A December Reminder about January I told you about in November

Merry Christmas Everyone (never been one for political correctness, so sue me...) I trust you have all your shopping done?

If you’re still looking for that perfect gift, look no further. Monday night we will have available for your shopping convenience tickets for Wit Pleasure’s Charter Party on January 18, 2009. Tickets are only $30 each (cash or cheque). If you would like additional tickets place your order in sooner than later as seating will be limited. Do you realize that if all members of our club purchased their own tickets, one additional ticket for their spouse or significant other THEN invited just one other couple to join them - we will have a packed house!

Remember, the price of admission includes an extravagant all you can eat lunch buffet, automatic entry into our draws for door prizes and live entertainment. This is just like being on a luxury Caribbean Cruise! Except for a couple of minor differences, that you wouldn’t even notice unless I pointed them out to you, you would have to step outside the club to realize you are not on the Tropic of Cancer. Really. Just like making out at your senior prom - this event only happens once. Oh sure, there will be other dances; other dates; other milestones in your life but, Come On! ‘Senior’ doesn’t make reference to a discount at Denny’s. It’s for the ones that survived. You are a survivor! For those of you who missed their senior prom, don’t miss this!

If you haven’t already, please pass on an invitation to your home clubs. We would really like to have all tickets accounted for by the end of this month. If you need New Years Eve to convince others to join you (maybe even pay for you) there could be a few tickets remaining but I can’t make any promises.

See you on Monday December 15 at 7:00pm at PetroCanada Building downtown.

Congratulations - This weekend at the District 42 Fall Conference in Red Deer, our very own Stephanie Bumstead was declared Toastmasters “Rookie of the Year.“ Way To Go, Stephanie! Such a prestigious award and to think you obtained that within your first year in Toastmasters. I’m still trying to get that one. Well Done and you do our club Proud.
But it doesn’t stop there - also, to our Steven Larocque for Division Governor of the Year. We are truly privileged in our membership.

Meeting Roles - Only one week before our next meeting. Are you prepared for your Role? Meetings are not only more efficient when members are prepared but also a better chance of you getting ‘discovered’ if there are talent scouts in the audience. As an advanced club, all members expect a higher standard from fellow members. If you have any questions about your role - especially ones that are unique to our club - please don’t hesitate to call or email for clarification.

Charter Party - As previously announced in an earlier email to the club, we have confirmed a time/place for our ‘Official‘ Charter Party. It will be held on Sunday, January 18, 2009, 11:30am at The Comedy Cave (9206 Macleod Trail SW). Tickets will be $30 per person and includes: an elaborate Luncheon Buffet; Awards and Presentations; Door Prizes; selected meeting agenda items (to show off our skills to the invited guests) and topping it off with some Stage Time (5 minute stand up routines by our own members - book your request early). Tickets will be available with priority to our club members first, then open invitation to all other guests. Tickets will only be on sale until the end of December and will be in limited supply. Reserve your now so you won’t be left out in the cold (did I mention it was in January?). A great Christmas gift that you can get early instead of at 4:30pm on Christmas eve in line with all those other last minute shoppers at the Drug Store or 7-11.

See you on Monday November 17 at 7:30pm at Bridgeland Community Centre.
Laugh On!,

Palmo Carpino, DTM President

Magic in the Merriment

What a blast! Several Wit Pleasurians attended District 42's Fall Conference in Red Deer, Alberta, November 7 to 9th. Our very own Palmo gave a well attended and informative session on using humour entitled "The Magic in Merriment". As always, great stuff...alas never enough time to cover it all!
Iris, a fellow member, represented her home club CREB Talkers in the Humourous Speech and Table Topics contests; placing third in Table Topics. Stephanie, our VP PR, was awarded the D42 Rookie of the Year 2007/08 and Stephen was awarded Division Governor of the Year! You guys rock!
And that's not all....as a result of the formation of our Wit Pleasure club, Palmo finished all of the requirements for his DTM. Congratulations Palmo!

---Your intrepid reporter...
Joan, VP Ed

Wit Pleasure Charters!

News Release - Wit Pleasure, Calgary's newly formed Advanced Toastmasters club chartered on September 29th, 2008. This club specializes in teaching the art of incorporating humour into one's presentations and speeches. Thank you to all of the charter members and supporters that made this possible!

