speaker from Toastmaster Julian Castano

The New Year...2016 is here!! There is so much to look forward

to. It is also a time to retrospect, the events from the past year and

to learn in order to make improvements. Read about our fun filled

2015 and our aspirations for 2016 (...more on page 2)

Special Guest Column: Words of wisdom form the Area 74

Director Donald Kardos (… More on page 6)

Feature: Excerpts from Mohammed Alhomsi’s inspirational

speech. Read on and get motivated (… More on page 5)

This Issue:

Introduction………………..1

News and Noteworthy…....2

Poetic Justice………......…2

Club Officer Report.....…...3

Feature……………..….......4

Club Elections……………..5

Special Guest Column..….6

Picture Gallery…………….7

Speakout Snippets………..7

Picture This!!............……..8

Upcoming Events……...…8

“There are always

three speeches, for

every one you actually

gave. The one you

practiced, the one you

gave, and the one you

wish you gave.”

-Dale Carnegie

Newsletter January— March 2016

Union City Toastmasters Club 6445

THE BEACON



Club Contest

The UCTM successfully hosted its Club Con-

test for Tall Tales and Tabletopics. The club

members showed great enthusiasm by partici-

pating and making the contest a success.

Club Coach Lucy Kahn DTM, Club Founder

Julian Hernandez and Javier Antella form

Toastmasters En Espanol graciuously served

as the judges for the contest. Club President

Xavier Olivares was the Chief Judge while

Anupriya Singh was the Contest Chair.

The results for the contest were as follows:

Tall Tales Contest:

1st : Sergio Londoño

2nd : Marcia Howard

Table Topics:

1st : Jeff Gomez

2nd : Marcia Howard

Sergio Londoño and Sergio Arturo (Jeff

Gomez could not attend) represented the club

at the Area 74 Contest at NJCU and both

placed 2nd in Tall Tales and Table Topics re-

spectively.

Open house—Guest Speaker

It was a Full House at the September OPEN

HOUSE of UCTM as friends and family of club

members and various guests joined us at the

meeting. We also had the privilege of having

amongst us, Harlingtton Ariza form Toastmasters

En Espanol as our Guest Speaker. Harlingtton

presented his Tall Tales Speech “It was Creepy”

and had the audience in splits!!

90th Anniversary Celebrations came to a close

with a special meeting hosted by Club Founder

Julian Hernandez. He spoke about the inception

of the club and its progress from there on along

with the Toastmasters En Espanol

Halloween Meeting

A construction worker, a mafia don, a surgeon, a

baker, Mary Poppins and Dr. Frankenstein!!,

they were all present to make our Halloween

meeting a successful one. Members showed

there enthusiasm by coming dressed up in cos-

tumes and adding fun to the festival theme.

Sofia delivering her first impromptu speech

NEWS & NOTEWORTHY



CLUB OFFICER’s REPORT

-Union City Toastmasters,

A Palms-Up Club

My message to our current Union City Toast-masters Officers is to keep up the fire within and approach every “Tuesday Meeting” with enthusiasm and positivism. We are palms-up and this is why we are unique.

-Julian Castano

VP Membership

IIIIam pleased with the tremendous job every of-

ficer has been performing since taking their new roles in July. At every meeting, UCTM (Union City Toastmasters) bring enormous enthusiasm, ideas, and are always well prepared. This is the kind of attitude and behavior that motivates all others to stay hungry and participate in our meetings. And more importantly, we have creat-ed a palms-up atmosphere, where everyone’s ideas are encouraged and accepted.

When you step in our club, everyone is received with warmed smile, and given the opportunity to collaborate with the most optimistic and positive group of individuals you could ever find in Hud-son County.

As the new VP of Membership, my goal will be to make sure every member’s needs are met. We all come here for different reasons and goals in mind. What works particularly for one person, does not for the other. The one size fits all approach will be unproductive, hence we have enhanced our programs to benefit each individual member’s journey.

Simple Pleasures

Eating pizza with abandon..

panting seeds at places random.

Cycling backwards in the rain..

writing prose without restrain

Laying about with logs for pillows..

marveling at butterflies, not willows

Watching movies, sports, a lecture..

communing regularly with nature

Being consistent at the club..

chilling with my kids and love

Simple Pleasures

Silent Treasures

- Sergio Londoño

Poetic Justice..!!



