The WordPress for Toastmasters project aims to give clubs a first-class web and social media marketing platform to use when promoting their clubs, along with Toastmasters specific features such as meeting role signup. David F. Carr, the founding President of Online Presenters, is also the prime mover behind the development of the WordPress for Toastmasters software. In this educational workshop, he covers some of the essentials for using the software effectively, and answers questions from the club and guest attendees.
George Marshall has been one of the pioneers at defining how the new Toastmasters Pathways educational program will be implemented in District 57, the first district to go live with this program. Also a member of Online Presenters, here George gives a Pathways speech on how mentoring factors into the Pathways program and the role it has played in his own career.
The April 24 meeting of Online Presenters will be a special workshop meeting featuring Joshua Jones of Zoom Video Communications, maker of one of the most popular online meeting and webinar platforms. Members are encouraged to attend and guests are welcome.
Joshua’s presentation will cover:
Webcam best practices – position, lighting, green screen
Content best practices – resolution, content size, playing back videos, pause, annotation
Audio best practices – headset, voip vs phone
Guests may register using the RSVP form below to get the link to the online meeting. Our online meetings platform, provided courtesy of RingCentral, is RingCentral Meetings, a special edition of Zoom included with RingCentral Office.
Joshua A. Jones is a 10 year veteran of the online meeting industry and has a passion for the way people communicate over various channels. Employed by Zoom, Joshua manages customer education, training engagements and front-line consulting services for meetings and webinars.
Joshua launched The WebiNerd in 2014 to service friends and clients with their online events and help contribute to better communications. @thewebinerd
Roger Courville of EventBuilder was our special guest for the first Online Presenters meeting since chartering as an official club. A longtime Toastmaster who has participated in the online conferencing industry since the days of the dial-up modem, Roger gave the evaluations for three different speeches and led a discussion on techniques for effective online presentations.
Carol Prahinski offered a tutorial on “How To Become an Exceptional Club Coach” as her speech at the most recent Online Presenters meeting. This is an excerpt from a one-hour webinar Carol has volunteered to present to interested districts for FREE. Carol says: We can use their preferred software, or mine (Zoom, up to 50 people). Ask the Club Growth Director to contact me directly at carol@msu.edu to schedule it.)
Online Presenters is an advanced club that chartered with all experienced Toastmasters, but we leave open the possibility of admitting members who do not have prior experience in Toastmasters but do have other relevant experience.
On Feb. 27, 2017, the new club officers voted to recommend the following policy for adoption by the club members, governing how we will admit members in general and particularly those who do not meet the normal requirement of having completed 6 or more Competent Communicator projects.
Proposed Policy
To be admitted to Online Presenters, a prospective member must:
Attend at least 2 meetings as a guest.
Make a Table Topics-length speech on why they want to join. (This may be done on the 2nd guest visit, time permitting).
If the prospective member does not meet the requirement of previous Toastmasters experience (>6 CC speeches), a waiver must be granted by a simple majority vote of the officers that the individual meets the standard of relevant experience for admission. Votes may be accepted via email or other electronic means. The board vote will NOT be held as part of the public meeting. If the board does not approve the waiver, the prospective member will be informed privately and encouraged to reapply after gaining some experience in Toastmasters through another club.
Once these requirements are met, the prospective member will be asked to submit an application and payment.
Per Toastmasters protocol, members must also be voted in by the members present at a regular meeting.
Update: these are officially our charter club officers.
These are the paid members who have volunteered to run for election at our February 27 meeting. Additional nominations will be taken from the floor.
President David Carr
VP Education Risa Blair
VP Public Relations Paul Finkelstein
VP Membership Fabiola Cleofa
Treasurer John Quick
Sgt. at Arms Arlene Jayme
Secretary Carol Prahinski
This was a tutorial for the club, in the form of a speech at a club meeting. Yes, it’s true I began the meeting by talking about the importance of staying on time … and then ran over time.
This is a replay of a keynote speech I delivered online, to an international audience, just after 3:30 am my time Sunday morning.
When I heard that the family of online Toastmasters clubs was organizing its first inter-club speech contest, at first, honestly, I didn’t plan to attend — not because I wasn’t interested, but because the global nature of the event would make it challenging from my timezone. It was scheduled to start at 8:30 am UTC — a typical morning start time for a Toastmasters weekend event for those in Europe or Sunday evening for folks in Australia.
Then they flattered me with the offer of a keynote speaking slot, and I couldn’t resist. In addition to the undeniable ego boost, I knew preparing for this opportunity would be a valuable chance to try out some new material. I have what online Toastmasters would call a “land-based” opportunity coming up that I need to practice for.
In June, I will be keynoting at a Digital Collaboration conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Even though I had a similar engagement a few months ago in Berlin, I didn’t feel I connected with the audience as well as I should have on that outing and want to make sure I am prepared to maximize the impact of my next appearance — and maybe inspire someone in the audience to invite me to more professional speaking opportunities.
As explained in the video, I covered social business and collaboration technologies for InformationWeek, wrote the book Social Collaboration for Dummies and currently consult on the marketing of RingCentral Glip. One of the reasons I started Online Presenters is I see online video meetings becoming an increasingly common element of how we interact with our coworkers, which means we ought to get good at it. RingCentral is supporting the club by allowing us to use RingCentral Meetings (its co-branded and integrated version of Zoom) for our meetings.
Thanks to event organizer Mathilde Fischer and to the whole team of volunteers from around the world for letting me be part of their event.
See: Replay: Online Presenters Workshop with Roger Courville
Roger Courville, an authority on webinar and online presentation skills, will be a special guest evaluator at the March 6 meeting of Online Presenters Toastmasters. He also shared his ideas in a recent Toastmasters webinar (see below), but this is your opportunity to meet with him directly in a workshop setting.
Online Presenters is a new Toastmasters club (charter paperwork submitted March 1), that meets online and focuses on developing webinar and online presentation skills.
Three of our charter members will have the opportunity to give a 5-7 minute speech. A longtime Toastmaster, Roger Courville had advocated for online presentation programming to be included in Toastmasters before it was officially allowed. A veteran of the online conferencing industry (since the modem days of 1999), Roger has taught tens of thousands people worldwide, and he’s reached tens of thousands more with writing appearances, interviews, and while sitting in airports.
If you haven’t had a chance to watch the replay of the Toastmasters District 47 webinar he participated in, it’s here:
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