SPEAKER_01 0:47

For this episode of Toastmaster's World Tour, we travel virtually to the Emerald Isle, to Cork, Ireland, famous for shamrocks, leprechaunns, and the Blarney Stone, to chat to Paul Omani, a highly experienced Toastmaster and podcaster. Listening to get his insights and learn from his experience.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Oh, it's interesting to begin talking Irish with you. I I I must tell you that in the last two weeks I was asked to do a series of very short videos, 25 seconds long, introducing people who were going to come from the UK to the Irish language and some of the things they might hear in County Kerry because this year's District 71 conference is going to be in a place called Tralee. And I spent some time thinking about the phonetic how to write the phonetic pronunciation of Dear Gwit. And it's just so nice to to to begin, because I'm not an Irish speaker of much competence. Fair enough. So dear gwit, you probably know, but maybe not everybody knows. God be with you. Yes. And the reply, which is dear smiraguit, is God and Mary be with you. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Yeah, that's right. You know, respond Jesus Morris Joseph, which you keep adding the saints' names, right? So you know, Joseph comes after Mary. And I was interested to see how far you'd take it, because I believe how many are there? There are about 35 add-ons, you know. You keep listing all the saints, I believe. So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

I'm I'm only familiar with one add-on, well, two, I suppose. Do you uh dearguit? Deus Murraguit. And then the reply to that in Ireland is Deus Murguit is Podric. That's God and Mary be with you and Patrick.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yes, I knew he came into it. I might have got the order wrong. I thought Joseph came next, but that doesn't matter. We've had St. Patrick's Day recently, so I think that might be a good segue into did you celebrate St. Patrick's Day recently?

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Ireland did. Lots of people in Ireland did. There were parades as usual. Yes. Nobody in Ireland turns a river green. Nobody has up-ended die into the river Liffy or the River Shannon. But parades, children going there, lots of green hats and other stuff. I have to confess that this year, Patrick's Day, passed me by. I couldn't even tell you what I was doing that day.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Fair enough. Fair enough. What about in your club meetings? Do you have any face-to-face meetings?

SPEAKER_02 4:31

I'm a member of four clubs, and I'm a member of four online clubs. Okay. I I talk about one of them and St. Patrick's Day. One of the clubs, which is called Shilling Speakers, every year holds an Irish night. And on the Irish night, all of the speakers are from Ireland. All of the topics are about Ireland. There are there's poetry. There's storytelling in the form of traditional Irish storytelling. Not the kind of storytelling for the most part that we do in Toastmasters, but what's called in Irish Shanaky, an old uh an old storyteller. And that's the we had some singing, that's right. Awesome. We had somebody sang Galway Bay. And that so it was a a variety, a variety. I love it. And I guess there were about twenty-five to thirty people there. Only a third of them were Irish.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

But this is a club which earlier in the year hell has held a Ukrainian night. And previously has held an African night. I love that. I love these cultural elements.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

I find them really interesting and exciting.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Sorry, when was the Irish night? The Irish night was, I think, on the 13th of March. It it was it it was on the Wednesday before St. Patrick's Day.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yes, obviously the prelude to St. Patrick's Day, that was the stimulus. And did you have a favorite element of that evening? Any examples of what transpired?

SPEAKER_02 6:52

What a good question. A man from Kerry told a collection of Irish myths and legends. Awesome. He he spoke for about ten minutes and he's a very fine speaker. He has even been the chair of the List Listole Writers uh Festival. Annual festival, a very important one in Ireland. Listol Writers, yes, Listole Writers. The that probably sticks out most in my mind. There was a quiz, and there were topics.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

So the quiz was about Ireland. What do you know about Ireland? And the topics were also about Ireland. But overall, what I liked most of all was the camaraderie, the joie de vivre. You know, the general exact. There were, if I remember rightly, there weren't any evaluated speeches. I think there might have been one. Okay. And also there was no time limit. Oh wow. I think the timer, the timer's role was to time one of the speeches, which was going to be evaluated. But everything else was kind of loose. And the president of the club who is Irish, Anthony Garvey, lives in County Kerry. He he has this thing he says every year, which is that's the one meeting that we we throw away the clock.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Knowing how well you Irish speak, I'm surprised the meeting's not still going. How long did it go for?

