Branding

Since I was in elementary, I already knew La Salle, Ateneo, and of course, UP and it was my dream to be part of one of them. Unfortunately, I ended graduating from my ever-so-[un]loved SJIT.

It is so frustrating that some companies' primary qualifier is the school of the applicant. Unless a future employee comes from one of the "reputable universities," then he is disqualified. Little did they know that there are even far better individuals than those who got their degree from those popular schools.

Secondly, they look for people with experience. Don't they know that the reason people like me apply for a new job is for a new experience? How could I have experience when I'm not given the chance to experience it? But seriously, while I understand them that they are looking for those people who are well-experienced in the field, as they think that with experience comes knowledge, a person's skills should not be overlooked nor compromised. I admit I might get to the point of grappling with the winds at the start of a new job but giving me at most two months to learn the new trick will definitely make me one of the best in the company. Based on experience, I could prove that.

Thirdly, I don't know what they are looking for. Could they just tell me why they couldn't hire me so that I would know which part I need to improve on? Damn them!

And I'm still not mad at this so beware. Ha ha ha!

Pressure is a Privilege

So I'm the President of my home club and I feel and smell pressure all over the place. Good thing, I was able to deliver my speech well enough for them to appreciate it. After hours of cramming, here it is.

My name is Third Catayoc and here in Metro Manila, I was just a seriously corny nobody until I met Zaldy Co. Since then, I started to get a name and was branded as one of the seriously funny guys in the Metropolis, as far as the Toastmasters world is concerned.

Today, I celebrate my third year in this club. It’s been three years since I got to meet somebody who genuinely believed in my comic potential. He believes in me so much that for barely two months in the club, he pushed me to join the triathlon contest. Together with him, then immediate past Division A Governor Ellen Amar accompanied me and fed me several table topics questions, gave me tips with regard to my prepared slash humorous speech, and provided some materials for my err song number. I felt pressured with their enormous trust that I thought to myself I should be showing what’s best in me so that I won’t desert them. More importantly, I shouldn’t desert myself for deserting them.

Zaldy assured me that losing is okay. He told me that being able to conquer the contest stage is already winning in itself. I listened to his advice and on the third attempt to land on that stage, I placed runner-up next to Raul de la Vega in the table topics portion and beat Elizabeth Oropesa. Moreover, meeting new friends like Ida Sih who taught me about mind-mapping and memorizing my speeches from the heart was such a huge blessing. I also owe a lot to Past Division Governor Liza Paylago and her high pressure of introducing me as the division humorous speech champion even, when at that time, I hadn’t been a champion in any competition yet. All I carried in myself was their trust and confidence in me and that made me feel so privileged.

Zaldy kept on boosting my morale and sending me to some other contests and even let me become a test speaker. I knew in myself that he didn’t have a choice because there wasn’t anybody courageous and thick-skinned enough in the club to compete in all three categories. It’s the pressure of being trusted that kept me persevering to improve myself. Finally, after my 10th try, I became the division humorous speech champion and that’s where I’ve found my niche. And that’s where I’ve carved my name in Toastmasters.

Delivering my speeches infront of hundreds of people was made easy because I knew in myself that there would be a Zaldy Co in the audience ready to exhale his loudest laugh, his hands ready to applaud me and congratulate me after my performance and his loudest voice ready to yell “You’re ugly!” More than that, he's got cash ready to treat me out right after every contest.

He reminds me of my Mom who had been extending her support all the way since grade one especially in speechfests. She would let me stand on top of our coffee table and let me deliver my poems, declamation and oratorical pieces and after which, she would critique my performance, in a Simon Cowell, or should I say, in an Enriqueta Catayoc way. During contests, she’d just stay in one corner of the hall and pretended that she’s cool so as not to emit her nervousness to me.

It was such a huge pressure to have her as my Mom. She demanded a lot from me. A grade below 90 was unacceptable. I thought it was too much so I looked for rooms to breathe in and that’s where I’ve entered the chamber of underachievement. I never became the first honors of the class after first grade. I even cried on my way to my graduation in elementary because my Mom threatened that she won’t be there because I failed to make it in the banner roll. She still attended the ceremony and gleefully climbed with me up the stage and awarded me my medal. After all, I’m her only begotten son.

