Written by Margarita
Introduction
On Monday, 24 April, Bloomsbury Speakers had their regular meeting at the Horseshoe Pub. We heard some exceptional entertaining speeches from the Club members and enjoyed an outstanding Table Topics session with Club’s guests.
Roles
The meeting started with a welcome speech from the President Sheldon who told us about his recent trip to Japan and stressed the benefits of public speaking in various areas of life. He introduced Toastmaster Helen who chose friendship as the theme for the night. She then introduced Timekeeper Louisa and moved on to prepared speeches.
Prepared speeches
The first speaker was Pao-Sheng, in his Speech number 2 “The UK: My Second Home and Classroom of Life Lessons” he shared with us the highlights of his experience of living in the UK and compared lifestyle here with the one in Taiwan.
Julian was the second to speak. His speech number 4 entitled “How I Became a Baker” amazed the audience. Not only Julian shared with us his secret recipe of a delicious bread, he also brought a home baked bread loaf and kindly invited everyone to try it! Yummy..!
The third speech was given by Chantal. In her highly entertaining speech number 6 “How (Not) to Get Published” she told us about her personal experience of being a writer and gave the audience some great tips on getting a book published. Most importantly, Chantal inspired everyone not to give up after rejections and follow dreams and passions no matter what.
The last speaker was Agnes. Her speech number 7 entitled “There’s Always Tomorrow” was devoted to procrastination. Agnes made the audience cry with laughter describing how procrastination was stopping her from writing this speech. She also gave us some recommendations on fighting it, for example, “eating a frog” in the morning, i.e. doing the least pleasant task first thing.
Evaluations and Table Topics
After the break, we heard from the four evaluators – Margarita, Peter R, Rupert and Sheldon.
Then Atul, the Table Topics Master, took the floor and invited Rupert, Nigel, Margarita, Julian, Chantal, Chris, Anko and Peter R to participate in impromptu speaking session. Chantal and Julian evaluated each speaker afterwards.
Finally, our visiting General Evaluator, Grant evaluated our club and the meeting.
At the end of the meeting President Sheldon invited Margarita, VP PR of the Club, to tell about her role and invited those who are interested to apply to join the Committee next year. If you would like to learn more about the Committee and/or are interested in joining it, please get in touch!
Awards
Best Speaker: Agnes
Best Evaluator: Sheldon
Best Table Topic: Margarita
On that night one of the club members – Helen – also received Competent Leader Award!
Next meeting
Please mind that next meeting will take place at The Wedge Issue Pizza & Beer (91-95 Clerkenwell Rd, London EC1R 5BX), on Monday, 8 May, at 6.30pm. Come over to practice your public speaking skills and enjoy delicious pizza on the Club!
Please get in touch at [email protected] if you have any questions!
