Introduction
Bloomsbury Speakers held their latest regular meeting on Monday 27th November at Wedge Issue Pizza. We were treated to three high-quality speeches and an exciting table topics session centred around birthdays and presents!
Roles
Peter R, President of the Club, opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and by telling the inspiring story of former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, whose first speech in Parliament was drowned out by his peers’ laughter! Peter then handed over to Toastmaster Lei who explained the running order of the meeting. She then introduced Timekeeper Michelle and Grammarian Chantal, who chose “grip” as the word of the day.
Prepared speeches
The first speaker was Sofia with her Competent Communicator Speech #2 “East Meets West”. Sofia explained how moving to London had been somewhat of a cultural shock to her, and she made use of visual props to talk us through a few fundamental differences between the Chinese and British cultures, including how Chinese use their cameras way more than the Brits!
Next to speak was Matt with his Competent Communicator Speech #10 “That Time I Thought the Plane was Crashing”. Matt’s was an inspiring speech about learning to face our fears and using “to do” lists as a way of gradually achieving our goals and empowering ourselves. Fear is a normal and healthy feeling, but should not take over our lives and prevent us from succeeding.
The last speaker was Peter R with his Storytelling Speech #1 “The Moberly-Jourdain Incident”. Peter took us back to the 19thcentury, when two Edwardian women were walking in Versailles and were suddenly catapulted back to the French revolution era through a temporary ripple in time. Of course, nobody believed them!
Swarajit then led the guest introductions.
Table Topics
After the break, we heard from the evening’s evaluators – Luisa, Rupert and Sheldon.
Table Topics Master Atul then led a fantastic impromptu session on birthdays and presents, which Rachel, Anoushka, Jamie, Miro, Rajeet, Harry, Yamina and Rupert participated in. Highlights included Rachel’s ideal week-long birthday celebration (which of course includes a trip to Hawaii) and Rupert’s devious plan to buy the most boring book in the world as a birthday gift for his worst enemy.
Margarita evaluated all table topics speakers.
Finally, visiting General Evaluator Billy evaluated our club and the meeting.
We were gripped from beginning to end!
Best Speaker: Matt
Best Evaluator: Margarita
Best Table Topic: Rachel and Rupert
Next meeting
The next regular meeting will take place at Wedge Issue Pizza & Beer (91-95 Clerkenwell Rd, London EC1R 5BX), on Monday 11th December 18:30-21:00. Come over to practice your public speaking skills and enjoy delicious free pizza!
Please feel free to get in touch at [email protected] if you have any questions.
