The Gili for nhi Surveyor - CLSA

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THE TOASTMASTERS CLUB
Each Toastmasters Club provides its members with a professionally-prepared
program. Meetings are conducted by
the members themselves in a friendly atmosphere that encourages
self-improvement.
Club meetings include "Table Topics," which allows
members to practice "on-the-spot" speaking — the type of
speaking often needed in daily business. Prepared talks
provide experience in presenting effective speeches that inform,
persuade, inspire, and entertain. Prepared speeches
are based on projects in the Toastmasters Communications
and Leadership manual. The manual takes a step-by-step
approach to speech organization and presentation. By the
time members complete the manual, they've learned how
to prepare and present a dynamic speech.
Each meeting also includes open evaluation, in which the
speaker learns the audience's reactions to his or her presentations.
Evaluation also requires the audience to practice listening
critically and analytically. The business portion of the
meeting lets members develop confidence in leadership situations
as well as polish parliamentary skills.
SUCCESS/LEADERSHIP
The Toastmasters program offers its clubs outstanding opportunities
in corporate training. They will help you build
your thinking power and learn to listen effectively, in addition
to teaching you how to conduct a meeting and master
the art of constructive evaluation. The presenters will learn
how to train, while the participants will develop the strong
communications and leadership skills that are vital to the
workplace.
THE MISSION OF THE CLUB
The mission of a Toastmasters club is to provide a mutuallysupportive
and positive learning environment in which
every member has the opportunity to develop communications
and leadership skills — which in turn fosters self-confidence
and personal growth.
As with any organization, you get out of it what you put
in. I have been an active member since May 1990, and am
very impressed with the program. The clubs are full of fantastic,
positive people who make new friends, improve
themselves, and help others. In my area, Los Angeles, there
are hundreds of clubs throughout the community! Some
meet at 6:00 a.m., some at lunchtime, others in the evening.
There are clubs at City Hall, restaurants, churches, title
companies, prisons, hospitals — just about anyplace there
are people. One new club was formed this year on a battleship,
the USS Missouri out of Long Beach!
I joined a club that meets every Wednesday, from noon
to 1:00 p.m., just one block from my office! Other club meetings
are anywhere from forty-five minutes to two and a half
hours long. Toastmasters offers you the best program available
at a very reasonable cost. A $12.00 initiation fee provides
you with a complete kit of educational materials. Annual
International dues are only $24.00, which include the
monthly magazine subscription.
Plan to be a guest at a club in your area. Check out the
program and become an active member. Remember, Toastmasters
is opportunity!
Contact Toastmasters International World Headquarters for a free, current
list of clubs in your area. Write to Toastmasters International, P.O.
Box 9052, Mission Viejo, CA 92690-9052, or call (714) 858-8255. 0
The "5-Minute" Survey
By Jeremy Evans, P.L.S.
FRED HENSTRIDGE, P.L.S., has a favorite story he tells
when the subject of survey planning comes up. It goes
something like this:
Pablo Picasso was commissioned to create a painting for
a particular celebration somewhere in Europe. When the
day came to begin, he sat down in the studio and began to
stare at the canvas. He pondered and thought for over thirty
hours before he finally stood up, walked to the canvas and
began painting. Five minutes later he announced that he
was finished, signed his name and walked away. The officials
of the celebration were outraged! There was no way
that they were going to pay him for a painting that took five
minutes to create. Picasso scolded the officials stating that
the painting actually took over thirty hours to create; that
during the time he was staring at the canvas he had planned
in detail exactly how the painting was going to look and
how he was going to do it. It has simply taken five minutes
to put this plan on canvas!
In survey literature we hear a lot about planning our
work carefully before undertaking a project, but I'm afraid
we don't practice what we preach very well. In surveying it
seems there is always a rush to get the project "in the field"
and when the field work is done to get it "out the door." We
spend all our time working and worrying about getting the
survey to the client. In reality, the tighter the schedule the
greater percentage of time we should spend in planning (in
detail) exactly how we're going to do the work and who is
going to do it. This planning will allow the survey to be
completed in the most efficient manner possible.
This planning effort should not be restricted to just one
person either. Pre-job meetings are a great place to plan
surveys and get input form all the team members. The
purpose of the pre-job meeting is to determine the most
efficient way to get the work done without sacrificing
quality. I know! I know! We're all the greatest surveyors
who ever lived and we all know everything there is to
know about surveying; but just for the sake of discussion,
the Project Manager, Technical Manger, Project Surveyor,
and Party Chief should meet prior to every project going
in the field. (These people may all be the same person in a
smaller company.) This meeting can be as simple as meeting
at someone's workstation to agree on a typical "off the
shelf" survey, or as detailed as meeting in the manager's
office and going over every aspect of the survey in detail
(technology, methodology, staffing, etc.) Technology and
procedures are changing rapidly and there are always
several ways to do any survey project. When a survey is
planned with this amount of detail, a work plan and
schedule should be produced and given to every member
of the project team so the project is carried out as efficiently
as possible. Once your plan is in place, simply put
it on mylar! (Or digitally on a disk!)
So next time that you have a tight schedule for getting a
project done, stare at your desk or computer screen for a
while and plan your survey in detail. When the boss comes
around and wants to know what you are doing, tell him the
survey will be done in five minutes! ©
Winter/Spring 1992 The California Surveyor 43