Two Down. Two To Go

Great Meeting last night Everybody!
A few growing pains (to be expected) but pretty darn good for our second meeting. It's everything I've always imagined it would be; just like in my dream (except for the part about the knome and the monkey with the hat and handcuffs - that was disturbing). Who would have thought that you could have a toastmasters' meeting and detailed events of flippin' the bird all in the same night? You Guys Rock!

If anyone has any questions regarding the meetings Format or Roles, please don't hesitate to call or email for assistance or clarification. We have a lot of very talented members as was evident from last night's meeting.

Laugh On!

We are OFF and Running!

We have a new club and a new name "Wit Pleasure Toastmasters Club"! Our club officers have been elected and we are working out the dues. We are off to a great start!

Our next meeting will be:
Monday September 22 at 7:30 to 9 pm
Bridgeland Community Centre, 917 Centre Avenue NE (Lantern Room).
(on the south side of Centre Ave- corner of 9St and Centre Ave NE)
Suggested donation to cover room rental: $2

We are working on an action packed humour-learning agenda and we will have one speech next meeting too. On the business side of things we will be voting on dues.

Please bring your cheque book or cash if you plan to join as we are hoping to submit all dues immediately following the meeting. Bring a friend too. We need 5 more members to reach charter strength of 20. Note this club is open to Toastmasters with a CC or higher.

See you at the next meeting!

Joan M., Palmo C.
P.S. If you can't make this meeting but wish to be informed of upcoming meetings, please email calgaryhumourTM at gmail.com

Be a Part Right from the Start!

We are having an Organizational Meeting of the Advanced Toastmasters Humour Club
Monday August 25 at 7:30 to 9 pm
Bridgeland Community Centre,
917 Centre Avenue NE (Lantern Room).
Membership Criteria - CC (CTM) or higher.

Please spread the word. See you there!

Joan M., Palmo C.

P.S. If you can’t make this meeting date but wish to be kept on the mailing list email us at calgaryhumourTM at gmail.com

Survey sent to Potential Members

This NEW CLUB SURVEY is in response to a high interest in the establishment of an Advanced Toastmasters club with an emphasis on Humour. If you did not receive this survey please contact us at calgaryhumourtm@gmail.com. The survey is to provide as much detail as possible to help us get a more accurate feel for a club environment. We fully understand that a club will change as members gather and a chemistry is developed. We also appreciate that a tremendous amount of detail will not surface until a formal gathering has taken place. This is merely a starting point - to assist those on the organizing committee to prepare as best as possible for the initial stages of a new club. The more people we can get to the first meeting the better feel we will have for the interests of the membership. For a club to grow and flourish, it must be clear on its mission - to serve the needs of its members.
-Joan M., Palmo C.

Place to hold new club?

Please comment if you have suggestions where our new club can meet.

Tremendous Interest in forming a Humourous Toastmasters Club

The Calgary Humourous Toastmasters club (official name to be determined) has had tremendous interest. There have been 20 people express interest in a specialty club focused on humour, enough to charter!

With all this interest, we move to the next step, the planning of the first meeting, but there are 3 big issues to address...where the club will meet and at what time and day of the week.

Would anyone know of a venue where the club could meet? Perhaps someone works at company that would allow us to meet there? (the location could rotate between different locations).

We’ve created this blog to get the discussion going. http://calgaryhumourtm.blogspot.com/

We have sample agendas and all kinds of tips on how to do create and run a humour club from three existing humour clubs in the USA.

They sound like they are having a lot of fun and they are willing to help us further. We have included some of the information below.

Some of the items on a typical agenda –

Manual speeches with the objective to add humour to all of the speeches
“Ha” (laugh) counters instead of “ah” counters. – beanbag or stuffed animal that laughs
Current events monologue similar to late night talk show host (2 to 3 minutes)
Improv exercises/demonstrations
Tool time – learning how to do those pauses, set up a joke, what is funny, how to tell a joke
Informative speeches with handouts
2-3 minute stand up routines
3 speeches, 3 evaluators, stand up evaluators
Awards such as Most Improved and “Hollywood/Best Person”

The focus for the existing clubs in the USA tends to be twofold:

To show that any Toastmaster can develop their innate humorous abilities.
To take humourous skills to a greater level than what a traditional club could offer.

There are LOTS of ideas our club can build from and as mentioned the existing clubs are willing to help us get it up and going.

Please give us some comments on the blogspot (in particular on a place to meet for starters) and let’s see if we can make a Humour club a reality in Calgary!

http://calgaryhumourtm.blogspot.com/

Kind regards,

Joan M., Palmo C., John S.

Welcome to the Calgary Humour Toastmasters Blog