SPEAKER_02 9:04

I think it only went about an hour and a half over time. Okay. It has gone on longer. I think we went on uh it began at half past seven. I think it finished about eleven.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

I guess the Toastmaster's uh timing discipline is in uh is in your blood now, so otherwise it might still be going. So, did you come away from the meeting with the with the new favorite myth or legend? No.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

I'm fairly familiar with some Irish myths and legends. There's one which is have you ever heard of a place called the Giant's Causeway? Bainley, yeah. Yes, of Bainley, yeah. Fabulous place. Oh, right, great. Well, there's a story about how the Giants Causeway was formed, and it had something to do with the fight between a giant in Ireland and a giant in Scotland. Yes. And for some reason, the giant from Scotland came across to Ireland seeking the Irish giant, and uh everybody was very scared of this Scottish giant and the mother of Finn McCool, I think it was, who's a character in Irish Mitson, um told her son, who was very young, to get into a pram, get into a pushchair, or you know, one of these things that you cover the child up in. The Scottish um giant arrives and he wants to know where is the Irish giant, and uh, if I remember rightly, the mother says he he's in the pram. And the giant looks at the pram, sees this very small uh uh child, and decides, oh my god, if that's the if a child that small can be that strong, I'm not going to get in any trouble with him. And he goes back to Scotland, and that's the end. Now I've told the story very badly, but that's the kind of idea that a child would be uh in a pram.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah, that's true. I've and I've always loved that name, Finn McCall, so I think it's a great example. You mentioned table topics, Paul, and you've also this is a very unscripted chat. So I'm going to hit you with a little challenge and impromptu table topics. Table topics is all about impromptu, and this is an impromptu invite to a table topics question. Are you up for it? Yes, of course, of course. Okay, so my understanding is St. Patrick used the shamrock, which is like a three-leafed clover, to explain the Holy Trinity. If you were to travel back to pre-Christian times and wanted to explain the three tenets of your beliefs, what would you do with the shamrock to do that?

SPEAKER_02 12:37

The great thing about the shamrock is that it's been growing in Ireland since before the dinosaurs were born. In fact, there are some who believe that there are some dinosaurs who lived on shamrock. Now the evidence is unconfirmed. But the great thing about the shamrock back in those days is that they enabled people to become interested in science. Now, of course, they didn't use the word science at all. And the three leaves of the shamrock stood for the sun, the moon, and the stars. And by using the shamrock, people, I'm not sure it may have even been dinosaurs, were able to lift up the shamrock and get people to look up, up above, into the heavens. And there's some evidence that the heavens were the original name for what subsequent people called heaven. Later on, many, many eons later. So the shamrock may well be the tool that began all religions that came to believe in a heaven and the afterlife.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

I love that. That was world-class. And what our dear listeners cannot see is the fabulous gestures Paul is using, looking up at the skies, and that is very entertaining. Well done. Thank you, Paul, for indulging me. Paul, we met in 2024 when we both attended the World Championships of Public Speaking. Was that your first time attending? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

What did you think? Oh, it was it was wonderful because I met uh for a number of reasons. One is I met a whole load of people that I knew already who I met on Zoom and only met on Zoom. And I have found during subsequent to the pandemic, that when you meet somebody who you haven't met face to face before, but you have met them on Zoom, it's a huge thrill. So there were lots of thrills like that. Would be well known to say that Toastmasters are generally speaking, fact more than generally, almost without exception, people who are friendly to each other, people who are totally open to impromptu conversations, impromptu almost interviews, and I did interview a number of people while I was there. I'm a podcaster and I do have a habit for many, many years of holding impromptu interviews with people and turning them into podcast episodes.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

