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Mister Toastmaster, Fellow Toastmasters, Honoured Guests.

Did you know about the Flesh Eating Bacteria called necrotizing fasciitis? This bacteria is found in Bananas exported from Costa Rica. It eats your skin up, and if untreated could lead to possible amputation.

Did you know a boy almost died in a McDonald’s ball pit because he got pricked with a hypodermic needle hiding at the bottom? No more ball pits for my kids!

Well I won’ t depress you too much more, I can tell you how all of you and your friends too can make $200 easy, just by helping Microsoft and Bill Gates.

Don’t have any luck? I know how you can get lots of it, you’ll probably win the lottery afterwards, but you have to send my message out to 10 of your friends first!

This is Chain E-mail and it’s stuff I get forwarded from a few friends and family to my email box, and I just hate it.

Put up your hand if you have NEVER received a chain e-mail.

Well if you don’t like it as much as I do, I’m going to tell you 3 things you can do to stop the chain e-mail and be a chain-breaker!

The first thing, is when you get a chain email, is to check if it is a hoax or an urban legend. There are a few hoax/urban legend websites on the internet that list hoax chain e-mails, and chances are, you will find the one that got sent to you is a hoax or an urban legend. Some of these websites are Snopes.com, TruthOrFiction.com, BreakTheChain.org, and Hoax-Slayer.com. At the end of my talk, I will give you a handout with this information on it.

The second step, after you have verified the email is a hoax, forward it back to the friend who sent it to you with your hoax findings. I’d also put a little note that they may want to forward this information to both those who they emailed to and also the person who emailed them.

I find that if I just delete the email and not go through the trouble of verifying it is a hoax and sending it back to my friend, they more than likely keep sending me more chain e-mail. If you do this a few times, send it back to them, they may realize they should also make the effort to check first before forwarding it.

The third step to be a chain-breaker is to send them a separate email asking them not to send you anymore chain e-mails. That’s your choice if you don’t mind the cutesy friendship ones, I personally don’t like any of them, but you can actually find a few websites that have example open letters you can use to send to your friends.
Now if you are worried you are going to hurt their feelings if you ask them to stop. There is a wonderful secret anonymous sending email website. It’s called StopForwarding.Us and basically asks your friend politely and with good reasons why they should stop forwarding chain emails.

I don’t like chain emails because they clutter my in-box, and since it’s sent by a friend, it doesn’t go into my spam email. It also wastes my time, because then I go spend time looking up the hoax for my friend, because I don’t want the chain e-mail to keep spreading.

These are 3 things I do, and they have reduced the amount of email chains I receive so hopefully if you implement them too. 1. Check if it’s a hoax, 2. Send it back to your friend with your hoax findings, 3. Actually send them an email to stop sending you chains, you’ll also have less junk in your inbox to deal with.