HHHHow to inspire others, by first inspiring

yourself. Or in other words do you have to inspire yourself before inspiring oth-ers? Why is it important for you to be inspired before having the ability to inspire oth-ers? How can you adapt a behavior that will constantly promote an inspire persons, while having to deal with life's adulthood's obliga-tions and responsibilities?. So the one question which overarches all the pri-or questions that I think you should ask your-self is a simple "Are words powerful or, Are your words powerful?

This August seventeenth, 2015, Mohammed Qahtani, a Sau-di Arbian Security Engineer, rose above 30,000 participants from 100 different coun-tries and eventually won the World Champi-onship of public speaking 2015 at Las ve-gas Nevada. He won it with a final speech titled " The Power Of Words". He described his title by saying " Your mouth can spit venom, or it can mend a broken soul". Qahtani, who grew up being teased for having a severe stuttering

speech impediment is a true inspiration. He said as a child he was a mute who uttered his first word at age 6. Through his speech, "he explained that words can be your power and you can change a life, inspire a nation, make this world a beautiful place." My dear fellow Toastmasters, please hear my words, and hear them well.

With my previous example I had presented to you a successful Toastmas-ter's speech, that has inspired millions across the globe, through the social media, such as fb, twitter, snap chat, instgram, gmail, aol, myspace, and other contemporary virtual platforms, which is the number 1 influencer of our youth today ac-cording to latest statistical studies. Now your next question might be, “Well I un-derstand that words are powerful, and I under-stand that words I use with others can have the power to either give them life, or take their life away. I don't know about you, but that's really serious dude”. my answer is that I can make sure that I always say inspiring words to others, while you know, sometimes I get angry and do not even know that I said. And sometimes when I drink a few beers I get angry quick, and I have zero patience for some people. Wait a minute, does that mean that not every word I say is a word I really meant to say?. Does that mean that when I am under the influence of alcohol, or drugs, my responses would be flawed? And I say to you, that these are valid questions my friends. Valid questions. The truth is, I do not know the answers to those questions, but I can share with you how I personally deal with them. (contd..)

FEATURE:

Inspire Yourself to Inspire Others



You see, I believe that every human being has good in them. But that good usually, normal-ly manifests in our behavior the most, when we are in a good mood. Right?. And when we are in our optimal health. Right?. That is when we will function most effectively. When there's harmony in the way our body parts com-municate with each other. When our eleven systems collaborate with each other. Our digestive system. Nervous system. Muscular system. The video our eyes record into a part of our brain. The audio our ears record into another part of our brain, and the part of our brain that buffers the voice, and picture to create a live mo-ment of full presence.

When we have our bills covered our Mom's and wives, happy; our children, and clients are satisfied; our friends, and colleagues are not criticizing us. that is when we are communicating efficiently with ourselves. When our brain is com-municating efficiently with the rest of our body and our every cell is communicating with our oth-er cells in serenity and harmony then, and only then, we can all collaborate in harmony with each other externally, to flawlessly create the fin-est symphony for all of us to dance. Dance on the one planet we all call home. Our only home. (Excerpts from his impromptu inspirational speech.)

Mohammed Alhomsi (Past) Club Secretary

Union City Toastmaster, organized its mid term Club Officer Elections to fill in the posts of Club President, VP Education and Secre-tary. The Club Officer Election Nomination Committee Comprised of Committee Chair, Anupriya Singh and members Aurelia Howard and Julian Hernandez. The club member showed much enthusiasm towards the elec-tion and promptly filed their nominations. The Election results were as follows:

(pic) Club President : Jeff Gomez Secretary: Karim Lazo. VP Education: Marcia Howard The Dream Team is now complete, we wish the new and the existing club officers all the very best for the upcoming year. A shout out to the outgoing club officers: Xavier Olivares, Mohammed Alhomsi and Anupriya Singh for their valuable contribution to the club’s growth.

FEATURE:

Inspire Yourself to Inspire Others.

contd..)