I I had the unexpected um thrill, I suppose is the right word, of being invited to go up onto the stage with the team from District 71, which had my own district, which had become a distinguished uh district for the first time in about nine years. And it was a big thing because it I don't I'd already been feeling look, it's an awful pity that over the last so many years our leadership, whatever I meant by that, I don't know, hasn't succeeded in getting our district to become a distinguished district. Not that I think it's an easy thing to achieve, but I was very pleased that we had become a distinguished district. And I was taken aback when I was invited to you know be one of the people in the group who were going up on stage. Um I hadn't expected that. That's actually quite normal. I didn't realize it was quite normal because as many people as possible from the district who were there go up on stage with the district director and the program quality director and the immediate past district director and all of those with the big banner. And what I was also surprised at was that there were some people from the district who I didn't know they were at the convention until then.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

I hadn't been aware, but on top of that, now that I'm thinking about it, we have a member in my home club, Blarney Toastmasters Club, who lives in New York, and she's now 88 years of age, and her name is Lynn Gilbert. And Lynn came to the international convention, and that's where we met face to face for the first time. I think she really came over to meet me, but that might not be 100% true. I also met a few other people who had been to Blarney Toastmasters, uh, but particularly to meet um Lynn Gilbert, she's a reasonably well-known photographer, portrait photographer, of immense distinction. I'm also in a club called One Country, One World, and Morag Matheson, the international president, was a founding member. Oh, past international president, was a founding member of that club. Jean Gangster, who is now the second vice president to be international president in two years' time, she was also there, obviously, and a goodly number of people who were either candidates to be international directors or district directors were there, and finally, the last reason that I really loved it was that there were people from all over the world. I found myself sitting at dinner with a woman who came from Chad. Now I haven't ever met anyone who came from Chad. Exactly. You know, it I now I do know where Chad is, but it would have been I I'm quite certain that I would have had times when somebody would send me, Where's Chad? And I would have said, Oh god, where in Africa is Chad? Um, not quite sure. But that was just there were little surprises like that. I was I'll just say something because I was a bit disappointed in one aspect. Okay, and this is it. It's tremendous because you have terribly talented people running workshops, giving speeches, not just in the um international speech contest, but they're like keynote speakers here and there. But what I would have liked, and I wondered if anybody had thought about it, is I would have liked the opportunity to go to a variety of meetings which had about 20 or 30 people at them, and at which somebody might give I don't know, a five to seven minute speech, and there might be a chance to do evaluations, and there might you might educate what I would call participative educational experiences, more interactive, other than just watching performances, more interactive and and more akin to the meetings. Yeah. I expected the the convention to be a bit more educational. Now there were good educational slots, but a forty five minute to an hour. Speech by somebody where I listen to it isn't what that isn't my educational preference. I don't learn that much from that. I can watch those kind of speeches on YouTube all the time. I see. So uh I learn better in a smaller group where I have a chance to say something and I have a chance to listen to many other people speaking as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Fair enough. Have you reached out to the powers that be and made those suggestions?

SPEAKER_02 22:36

That's a really good question. I have put that experience and that suggestion on, I'm pretty sure on one of the episodes of the podcast, the Irish Talkers Podcast, which is the podcast about Toastmasters that has been going now for 11 years, a weekly episode. Wow. And I'm pretty sure not certain that when I said something about I I would have run a what 15-minute maximum uh given a 15-minute maximum report on the convention in that podcast. I do remember giving a few speeches about the experience of the convention, and I'll be taken aback if I didn't mention that, you know, one thing that I think would improve things would be to hold these small uh workshops. Now they're complicated, but I've been to a few conferences at which you might have a menu of five or six uh small workshops going on at the same time. And you might even have at some you might even have somebody who comes along to the conference or convention and decides they're going to offer a workshop and they advertise it, perhaps by putting up posters on the wall or something like that, or even sending messages to people, and they encourage people to come. And if people come, they have that experience. And if nobody comes, you you talk to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Is the Irish Talkers is that your podcast, Paul, or is it a different one that you ran?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

