Meeting Report for 22 October 2012

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Introduction

With one new member giving an Ice Breaker speech, two members of the club jointly receiving the Best Evaluator award and a general theme of “Simple Pleasures”, it was another enjoyable and well-attended meeting at The Clerk & Well pub.

Henry piloted the meeting in the role of Toastmaster and was assisted by Grammarian Carrie and Timekeeper Steven who oversaw good use of language and time management respectively and reported back to the audience on their findings.

Prepared speeches

New member of the club Eugenia gave her Ice Breaker speech “How Did I Get Here?” in which she compared herself to a dog from a Russian children’s rhyme where at the beginning of a journey the dog is tiny whereas by the end of the journey had changed completely. Eugenia related those transitions to those in her own life: a new language, a new hairstyle and her personality.

In his No. 3 speech “Big City Disconnect” Wayne shared his concern that slow walkers and unexpected interruptions on the street can be extremely annoying, especially on the way to work. One occurrence had forced him to change his mind, however, and consider that it might be him that needs help.

Michael presented his No. 4 speech “Corporate Relations” where he stated that there is no divorce in business between related companies and suggested three reasons why it is so: trust, openness and understanding.

Swarajit gave a PowerPoint presentation for his No. 7 speech entitled “Carbon”. As usual he started the speech with great humour and then gave a detailed overview of the structure and chemical characteristics of carbon and where it can be found in our lives.

Speech evaluations

Joe evaluated Eugenia’s Ice Breaker speech and commended her great posture and animated body language which were in congruence with the story, her use of the whole stage and her brilliant personality and humour. Joe recommended Eugenia work on her voice projection so that people at the back of the room could hear her speech as well.

Evaluating Wayne’s human disconnection speech, Ahmed reminded us of the purpose of the project – to get to the point – and praised the strong opening, body and conclusion of the speech which were related to one another. Ahmed’s recommendation for Wayne was to try not to use notes in the future.

Janet evaluated Michael’s corporate relations speech. She had seen a confident man, well grounded with very good hand gestures. She had also heard a sincere and honest man who called on his audience to be more mature and take responsibility for what they do. However Janet would have liked to have seen a bit more movement on stage.

Elena evaluated Swarajit’s speech about “the bad boy of Mendeleev’s periodic table”. She praised Swarajit’s passion for science, his very thorough research and clear presentation using PowerPoint. However in Elena’s opinion the speech could be improved by making more eye contact with the audience.

Table Topics

Christopher stepped in to perform the Topics Master role of the evening. His “Food” theme added a lot of fun for the participants as well as for the audience as a whole. Regular members and guests tackled the appetite-stimulating questions:

  • What is your favourite restaurant in London?
  • What is the food that makes you most happy?
  • What food reminds you of your childhood?
  • Is meat murder?
  • What is the most unusual food you have had?
  • Who has the better food: Britain or France?

Awards

Closing the meeting the club President Femi gave out the awards based on the audience votes cast during the evening and one special President’s award.

The certificate for successfully completing her Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster – went to Eugenia.

The Best Table Topics Speaker award went to Jo for her “favourite local restaurant” topic.

The Best Evaluator award was shared between Janet for her evaluation of Michael’s No. 4 speech and Jason for his Table Topics evaluation.

The Best Speaker award went to Wayne for his successful No. 3 speech.

The President’s discretional award went to Christopher for his interesting Table Topics section.

Next meeting

Next Monday, 29th October 2012 is our Evaluation Workshop hosted by Chris Boden, UK & Ireland Contest Champion 2011 at our usual venue, upstairs at The Clerk and Well pub.

Our next regular meeting is an extra one on Monday, 5th November 2012, again upstairs at The Clerk and Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road,London,EC1R 5BX.

Meeting Report for 8 October 2012

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Written by Elena.

Introduction

With a brand new member giving her Ice Breaker speech, the visiting General Evaluator taking the Best Table Topic award and everyone benefiting from insightful speech evaluations, it was another great meeting.

The Toastmaster was Kaveh (from our sister club Holborn Speakers) who hosted the meeting under the theme: “What would you do if money was not an object” He was supported by Grammarian Henry and Timekeeper Saija who gave short introductions to their roles.

Prepared speeches

The first speaker of the evening, Bronia, gave her Ice Breaker speech entitled “Human Rights Campaigning”. Born in France, she told us about her childhood memories relating to her grandmother, who told great stories about the Second World War. Bronia shared that she had joined Toastmasters to practise public speaking for a human rights campaign project.

Next speaker Steven presented No. 2 speech entitled “The Joker in the Pack” in which he discussed the role of jokers throughout history and what we can learn from them. From one point of view a Joker is a man who is a famous comic. Shakespeare’s “King Lear” describes a fool boy who advised powerful people but whose death was consequently very probable. At the conclusion of the speech Steven encouraged the audience to be a bit of Joker themselves and to give honest recommendations with humour or love.