Mid–Term Club Officer

Election



VVVVirtually everyone will change jobs a few times

in their career, and I am no exception. As the time approached for me to make a career change a few years back, I realized my presentation skills had atrophied. Staring at a computer for years while others presented my work meant I had lost the poise and enthusiasm to inspire confidence in people. I knew a change in my life was necessary, and had kept a newspaper scrap advertising a Toastmasters group. My motivation for self-improvement overcame my trepidation, and I showed up to a meeting. The Toastmasters I met were extremely welcom-ing! Everyone encouraged me to give a Table Topic speech, and I did. When I finished, I sat down next to a member who had written down each speaker’s name with some check marks next to them. There were several check marks next to my name, and I hopefully thought that meant I had spoken well. I found out that person was the Ah counter, and that having many checks next to your name on the Ah count sheet was something to work on. As Toastmasters know, feedback from evaluators is vital to improving our speaking skills. Therefore, I took to heart feed-back from Ah counters, grammarians, timers, and speech evaluators. Every Toastmaster in my club who evaluated me gave tons of encouragement as well as recom-mendations. They mentioned my relevant speech topics, my organized speeches, and my strong conclusions. They also recommended I try to sound less rehearsed and more natural. I knew all of my practice at meetings was working when I felt more comfortable in interviews. Then at a department meeting, our leader asked all of

us to talk about what we accomplished that year. As the 1st person to his left, I had to speak 1st with no time to prepare! I aptly sum-marized what I had done that year, and later a co-worker praised me for how well I had spo-ken. Assisting in Toastmasters as an officer has helped me mature and helps keep public speaking guidance and practice opportunities available for our community. This year I am the Area 74 Director, and was welcomed and capti-vated during my visit to Union City Toastmas-ters. I was introduced to the members and invit-ed to be the Ah Counter/Grammarian. Table Topics were challenging enough to make us

think, but not so difficult that we were stumped. Evaluations were encouraging and pointed out what the speakers did well, and included a few sugges-tions for improvement. One speaker talked about the per-sonal connections he has made with other club mem-bers. Speeches, evaluations, and Table Topics were heart-felt and well prepared. Most

importantly, just like at my 1st Toastmasters meeting years ago, guests and members were introduced, welcomed, and invited to partici-pate. If you are a guest, a new member, or an experi-enced Toastmaster, I encourage you to jump in with both feet and participate. Speak every week, try a contest, and become a club officer. You will be improving yourself, helping your club, and providing a fantastic resource for your community.

Donald Kardos Area 74 Director

SPECIAL GUEST COLOUMN

Toastmasters & You, Your Club, and

Your Community



“I try to keep the faith

and keep going.”

- Julian Hernandez

“We have our demons in-

side us, that we have to

deal with everyday; its how

we deal with them, is what

really matters”

-Julian Castano

SPEAKOUT SNIPPETS

“As Soon as you open your

eyes in the morning,, focus

on the positive.”

- Saul Yuquilima

“The only thing we fear,

is fear itself”

-Jeff Gomez

“If you love something,

pursue it..!!”

- Sergio Londoño

“Don’t wait for Christmas to

do something nice. Strive to

do a Golden Deed each day.”

- Anupriya Singh

PICTURE GALLERY



THE DREAM TEAM

Club Officer Committee

President: Jeff Gomez VP Education: Marcia Howard VP Membership: Julian Castano VP Public Relations: Aurelia Howard Secretary : Karim Lazo Treasurer : Lucita Kahn Sargent-At-Arms: Nut Gutierrez Newsletter Editor: Anupriya Singh

International Speech and Evaluation Contest.

Club Level

Date: to be announced soon

Time: 8:30 to 9:00pm

Venue: After the regular meeting at Burger King.

PICTURE THIS..!!

Union City Toastmasters Club 2013-2014 Select Distinguished Club

Celebrating Ten Years Serving the Community

"Bringing Your Best Voice Forward"

Contact Information:

We Meet every Tuesday from 7:15PM to 8:45PM

At Burger King

3501 Bergenline Ave,

2nd Floor

Union City, NJ 07087

Email: [email protected]

Website: unioncitytm.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/unioncitytm/

www.toastmasters.org

Welcome New Members:

New Members always bring a breath of fresh air to the

club’s knowledge pool. Congratulations on embarking

on your Toastmaster Journey abord Union City Toast-

masters:

Rajkumar Gudimella Karim Lazo-Mayta

John K Lee Jazmin Londoño

Jack Li Jeff Gomez

Phillip Mastrotto Brenan Okumu

Helena Rabess Sergio Arturo

Marcia Howard Nelson Corniel

UPCOMING EVENTS

Documents

The Beacon October-November 2015 · 2016. 2. 28. · THE BEACON January– March ’16 Issue 08 “Bringing Your Best Voice ... 2015, Mohammed Qahtani, a Sau-di Arbian Security Engineer,