No, I'm part of a team, I'm a co-host on the podcast. I didn't start it, it was started by Moira O'Brien, and uh who's a member of Blarney Toastmasters, but who at the time it began owned an international uh radio station, a a an online radio station called Irish Radio International. And a member of Blarney Toastmasters, a guy called uh Ted Malanfi, who'd been in Blarney Toastmasters for uh I'd say about nearly 10 years at the time, he went to Moira O'Brien and said, I'd like to do a show about Toastmasters. And she said, Why not? And at the end, the towards the end of 2014, that's when it began. And there were weekly weekly one-hour episodes, but it had music at the time. And somehow or other the the music was uh you were able to play any music you like without infringing copyright. I think it went through one of the apps which had found a way of doing that, and the name of which I forget right now. But that uh podcast was started by Ted and another woman, Sharon O'Neill. These are names that you know, but just to say that the Blarney Club had three people in it. The show was called at the time The Talk Show for Talkers. It in the last couple of years has morphed into being Irish Talkers. Okay. Um but 2017, I, if you like, came on board as one of the hosts, and I've been on the podcast since then. I must listen. And can we put a link in the show to that? Oh, yeah, uh ever so easy. The it's on well, it's obviously on Spotify and uh Apple and iHeartRadio and all of these things, but it we also have a website which on which everything from 2000 you can actually find everything from 2014. Um it's um we we I've we've interviewed um world champions of public speaking, we've interviewed district directors, international directors, Dan Rex, the CEO of Toastmasters. We've interviewed people who have only just joined Toastmasters one week.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Oh wide variety of people, but there's also a kind of magazine element of it, okay, which involves uh a word of the show, if you like.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Okay, all right. I'm fascinated that you were at the convention and you would have these sort of impromptu interviews. One question in my mind is were you doing that on your phone or did you have some other gear? All on my phone. What sort of app would you use for that?

SPEAKER_02 28:10

I use an app called uh Voice Record Pro.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

And how does that go sound quality-wise?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

I don't know a better one that you can get easily on your phone. I think the sound quality is is easily good enough, but as a podcaster, I mean your sound on this uh on this podcast is superb. I've listened to several episodes today. Top class sound, I'm full of admiration. I've been podcasting since 2007, I've done a wide variety of different types of podcasts, and I've always had my own since then, together with some business ones and some for clients, and this one for Toastmasters. The I've always thought that provided you can hear clearly what people are saying, that having studio quality sound has never been my priority. My priority has always been content. Content. What is being said, provided it can be heard. I like ambient uh stuff. So at the at the uh convention, I did several interviews, and none of them were done in a soundbox, or none of them were done in a static or what would you call it, a a studio type environment. Um were done, some were done in the lobby. Uh I remember uh doing one with the guy who got second to Luisa Mandalfo. He and his cousin, and we were in a table in the lobby, and all these people kept coming up, congratulating him. So they were all also, most of them were recorded in the podcast. I mean, I was interviewing him, yeah, but all these people came and interrupted, and rightly or wrongly, that's me. That's my style, I suppose you'd call it.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Yeah, I just love that, and I cannot wait to hear those ones in particular, the ones that you did live from the convention. And it's inspired me. I'd love to give that a crack. I wish I'd been into it back then and done the same thing because there were so many fabulous people, you know, from around the world, as you say. And the other thing that I mean, one of the first things that struck me getting there was the opening ceremony, it was like akin to the Olympics, wasn't it? There was the marching of the flags. I could not believe how many nations were there being represented. It was very similar to the it wasn't wouldn't have been much less than the Olympics. It was well over a hundred, I think. Oh, yeah, I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

I'd watched the international convention online for about three years before that. I see. Like yeah uh uh international conventions are usually quite a bit of it is live streamed, not all of it by any means, unfortunately, but a good deal. So I you can buy access to uh whatever is broadcast live. Uh you you can buy access to it. Um I didn't think it was too expensive for me. And then I had contact with people who were at the convention um while they were there, and I'm I probably had contact on WhatsApp, and I'd been asked by District 71, one of the district directors asked me if I would be willing to watch, I think it was the one in the Bahamas, to watch the convention online and to essentially report on it on uh on district Facebook. So I did things like I I videoed the television the the uh my laptop, you know, I videoed what was going on, and I you broadcast it, uh chunks of it. I got the district leadership team people who were there to send me photos to send me reports. So I've done that about three times, I think. And it I I loved it because it was a project, I was asked to do it. You know, I I like it's a bit like being a citizen journalist, really, isn't it? It's a bit like the term was used, so it would, and I'm a live streamer anyway. That's another aspect of things I've done in my life. Okay, and I've done a lot of live streaming. Um, so and I used to tear my hair out, I still do, about how little of the content at Toastmasters is live streamed. For example, I do know there are a few districts in the world who have live streamed their convention, their their conference. Uh, you know, a lot of it is on uh live, you can watch it. You can't go to the conference, but you can watch it. But the vast majority of uh districts do not live stream things. Uh-huh. Now, there is uh there are certain things you can't live stream, but there are lots of things you can live stream, like for example, a small thing, division speech contests. Yes, I'm sure all the listeners or a lot of the listeners would know that the division speech contests are the level the winners of them, they go to the district level. Yeah, yeah. But there really isn't any good reason, in my opinion, why a division speech contest can't be live streamed.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Wouldn't aren't there people going to use the same speech potentially in the district level?