In No. 3 speech entitled “The Bliss of Ignorance” Christopher told the audience about his journey from ignorance (when he was a lot happier) to enlightenment – from arrogance to gaining more social responsibility. Christopher confessed he did not have a master plan to change Britain’s current poverty statistics, but he was very passionate about being part of the change, realising how fortunate he was compared to others.

The last speaker, who stepped in last minute, was Janet with her speech No. 5 entitled “The Future of Work”. While others seemed to think that the future of work being more creative, she felt that work needed to be more human. Every company should have: a pair of eyes to see and encourage talents, ears which would be able to hear good ideas and valuable feedback, and a mouth which would speak wisely. Janet concluded the speech with the phrase: “The future of work does not exist, the future of work is now!”.

Speech evaluations

Evaluating the Ice Breaker speech Michael commended Bronia’s good presentation and great storytelling skills, her good opening and conclusion. He recommended that she concentrate more on the main details and to avoid distracting descriptions.

Jason evaluated Steven’s Jokers speech. He reminded us of the main objective of the No. 2 speech – to organise your speech. Jason liked the beginning when Steven had discussed duality of the Joker, his great use of free-flowing humour and his very engaging smile. Jason would have liked to have seen more clear points in the speech.

Joe evaluated Christopher’s No. 3 speech. He praised Christopher’s enthusiasm and jokes at the beginning of the speech which were very captivated, very good structure of the speech,visual metaphor descriptions and a call to action. However, he noticed that the lectern had created a barrier which prevented full engagement.

Glen gave a thorough evaluation of Janet’s very creative speech. He complimented her on very natural body language which helped emphasise the points and reinforce the speech. He also liked the brilliant metaphor of making a company more human by giving it human attributes like a pair of eyes, a mouth, etc. In Glen’s opinion the speech could have benefited from a clearer transition from introduction to main body.

Table Topics

Topics Master of the evening was Swarajit who took on the role of potential employer and interviewed topics participants by asking them the following questions:

  • You are being interviewed for the job of your dreams – why should we hire you?
  • What is more important: status or salary?
  • What is the worst job you ever had?
  • Are women or men better bosses?
  • What is your biggest weakness?

Awards

Closing the meeting the club President Femi gave out the awards based on the votes cast during the evening and one special President’s award.

The Best Table Topics Speaker award went to General Evaluator David (like Kaveh, also a member of Holborn Speakers).

The Best Evaluator award was given to Joe for his evaluation of Christopher’s Enlightenment speech.

The Best Speaker award went to Janet for her brilliant “Future of Work” speech.

The President’s discretional award went to Swarajit for his job on filling in the evening’s agenda and last minute stepping in as Topics Master.

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest

Bloomsbury Speakers is hosting the Area 34 final of these contests on Monday, 15th October, 2012. Please come along to support Glen and David who are representing Bloomsbury against other local clubs. Venue and start time are the same as our regular meetings below.

Next meeting

Our next regular meeting is on Monday, 22nd October 2012, upstairs at The Clerk and Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BX. Arrive from 6.30pm for a 6.45pm start.

Extra meeting

We’ve had a lot of new members since we re-opened our membership and to help people get going on their speeches and other roles we’ve added a new meeting – Monday, 5th November, 2012, in the normal place at the normal time.

Book your roles in ClubPlan now!

October Newsletter – new members, area contest and evaluation workshop

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Hello and welcome to the October newsletter!

This month we have important updates on club area contests including how you can support our winners – Glen who won the Humorous Speech Contest and David who took the Table Topics Award – and I want to promote some workshop news.

But first, with membership having re-opened at the end of September, I want to welcome five brand new members: Alex, Bronia, Ed, Eugenia, Michael and Paul. We are delighted to have you in the fold and I’m particularly excited to see some of you already on this month’s agenda – I’m referring here to Bronia who is giving her ice-breaker speech this coming Monday, and Eugenia who will be giving on hers on the 22nd.

I also want to recognize Janet’s exploits at the TEDx Future of Work speech contest which took place at The London Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday 26th September. Janet delivered a three minute speech against a fairly tough field of ten other contestants and although she wasn’t one of the two winners, she was one of the two “highly commended” speakers who were asked to act as reserve speakers. Well done Janet!

(Remember, if you’re in a hurry, you can scroll to the very end of the newsletter to get a list of the key things you need to know!)

What’s happened since the last newsletter?

We had two fascinating meetings in September: the highly entertaining club-level round of the Humorous Speech and the Table Topics contests and a regular club meeting which was exciting in its own right.

What’s planned for October?

October is brimming with four meetings – on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th.

This is because beyond our two regular meetings Bloomsbury Speakers will also be hosting the area-level round of the Humorous Speech and the Table Topics contests!  We will also be hosting an Evaluation Workshop meeting.

Regular Meeting – Monday 8th October

This is a regular meeting and while speaking slots are already booked up, you can put yourself down for a table topics slot.