The reason I’ve shared with you these two personal stories is not to give you the comparison of the pressures I’ve gotten from my biological Mom and from an older brother who I never had. Instead, it’s about how I perceived the pressure that was given to me. I took Zaldy’s pressure as a way of trusting me. I felt my Mom’s pressure stressed the hell out of me.

When I finally graduated from college and had the courage to talk to my Mom, I asked her why in the world did she have to demand that much from me. She told me that it’s because she believed that I could be on top of my class and she wanted me to believe in myself that I could do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t take that as a challenge.

Therefore, I must say that pressure is in the “eye of the beholder.” Now that I’ve somehow matured, I got to see a different view of pressure. I have learned from tennis champion Billie Jean King that pressure is a privilege.

I wouldn’t have been where I am now had Zaldy not pressured me by believing in my capabilities as a communicator. Moreover, I would have quit from Toastmasters a long time ago and kissed hello to my ordinary citizenship had I not taken his pressure as a privilege.

But my journey as a Toastmaster hasn’t ended yet. In fact, it just commenced. At this point in time, I would like pay forward what Zaldy had given me and that is not only to give you trust but also to pressure you to become champions.

That is why when I was given this responsibility to lead the club, though I had some second thoughts that I wanted to enroll in another class again, I am now wholeheartedly taking this task of being the President of Camanava Brunch Toastmasters Club.

Zaldy created a phoenix out of the club by making it fly high to tranquility from its own ashes. When he almost gave up on it, Jeff’s fighting spirit endured the challenges and defined our territory and that’s where our club started to gain more recognition by producing champions. Cameron, in his awesome term, grew the seeds of Camanava and people felt our thunder. And the fruits of his labor are what we are harvesting right now.

In this year, we’ll go farther. We’ve already etched our name. We’ve grown bigger. We have arrived. It is due time to share with you our year's team - “Branding Camanava with Excellence.”

Let me dissect each of the keywords of my theme.

BRANDING

Not all Toastmasters clubs are created equal. Aside from being the only brunch club and the group that holds on Saturday mornings, we have set ourselves totally different from any other club in this country, and even in the entire globe.

Steve Jobs aptly said that “Innovation defines the difference between a leader from a follower.” Our club is undeniably different when it comes to online campaigns, when it comes to quality of speeches in every meeting, with the quality of our members.

I would like to emphasize that our club is not the best, nor it is the one on top. We’re just different and that’s what makes us apart from any other clubs.

And a brand won’t be a brand without a logo. Produced from the creative mind of Karen Quiambao with the help of the skillful hands of world-renowned illustrator Jonathan Lau and some additional details from Jeff Yu and Cameron Hernandez, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you my proposal for our club logo.

We can see a fancy-colored logo showing the colorful characteristics of the club. Its freehand-written C symbolizes our being free-spirited, our being unique, our ability to take challenges. And in the midst of those challenges, we still manage to flash our genuine smiles to everyone. The solid circle represents our solid support system to each other which develops a strong core not only when it comes to public speaking, but also when it comes to building relationships with one another. (After the meeting, the logo was approved by the majority).

EXCELLENCE

Excellence doesn’t mean perfection, rather, it is a collaboration of being extraordinary, edgy, exciting and entertaining.

EXTRAORDINARY

My vision for this year is to continue the high quality of our meetings. We can become extraordinary speakers by delivering extraordinary speeches. How can we do that? Establish strong mentorship program. Each of the new members shall be assigned his or her mentor who can provide the specific TM needs of such member and it is the responsibility of the mentor to ensure that the member is going to deliver his speech following the objectives required by that specific speech project. In that way, the members will be guided accordingly and will be helped with in achieving their goals in Toastmasters.

To make it more extraordinary, we will be inviting general evaluators from other clubs who I know can give helpful inputs to us. We shall be incorporating educational speeches as part of our meetings. One of our members or guests will be discussing one topic each meeting.

