In 2009 our district had the Club Ambassador Contest. We made points for visiting other clubs. The rules said that I could not get credit for visiting clubs within this district because I belonged to 3 clubs there. I always wanted to check out Guadalajara Mexico. I decided to spend October 2009 visiting Toastmaster clubs there. I printed up some business cards and visited 11 clubs. I tied for 2nd place and won a prize. Being the vice president – public relations of the Oak Hill club I learned a lot about PR. The first day there I met with one of the owners of The Guadalajara Reporter. He called one of his reporters and they wrote a story about me.

The Amazing Friday Toastmasters in Shanghai, China were following this blog. I got an email from Zheng Yongfeng. He said that he knew me from my blog. I guess he watched my corny videos. He asked me how to make a blog for their club.

I gave him some space on my website host to use at amazing.kenstoastmasterblog.com. Their club seems almost the same as the clubs in the US. I am glad Toastmasters is International. It will help all countries understand each other better.

Six of us from the Oak Hill club went to the June 15th meeting at the Lake Travis club. We recaptured our Banner and took it home. It was a special meeting. The Lake Travis club had an installation of officers. There were plenty of dictionaries there too. We all had a very special experience. It is good to be a ‘Travlin Toastmaster’ because you get to meet many exciting people and see lots of different ways of doing things at the meetings.

The Toastmasters that played in the Banner Capture Game were:
back row: Jimmy Longacre(OH), Zach Frederick(OH), Tom Mysliski(OH),
Sugar Ray Destin(OH), Jay Barstow(LT), Ken Knittel(OH)
front row: Dr. Adam Schwartz(OH), Kay McManus(LT), Faye Crossett(LT),
Consuelo Hartman(LT), Steve Miller(LT)

Faye Crossett from the Lake Travis Toastmasters brought her President Kay McManus along with three other of their members and captured our banner. Now we have to send five of our members to their meeting to capture it back. We also had several other guest. It was the biggest meeting that we have had since I have been there.

I got to be the Toastmaster for the first time. It was a lot of fun. Our theme was putting more energy in meetings. I shared with the group a ‘Put More Energy in Your Meeting Excercise’ from a Dale Carnigie course. Just so they would not think that I was crazy I passed around my twenty year old Dale Carnigie certificate and group photo. Jimmy Longacre our Topicsmaster made us a great theme poster with Table Topics questions attached to it.

I think that with all the extra people and the theme of the meeeting we did have more energy than usual. The biggest lesson that I got out of it was that energy drives fear out of the room. I was much more relaxed than usual.

So this ‘Travlin Toastmaster’ has more travel to do. And I need four of our members to go with me to the next Lake Travis Toastmasters meeting so we can recapture our banner. If ten of us go we can also capture their banner.

Here are the Lake Travis club members that captured our banner.From left to right. Consuelo Hartman Kay McManus Steve Miller Faye Crossett and behind the cell phone camera … Jay Barstow.

I traveled to another great club Wednesday The Austin Discussion and Debate club. I saw their demonstration at the conference and It made me want to see the real thing. I met three of the guys from the demonstration Paul Kaschube, Garret Onderdonk III, and Dwayne Windham along with the rest of the group. They let me participate in one of their debates. It was a lot of fun.

Paul called Jill and I to come up and debate. We did not know what the issue was or what side of it that we were on until the last minute. It was like Table Topics with a twist. I also had to represent the side that I was against. It really made me realize that in order to win a debate you need to know your opponents side as well as your own. It was a great educational experience.

If you want to improve your skills at debating this is a great place to practice them. They meet the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of ever month for details go to: Austin Discussion and Debate

In the movie ‘The Jerk’ Steve Martin says that he found his special purpose, well I just found my specific purpose for speech 4. I am trying to learn how to use alliterations (via special purpose and specific purpose). Two experienced Toastmasters Tom Myslinski and Darrel Thurman helped me realize that it is hard to find rhetorical devices for a speech until you know what you am going to talk about.

I decided to make my speech about the four rhetorical devices in the speech manual (similes, metaphors, alliterations and triads). This will interest my Toastmaster audience and also educate me by researching it. (Is killing two birds with one stone a rhetorical device?) The general purpose of the speech will be to persuade. The specific purpose will be to get people to use rhetorical devices in their speeches. The title will be something like “Tips to Making Your Speech Memorable”

I am looking for some examples of famous rhetorical devices to illustrate the point. An example that I plan to use for triads is: (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). If you have any ideas please add them to my lists at Ken’s Rhetorical Device Lists or leave me a comment. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Scotty Burch of the Austin Toastmasters Club wrote a great article Rhetoric and More Rhetoric . I really liked the way he explained the difference between the common use of the words ‘rhetorically speaking’ and the not so common use of the words ‘rhetorical devices’. It has greatly increased my understanding of rhetorical devices.

To me a rhetorical device sounded like something that keeps an airplane from falling out of the sky or something that keeps an atomic reactor from blowing up. But I learned today that it is actually used in a speech to make it clearer and more memorable. I am working on my 4th Toastmaster speech and I need some of these devices. I found a website that you can put a list of words or phrases on for everybody to see or add to. Please help me put my speech together by adding a few phrases to my list at: http://wordie.org/people/lists/kknittel

More about Rhetorical Devices

I met Faye Crossett at the conference and she invited me to come to Lake Travis Toastmasters club. When I got their I met Consuelo Hartman . She was very friendly and made me feel welcome. This was the first time that I have visited a different club so it meant a lot to me. It was a great experience to see more Toastmasters in a different way. I was especially impressed with the general evaluator Laura Waldo, she emphasized the point that an evaluation is just the opinion of one person not the whole group. I really enjoyed it and I plan to spend some more time with these wonderful people.