Tip: Experienced functionaries to watch are: David Jones our General Evaluator from Holborn Speakers who was the winner of London Toastmasters Division B Table Topics Contest last year; Kaveh Pourvand, our guest Toastmaster for the meeting, also from Holborn and has already achieved his Competent Communication Award; and our own David Gwyer, an Advanced Toastmaster and winner of our own Table Topics contest last month.

Area Contest Meeting – Monday 15th October

This second meeting is not a regular meeting; instead it’s our Humorous Speech and Table Topics Area Contest night. This is when the winners of the club contests compete to decide who will represent our area at the Division level. In case you are not aware, there are four charter clubs in our area: Bloomsbury Speakers, Holborn Speakers (our sister club), Tube Talk and Law Speak. So this contest will, technically, be among four contestants in for contest.

The contest promises to be highly entertaining and enlightening, don’t miss it!. If anything, please come along to support Glen (for the Humorous Speech contest) and David (for the Table Topics) who will be representing us. Finally, if you would like to perform a functionary role at the meeting, please drop me a message at president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk and I’ll give you more details.  

Regular Meeting – Monday 22nd October

This is a standard regular meeting which is also already full in terms of speeches but you can still put yourself down on the agenda either as an evaluator or as a table topics participant.

Tip: If you want to see exemplary Toastmaster role in action, then make sure you watch how Henry Playfoot, who will be our Toastmaster, runs the meeting. Glen is another person to watch as he gives his evaluation.

Evaluations Workshop Meeting – Monday 29th October

This is an enlightening, energetic and interactive presentation that is certain to improve the standard of YOUR evaluations.

The session will be run by Freddie Daniells, the present UK and Ireland Toastmasters International District Governor. If you’ve been to one of his Evaluation sessions before, you’ll know how good it is, so you’ll want to go again! If not, well, you have a treat in store!

More about the details of the workshop itself shortly, but if you would like to attend please email me at president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk so we can prepare for numbers.

What’s on the horizon?

We’ve got two meetings in November – on the 12th and 26th.

  • Monday 12th November 2012 – Regular Meeting – Speech-wise, this first meeting is already booked up. However, there’s one ice-breaker slot for new joiners, one Evaluator slot and three table topics slots up for grabs. Finally, competent communicator achievers to watch out for are Glen (our Toastmaster for the night) and Kate (who will be performing an evaluator role).
  • Monday 26th November 2012 – Regular meeting – There are plenty of roles still to be filled in this meeting including the Toastmaster, Timekeeper, three Evaluator slots, Topics Evaluator, etc. Don’t delay; book your slot now before they are gone! I recommend watching out for Hari who will be delivering an advanced speech on the night.

Want to improve your evaluations skills? Then Freddie Daniells’ Exceptional Evaluations Workshop is for you

Arguably the most important role within a Toastmasters meeting is the role of the evaluator. By encouraging and motivating the speaker we can pass on the tips they need to improve their speaking next time. However, it is also one of the most difficult roles to get right.

  • Do you find it challenging to identify the key issues you need to comment on?
  • Do you struggle to finish within time?
  • Do you find it difficult if the speaker is more advanced than you are?
  • Or do you simply want to find that extra polish that will help you in future contests?

No matter your level, this workshop is for you!

On Monday October 29th, Freddie Daniells will bring his highly interactive Exceptional Evaluations workshop to Bloomsbury Speakers. And by the end of the session, you will be able to:

  1. Pick the best content to include in your evaluations
  2. Structure your evaluations more effectively
  3. Make your points so that both the speaker and the audience get maximum benefit

Freddie Daniells is a member of Holborn Speakers (where I first joined Toastmasters six years ago; actually he was the president at the time and one of the members who inspired me to join Holborn Speakers) and Excalibur Speakers, London’s advanced Toastmasters Club. He is the present Toastmasters International District Governor for Great Britain and Ireland. Professionally, he coaches senior executives and professionals on how to improve their most critical presentations and public speeches.

He strongly believes that giving feedback is one of the most important life skills that you can learn and has embarked on a one man mission to raise the quality of evaluations across the country!

That’s all.

See you in a meeting very soon!

Femi Asaolu
President
Bloomsbury Speakers

Key facts – just the stuff you really need to know

  • Our next regular meetings are on Monday 8th October and Monday 22nd October.  There are still evaluator roles and Table Topics slots to fill at these meetings.)
  • Bloomsbury Speakers is hosting the Area Contest on Monday 15th October –  best of luck to Glen and David who are representing us in the Honorourous Speech contest and the Table Topics Contest respectively. Let’s support them by attending and come along to enjoy the fun!
  • Freddie Daniells, the UK and Ireland District Governor, is bringing his Evaluation Workshop to Bloomsbury Speakers on Monday 29th October.   If you would like to come please email me so we can prepare for numbers – president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk
  • Our meetings in November are on the 12th and the 26th.