Ice Breaker Objectives:
• To introduce you to speaking before an audience
• To help you assess your speaking strengths and weaknesses
• To tell the club something about yourself

This Article was written to help new members get off to a good start with their first speech.

By Erich Viedge, CTM

Tips on making your first speech memorable for all the right reasons. Even experienced speakers who join a Toastmasters club find their Ice Breaker assignment nerve-racking. Whether you perform well or achieve less than you hoped for, one thing is for certain: You will remember your Ice Breaker for many years to come. Here are five steps to make your experience memorable - for all the right reasons!

1. Don't schedule your Ice Breaker too soon. If you are the impatient type, you probably joined up on your first or second visit, and eagerly await your first speech. But it's a good idea to let your first speaking assignment be a toast or a word of the day, just to get you used to taking on a meeting role.

2. Try a different approach. Toastmasters seem to have selective memories when it comes to their Ice Breaker. "It's the easiest assignment," they often say. "The manual even tells you what to speak about." But you may wonder how to talk about yourself without boring everyone to tears or revealing too much. One way around your difficulty is to talk about yourself indirectly. When you introduce yourself to a stranger, you don't go through your resume in chronological order from birth to the present. So why do it in your Ice Breaker? You can talk about a seemingly unrelated topic, and still fulfill the assignment objectives. One of the most thought-provoking Ice Breaker speeches I ever heard was about the sun. The speaker told us how, when he was a child, he saw the sun as a God-given fact; later, as physics major, he saw it as burning ball of gas in space. By telling us his views on the sun, he was indirectly revealing his life's events and how they shaped his personality.

3. Lean on your fellow club members for support. Every Toastmaster has been through the Ice Breaker experience; many will let you have a copy of their first speech or share how they approached their first assignment. Ask more experienced Toastmasters what they would change about it, or ask them to tell you about a particularly memorable Ice Breaker they might have heard.

4. Prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare. Speaking in public can be a terrifying experience; even old hands get nervous before an important speech. Through the ages, people have tried many ways of controlling their panic, but only one way seems to work -- excellent preparation. This doesn't mean learning every word of the speech verbatim in fact, learning a speech word-for-word is counter-productive because it will come across wooden and over-rehearsed. The right way to prepare is to be thoroughly familiar with your speech's outline and its major points. Then, when it's time to deliver, you can still be spontaneous within your speech's outline.

5. Don't set your sights too high. No matter how well you have prepared, you will probably never feel completely ready to deliver your first manual speech. You will always feel that, with just a little more preparation.

6. You can deliver a truly excellent speech. Remember, this is only your first assignment. You are doing it precisely because you are inexperienced and want to learn. Nobody is expecting you to be the next JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr. Just concentrate on eliminating "ahs" and "urns" and getting through it. The rest will follow, step by step. Now only one thing remains: Get out there and do it! Inexperienced speakers tend to make the same basic mistakes.

Here are some pointers to help make your Ice Breaker more effective:

• Don't repeat the title of your speech. When it's your turn to speak, the Toastmaster will call your name and give he title of your speech. This is done to enlist the interest of the audience before you've said a word. Don't blow it by repeating the title after the Toastmaster has just announced it.

• Acknowledge the Toastmaster. Courtesy dictates that the Toastmaster remain standing until you acknowledge him or her by saying "Mr. (or Madam) Toastmaster." Only after you have said those magic words does he or she feel comfortable sitting down.

• Speak up! Your audience really is looking forward to learning a bit more about you. Make sure that even the people in the back of the room can hear you clearly.

• Avoid fidgeting. Most novice speakers display nervous mannerisms the first few times they face an audience. Common ones include rocking on heels, clasping hands in front of the body, nervous pacing or repeating a word like "OK" or "actually." Be aware of your favorite habit and start eradicating it early. You can even ask your evaluator to watch for a particular habit so that after the speech, you'll know how successful you were in keeping it under control.

• Slow down. Most Toastmasters are shocked when they discover how long a four- to six-minutes speech actually is, so they try to cram their family history for the last three generations into that time. To cover the material, the poor speaker has to talk so fast, nobody can understand the message. The cure is simple. Pick three points you would like to share with the audience, tie them together with an introduction and a conclusion, and slow down so that everybody can understand you. A mentor once told me I should be able to hear the first and last sound of every word I speak. This simple tip helped me improve the pacing of my speeches. Don't thank the audience. We often see stars on TV saying thank you, thank you," to hordes of applauding people. That's all right for them, but the proper way of concluding your speech is to simply return control of the meeting back to the Toastmaster by looking in that person's direction and saying: "Mr. or Madam Toastmaster." Your audience indicates their thanks by applauding at the end of your speech. You don't need to thank them for being there - they want to be there. All these points may seem a lot to concentrate on - and they are. We haven't even covered eye contact, body language or simple speech structure. But that's OK. Remember, don't try to get it all perfect - you have another nine assignments to go before you achieve your CTM, and that will give you all the practice you need to craft excellent speeches.

