Lady and the Champs – The EdgeNet Summit

Day 1 of 3

This weekend, I am attending the Lady and the Champs Speaking Spectacular in Las Vegas, NV. The Lady and the Champs workshops give you the opportunity to hang out with four Toastmasters World Champions of Public Speaking and NSA Hall of Fame Speaker Patricia Fripp to learn more about the art of speaking and gain specific knowledge to make you a better speaker. The workshops also teach you about the business of speaking and how you can develop more opportunities to speak.

As a member of the World Championís Edge, you also get a free member only workshop called the EdgeNet Summit the day before Lady and the Champs. This summit is a great opportunity to ask a lot of questions, get feedback on the speaking process, and get insights into want makes a good speaker great. The EdgeNet Summit was on Friday the 20th of February, 2009, and it was an amazing workshop to attend. The energy in the room was electric, and it made for one of the most positive learning environments that I have ever encountered. Because of the environment that the Champs and Patricia Fripp established, we learned very specifically what makes a speech flow, how to develop a speech, and how to play with the language to make our speaking better.

For example, I got an amazing lesson from Patricia Fripp on how to think about saying certain “punch phrases” in my speeches. She made me think about how to taste the language and what I needed to do to develop the flow of the opening of my speech. That evening at dinner, one of my friends told me that that one tip changed the entire feeling of the speech and made me more relaxed and got me into the proper state for speaking.

As someone who facilitates meetings for groups that I work with, I found Ed Tate’s description of how to work a cold meeting room invaluable. Being able to get ideas flowing in some groups can be difficult, but Ed demonstrated many tactics throughout the day that gets brainstorming sessions started, keeps the energy levels up after lunch, and how to get people back on track if they deviate too much from the intent of the meeting.

During Craig Valentine and Darren LaCroix’s sessions, I picked up a ton of tips on humor, storytelling, and delivery of speeches. The ah-ha moment I got from Darren was on how to use a change in my voice to develop an emotion on a word that is repeated in one of my speeches. Craig also helped me take a here, now, and how story in a speech and really make people want to find out the how in the speech.

During the first day of the event, I was struck about dollar for dollar, how much value I was getting out of the event and my membership in the World Champion’s Edge. The summit and the Edge is such an amazing speaking resource, and it has provided me with an amazing forum to develop my speaking and the thoughts about what I want to accomplish as a speaker. I canít wait to see what the rest of the weekend will bring.


About the Author: My Toastmasters Blog is written and edited by Chris Elliott, the founder of the young professional coaching site Young Profit Pros. Chris enjoys using his knowledge and experiences during his speaking engagements, workshops, consulting projects, and one-on-one coaching sessions. The result—connecting people and empowering change. If you would like information on how you can bring Chris to speak to your next meeting, please download Chris' one sheet or contact him by clicking here.

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