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Oh, yeah, but that why should that matter? There's nothing against that at all. You might use the same speech at your club, yeah, at your area, uh-huh, at your division, this is usual, and then at the district level, but there is nothing in the rules at all that say you can't uh live stream it. We used to uh do uh division contests on Zoom during the pandemic, that meant anyone could log into it from anywhere in the world and watch speeches in the final of the division. So why on earth they're not live streamed? Now I'm not talking about putting them on conventional Zoom, but I'm saying put them live streamed on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Okay, so it's not like a rugby match where you can then study your opponents and their moves and a boxing match, you know. Better watch the jab, you know.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

But you know, you the the watching the other people in the contest, I mean, all that's going to do is distract you from getting better at your own speech.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Fair enough, yeah. In terms of live streaming, uh, do these people usually pay for the live to watch the live streaming? And if not, is that a disincentive to turn up in person? Could that be an issue?

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Yeah, that could be an issue, but just give you an example. Uh the district I'm in is just about fairly soon going to have same as in Australia, I'm sure, have um district conference. I think there'll be 200 to 250 people at it live in County Kerry in Tralee. How many members do we have in the district? Well, we have 185 clubs. You know, we have uh we must have 2,000 members and 250 can go to the district conference. Now at a division, you you might get 50 people at the division final, uh-huh. But there are people who can't go because they're it they're in bed, they're you know, they can't afford to go this year. They, you know, there there's money, there's ability, there's family commitments. So there are going to be plenty of people who can't go. I've yet to be persuaded by anybody that if a division contest was live streamed, that it would be a financial failure.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Okay, well, I'm gonna play the devil's advocate here and say that you know, if I pay good money to go to the district conference, we've got one coming up in Stanthorpe in Queensland, Australia. If I paid good money to go to that, and I know that you know there are cameras everywhere, things are being streamed, I'm not gonna be able to play up. You know, I'm not gonna be able to do the whole what happens at the district stays in the district, so I'm gonna have to behave myself. I paid good money to go there and play up.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Well, of course, if you're going to you know run naked across the stage, and you know what goes on what goes on conference stays on conference and your video live streams, I can well understand why you have a powerful argument. I I expect that you know I'll have to reconsider my whole position as a result of that point. Now, you do not need loads of cameras to live stream people on the stage. Now, obviously, you can have you know cameras all over the place, but to be honest, I can sit at you can sit at home, watch a person on the stage delivering something with one camera, just one camera. Okay, and you know, it wouldn't be very sophisticated and all that, but I still think that uh it's not being done for a reason that to me isn't very clear. That's all I want to say about it, you know. I if uh you've had a good point. Listeners to this podcast. Oh, I I love the way at the end of your podcast you uh you s you talk about evaluations and the value of evaluations, and you invite people to send their comments. So I look forward to people sending in their comments saying that that Irish guy was talking through his hat. It's contrary to our values, it would undermine the financial health of whatever. I'm dying to hear that case made. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Thanks for listening to today's show. One of the key elements of Toastmasters is evaluations. This is how we grow and improve, both by encouraging comments for things we got right and points for improvement. We all learn and benefit from these evaluations, not just the person being evaluated. So any feedback in the comments is greatly appreciated. If you have a Toastmaster story you'd like to share, or would you like to be on the show? Toastmaster.