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The industrial estate in question is made up of 3 roughly 1/4 mile straights punctuated with roundabouts. Back in the day there used to be a big biker meet (I'm talking 6 years ago) but it never really took off for cars. The 5-0 shut it down pretty quick anyway so people gave up on it.

So I get down to the last roundabout to find about 30 cars parked up, mainly Evo's, Impreza's a few Honda's and a couple of euro cars. There was a bit of racing going on in pairs between the two bottom roundabouts but nothing crazy. I had a couple of buzzes up and down and showed the FF boys why FR rules and parked up.

I got chatting to a guy in a GD; apparently this goes on every weekend now with minimal attention from the cops. I will try and get up there one week with my camera and get some shots. It was a really cool atmosphere and no one was acting up just friends hanging out with cars.

Anyway, here is a shots I did get from the night:

The car was originally in the Frog Eyes club

This is an old bay pic before I installed the engine damper.

Engine stuff is limited to a Zoom Engineering decat and straight through centre exit exhaust. I'm running lower chassis braces, Cusco BMC brace, engine torque damper and a cooling plate; the ususal stuff really. Underneith it it is sitting on KYB Climb gear dampers and springs and has a a factory LSD. Inside I have an Apexi RSM and Fake Bride drivers seat. My favorite bit has to be the 13x7" SSR MK2's.

Fitting

Fitting was easy; One plate bolts to the head in the threaded holes for the engine lifting eyes and the other to the shock tower. This may cause some issues if you are running a strut brace but it fitted fine for me, even with the stock air box. The damper then bolts between the plates and can be adjusted to the correct tension. All the fixings were provided in the kit I bought and it took about 15 mins to fit from bonnet up to bonnet down.

Driving Impressions

Traffic driving seemed to be a lot smoother when you are on and off the clutch. High RPM shifts are a lot crisper and it kills that millisecond dip as you drop the clutch for the next cog. Coming down the box fast and double-de-clutching is also slicker. The car feels generally more solid with the damper fitted.

The only downside is there is a small amount of vibration transmitted into the cabin, but if you are fitting one of these for performance reasons, this won't bother you.

OK, so the above improvement could just be a symptom of the standard engine mounts (it's worth mentioning that mine are in good condition) so chances are if you are running Mazdaspeed mounts this won't make a lot of difference.

Overall rating

7/10 - Reasonably cheap, easy to install mod that looks good and will improve the feel of the car under performance driving.

Where can I get one?

Mine came of Ebay, yeah I know, I'm not JDM tite but it looks good and works well.

If you are a brand whore check out Weapon R. They also dome some seriously sexy bracing, sus and engine parts.

Join us on 13th Dec 2007
Time : 7pm
Venue: Bedok Community Centre
850 New Upper Changi Road

Please RSVP with our Club’s Sergent at Arms : Alex Sin 93831770

P.S: No meeting at Siglap Toastmasters on the 20th December 2007

1. Thinking that public speaking is inherently stressful (it's not).
2. Thinking you need to be brilliant or perfect to succeed (you don't).
3. Trying to impart too much information or cover too many points in a short presentation.
4. Having the wrong purpose in mind (to get rather than to give/contribute).
5. Trying to please everyone (this is unrealistic).
6. Trying to emulate other speakers (very difficult) rather than simply being yourself (very easy).
7. Failing to be personally revealing and humble.
8. Being fearful of potential negative outcomes (they almost never occur and even when they do, you can use them to your advantage).
9. Trying to control the wrong things (e.g., the behavior of your audience).
10. Spending too much time overpreparing (instead of developing confidence and trust in your natural ability to succeed).
11. Thinking your audience will be as critical of your performance as you might be.

Review of 10 Key Principles To Always Keep In Mind

#1---Speaking in Public is NOT Inherently Stressful

#2---You Don't Have to be Brilliant or Perfect to Succeed

#3---All You Need is Two or Three Main Points

#4---You also Need a Purpose That is Right for the Task

#5---The Best Way to Succeed is NOT to Consider Yourself a Public Speaker!

#6---Humility and Humor Can Go a Long Way

#7---When You Speak in Public, Nothing "Bad" Can Ever Happen!

#8---You Don't Have to Control the Behavior of Your Audience

#9---In General, the More You Prepare, the Worse You Will Do

#10--Your Audience Truly Wants You to Succeed

• Division D COT is on Jan-19-08

• Division D International. Prepared Speech & Table Topics Contest is on Apr-26-08

* Please make your calendar for the dates