Balloons, games, activities, interesting speeches, food, and prizes – what more could you ask for! We had some incredible speakers talk about topics which they are passionate about. We also welcomed our newest members, Monika and Richie.
Richie won the raffle prize – a cool USB pen! Well done
Many thanks to everyone who came and participated – it wouldn’t have been the same without you. We hope you gained something out it and made some new friends. Hope to see you soon.
Yesterday we heard from two incredible women, Nidhi Tewari and Kate Wislang. Both of them shared their personal experiences of what it is like to study within the male dominated STEM field.
Nidhi talked about practical steps that can be taken to help women feel like they belong in STEM. It was interesting to hear about her journey and what led her to research about the convergence between Technology and Law.
Kate used graphs/diagrams to convey her message that the number of women in science decline as they progress in their career. She is also keen to be a role model and encourage young girls in high school to pursue careers in engineering and physics.
A big thank you to everyone for taking part in our Toastmasters event.
On Saturday, U-CAN-SPEAK club members Timm and Peng competed in the Area E5 Toastmasters Contests. Congratulations to both of our Club Champions, they did an awesome job at presenting their speeches.
Timm was awarded First Place in the Evaluation Contests.
Peng was awarded Second Place in the Table Topic Contests.
Twice a year, our club competes in the Toastmasters speech contests. This includes the Humourous Speech Contest, for which contestants have prepared a 5-7 min speech that is humourous in nature, and the Evaluation Contest, where contestants give a short speech with constructive feedback for another speaker. Here are our club’s winners:
Humourous Speech Contest:
🥇 Michael
🥈 Mekdim
Evaluation Contest:
🥇 Sam
🥈 Jack
Congratulations to our winners! All four of them stepped out of the comfort zone of our usual meeting routine and achieved another important milestone as public speakers. The area contests, which is where our winners will compete against those of neighbouring Toastmasters clubs, will be held on Saturday, 12 February 2022.
A big thank you to everyone who also contributed to our contest night:
Ben Y as Contest Chair,
Rameshi as Chief Judge,
Preethi and Reuben as Tally Counters and Timers,
Dayle as Contest Sergeant at Arms,
and our 5 Judges!
Congratulations to our members Mek and Rameshi, who both completed their Level 1 awards! Mek is working on the Persuasive Influence path, while Rameshi has opted for Presentation Mastery. Both are already well underway towards their Level 2!
Our VP Membership Kate was doing the honours!
How to explain your PhD project to a broad audience in under three minutes? How to effectively convey your passion for your research? How to make sure you are understood?
This Monday, UC’s 2020 winners of the three-minute thesis competition, Morgan Tracey and Sam Treceño, shared their experiences with our audience.
Sam, who also competed in the Asia-Pacific semifinals, emphasised three points to consider before the 3MT talk:
The former Vice-President of the PGSA also recommended to join Toastmasters to gain general speaking skills and confidence 🙂
Morgan explained the judging criteria of the thesis-in-three competition, which fall into the categories of
To score well in both areas, Morgan advised to
Morgan, who is nearing completion of her PhD in biological sciences, also recommended the website biorender.com for professional looking infographics and icons that are excellent for designing slides in biology, chemistry, life sciences and related fields.
Last Monday, February 1st, we had a brilliant meeting with UC Vice Chancellor Cheryl de la Rey, giving an inspirational speech about what is leadership and how leadership and gender intersect!
Thank you so much everyone who came and visited our club for the first time! Be sure to visit next week for another exciting meeting 
Congratulations to U-CAN-SPEAK club member Elise! After having won the club’s speech competitions in evaluations (giving feedback) and Table Topics (impromptu speeches) last week, Elise competed again tonight at the area level. In both the evaluation contest and the Table Topics contest, the judges picked Elise as the winner!
In the evaluation contest, contestants had to evaluate the speech ‘Adventure Lust’ from Staci, who visited from Civic Toastmasters. During Table Topics, contestants had to give a 1-2 minute speech answering the question: ‘If you were the mayor of Christchurch, what would you change about the city?’
Tonight’s success means that Elise will be competing again at division level, together with tonight’s second placed winners from AirWaves Toastmasters and Christchurch Women’s Club as well as the winners of all other area contests in the upper half of the South Island. Elise has already done our club proud, and we keep our fingers crossed!
No, our last online meeting this Monday had absolutely nothing to do with fairy tales: unicorns and zebras are two different types of start-up companies! Facebook, Amazon or Skype would all be examples of businesses that build a monopoly on a market niche and attempt to make astronomical profits this way. Such startups are commonly known as ‘unicorns’. So-called ‘zebra’ companies are a more recent trend in the entrepreneurial (word of the day!) scene. They unite the profitability of a business with the cause of an NGO, that means, they also strive to be sustainable and serve the community.
During our warm-up, our members pitched their ideas of inventions or businesses they thought would enrich our world. A few examples: Elizabeth, being used to warmer climates, saw great potential for a solar-powered jacket that helps keep you warm in winter with extra built-in heating. Nic presented multiple ideas for turning people into cyborgs, including eye implants that extend the range of frequencies of light we can perceive. Dee even had a sketch on paper ready for her pitch of cavities below the street surface, where people deposit things of significance to them. Years or even decades later, when these time capsules are opened, the neighbourhood is having a big street party and the recovered contents are sold. What a creative idea – I think Dee can send off her draft straight away to have it patented!
Dee also gave her third speech today, which was all about implementing the feedback she had received from previous evaluators. As always, it was a pleasure to listen to and learn from Dee’s unique style.
Tonny also took an important step forward by delivering his very first evaluation – and what a carefully structured evaluation speech it was!
Nic challenged everyone with a fascinating range of creative and innovative topics for impromptu speeches. Among others, we had a chuckle about the exasperating challenges of controlling a TV and a DVD player with a single remote control (Pete), we learnt what a Zaczigaroo (???) is (Hiran) and why microwaves are overrated (Dee).
Next week, we should be back in the Erskine building, probably Erskine 235. Keep an eye out for updates on the exact meeting location!
Timm
U-CAN-SPEAK 