I have divided this year into four and in each quarter, we are going to discuss something relevant to each sub-theme which are ready, fire, aim and re-fire.

Ready is about preparation - from coming up to speech topics, to grammar, to right usage of words, to speech organization.

Fire is about the preliminary delivery of your speeches – from gestures, to vocal variety, to facial expressions, to etiquette of public speaking.

Aim is about evaluation – reassessing oneself of his performance in order for him or her to do better next time.

Re-fire is to raise the bar in your performance after learning the lessons from the fire and aim segments. This is at this point where we get to compete, show them what we got, and be champion speakers.

EDGY

We hold our meetings, we deliver our speeches, we think of topics the non-conventional way. Our club boasts of members who think out of the box. We talk things that are unpredictable. So I urge you to keep all those brilliant ideas coming and we shall go places.

In addition to that, we will have some themes that somehow veer away from the usual TM meetings that we have. On August 13, we shall be preparing ourselves for an all-Filipino meeting in celebration of the Linggo ng Wika.

Karen and I also have to come up with some other risky but fun themes such as American Idol where the evaluators can speak like Randy, Jennifer, Steve or even Simon Cowell.

EXCITING

Our meetings should be more exciting than ever. I want to draw the competitive spirit in each of you by dividing you into two groups. Jeff, you shall lead group one with your members Angie, Audrey, Bong, Dan, Frances, Ronnie, JV and Grachel.

Cameron, you shall lead group two together with Jacques, Jean, Lorenzo, Matt, Nice, Richardson, Noel and a new member.

The entire year would be like a game for us. Whoever will deliver his speech, come on time, takes a role voluntarily, and volunteers himself in the table topics portion shall earn points. And since we value quality, Karen, Zaldy, our guest GE and I shall vote for the best prepared speech of the day and that corresponds a much higher score.

Per quarter, the group that has the higher accumulated score will be awarded with gift certificates.

ENTERTAINING

Camanava Brunch Toastmasters Club members shall not just end our lives inside this venue. In 2011, our club alone will be expecting to hold three parties. The first one will be on July 30 for the areawide induction party at the Fortress. Following that will be our Oscar-themed rechartering anniversary and Halloween party on October 29. Then before ending the year, another Area 3 Christmas party shall be held in Mid-December.

Next year, we shall have our out-of-town Summer Outing ala-Amazing Race style with the usual speak-a-thon event. Karen will be announcing the final date and venue before the end of the year so that we can book our tickets ahead and free up our schedules on that weekend.

It is at this point that I would like to ask for your support in making these ideas into reality. I would also like to challenge everyone to be at their contest best in every speaking opportunity that you will have in and out of our club. Most importantly, I would like to urge everybody to take the pressure that I’ll be giving you as a pleasurable privilege.

We hear people whining about stress but rarely do we hear someone extolling it. And that's why I'd like to make a distinction between stress and pressure. I understand that the two words are used interchangeably. Stress is when you're contemplating failure, when you're threatened, being pushed. But pressure can be when you're hopeful, when you're contemplating victory, when opportunity is winking at you, pulling you onward.

Because the moment we have signed up in this club, we have already accepted the risks that we are about to face - the risks to commit mistakes, to buckle, to be aware of our imperfections. But along with those risks are our opportunities to learn from those mistakes, to be fluent, and to find excellence from those imperfections. Thus, we shall improve. And I have trust in all of us that we can do it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to share with you some lines from one of my favorite singer-songwriters Brian McKnight entitled "Win."

So I’ll never give up
Never give in
Never let a ray of doubt slip in
And if I fall
I’ll never fade
I’ll just get up and try again
Never lose hope
Never lose faith
There’s much too much at stake
Upon myself I must depend
I’m not looking for a place ashore
I’m gonna win

Fellow Camanavans, we can do it. Together we will win. Together, we all shall win. Let's keep on raising the banner of Camanava. Let's continue branding Camanava with excellence. Let us all be champions.

My name is Third Catayoc, your humble president for this term, who’s taking this presidency with pressure, but with utmost privilege.