Power Talk

Power Talk is a reasonably new tool from ITC for us, as members, to use. It is a comprehensive manual of communication, and especially public speking, covering aspects such as image, voice production, and speech preparation. We had avoided following the suggestion to concentrate on each section for six months at a time, thinking we would reach overload. So this term, I have taken on programming for Communicators Logan City, and will try a compromise of having a month for each section and then start the cycle again. I am getting quite enthusiastic about this, because the information given is so comprehensive, and we will learn much by focussing on one aspect so thoroughly. I look forward to people using the material in their evaluations, because I think everyone will have their vision of communication broadened.

I have just been listening to talk-back radio, and hearing an 85 year old man expressing the opinion, that compared to naked violence, watching the expression of love was a far better thing, and that he had been married 47 years. He expressed it well and was courtly and subtle. Naked violence. Well said. And it reminded me that I wanted to comment on San Andreas. I'm not altogether happy with my boys playing Grand Theft Auto, and the theme of violence in video games and its effect rears often. Nevertheless we will not be buying San Andreas Grand Theft Auto after the rumours of embedded virtual sex. Phew! But the comment I had to make was about the reaction to this discovery. We can allow the game to cross counters all over the world with no comment whatsoever about the graphic, horrendous violence, and yet the moment sex is mentioned, we throw up our hands in horror. What an interesting differentiation. And it was articulated even better in an article in the New York times.

explicitly sociopathic - not to say psychopathic - criminality.. ah that's how to write!

And then there's the memory of growing up on the farm and accompanying my father everywhere - through deaths, branding, killing, and butchering, but never, no never, to a difficult birth. Are we frightened of our sexual urges? Have we been taught to control our violent impulses, but not the other .... ?

Open to Debate

My thoughts are turned towards two debates this week. Both Communicators Logan City and Mt Gravatt Communicators are running debates. Why did I suggest it to both clubs??? Anyway that means the right brain is getting plenty of exercise. The first topic is "What I sow I will reap", and I've thought of discipline and its outcomes, rearing children, and the literal interpretation involving plants. But Heather's suggestion that the emphasis should be on the word "will", as in determination, had escaped me, and certainly appeals. The second will be "Spare the rod and spoil the child". I'm not sure that I want to go into abuse with that one.... But the good news is that I was listening to an interview on radio a couple of days ago, with a neuroscientist, who was claiming that we can exercise the brain, as we would a muscle, to keep it performing optimally. He also suggested that it is often the left side of the brain that grows as we age. And I certainly saw that poignantly in my mother as she entered dementia in old age, and could remember the ordinary things in life, like getting the vegetables ready for dinner at night, but could not cope with things that only happened irregularly. So all this exercise I'm giving my right brain in terms of reaping and sowing and the rod, just may save me from encroaching loss of brain cells. Now where did I leave those keys??!

PREM Awards

"It's bin awhile." I've been busy organising the awards for presentation at International convention in Baltimore. I ran a competition, internationally, and named it "Target Twenty". If they achieved a twenty percent incease in membership or twenty members, clubs were eligible for a prize and recognition at convention. I don't know if it motivated anyone to go out and get new members, but it certainly created a buzz around PREM, the area of ITC that coordinates Publicity, Recruitment, Extension and Membership. So if I have managed to focus attention on issues in those areas, and motivated someone to focus themselves on that area and to do something for their membership, then I will have achieved a goal. I'm happy to have created the Toolkit that went with the competition, because it will remain as a resource for members to use in years to come.