Our penultimate Toastmasters meeting of the year was held at our brand new backup venue, The Apple Tree pub in Mount Pleasant, London.

Introduction

Club President Femi opened the meeting by encouraging people to treat Toastmasters as a “hired audience” for practicing their public speaking. He also encouraged members to seek out a mentor to help them improve their skills as efficiently as possible and to take every opportunity speak, including entering club competitions.

Femi handed the meeting over to the Toastmaster for the evening, Renars, who introduced his theme of the evening – memorable cinema experiences – by donning a pair of 3D glasses!

Timekeeper Gemma (first cinema experience Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) explained the importance of keeping to time during the meeting and shared that she felt her own life as a trainee teacher was currently very much ruled by the clock.

Grammarian Bronia (memorable childhood movie E.T.) explained her role as the person responsible for looking out for good and bad uses of language and gave the example of looking out for “umms” and “ahhs” – her own “pet peeve”. She also introduced an anti-Word of the Day – “really” – and encouraged people to replace it with other more interesting words.

Prepared Speeches

New member Barney (memorable film There Will Be Blood) was the first speaker up to the lectern to give his ice breaker speech The French Connection. Though born in the UK he explained that he’d spent most of his life in France and used his very first speech to explore the idea of his own nationality, through the prisms of food and science.

The second speech was another ice breaker by another new member Alex, whose memorable cinema experience was suffering the embarrassment of her parents making their own popcorn and sneaking it into films. Her speech “A Different Life in London” told the personal story of moving to London from Sweden nine years ago and how her time here has helped her to overcome her shyness. She attributed Londoners’ mastery of small talk to the mild (compared to Sweden) weather which puts strangers together outside more often.

The third speaker was Ed (memorable movie – Raiders of the Lost Ark) whose speech “My Recovery & The Alexander Technique” was a follow-up to his ice breaker speech about a bad sporting injury suffered at university. In this No. 2 speech (Organise Your Speech) Ed told us about his teacher, who had herself recovered from a very bad knee injury using the technique. With her help he learned to “unwind” bad habits and over time he found himself feeling taller and stronger.

The final prepared speech was another No. 2 speech, this time from Eugenia (memorable film the “pinnacle of trash horror” Curse of Snake Valley). In her speech “An Asteroid, Mr President” she told us about an online Q&A session featuring President Obama, where he became the victim of a “grammar Nazi” after talking of plans to land a spacecraft on “a asteroid”. Eugenia felt that such pendantry was simply fighting evolution of language (and affected the “tranquility of her mind”!)

Before the break Glen (first film The Jungle Book) led the guest introductions, which gave visiting non-members the opportunity to say a few words about themselves to the rest of the room.

Evaluations

After the break the meeting moved to the evaluations section, where each of the speakers was given feedback by other members.

Returning member Adam (memorable movie experience – his first time seeing Pulp Fiction) gave us a very structured evaluation of Barney’s ice breaker speech, looking at: language, body language, voice and engagement. He enjoyed the colourful language, strong stance, and good vocal volume. He recommended losing the notes and having a clearer ending to the speech. Finally he commended the engagement saying Barney had the audience “eating out of his hands”.

Experienced member Kate (still remembers being scared by Return To Oz) evaluated Alex’s ice breaker speech. She commended the strong opening with great use of humour and the fact that Alex seemed very relaxed and natural on stage. Kate would have liked Alex to use little bit more vocal volume to project to the back of the room and finished by commending the strong structure.

Ahmed (favourite movie also The Jungle Book) was the evaluator for Ed’s No. 2. He commended the opening – particularly the linking back to his ice breaker speech. Ahmed also liked the clear structure with its three main points. He recommended for Ed to not be afraid to fall back on his notes if necessary since this was still an early speech and he ended by commending Ed’s effective use of transitions.

The final evaluator was Carrie (memorable movie The Little Mermaid) who gave her assessment of Eugenia’s No. 2 speech about “grammar Nazis”. She liked Eugenia’s opening supported by a clear structure which led us through into the body of the discussion. She commended various technical aspects of Eugenia’s speech including: rhetorical questions, interesting choice of language and effective use of repetition. She also felt that Eugenia had a real talent for comedy – particularly comic timing and facial expressions – though would have liked a bit more volume.

Table Topics

Hari was our Topicsmaster for the evening and continued Renars’ meeting theme with a number of great movie-related topics, including:

• “What is your alternative ending to E.T.?” – In Glen’s darker ending E.T.’s rescuers get stranded too.
• “Pitch your very own movie featuring Cowboys and Aliens in space” – Wayne wanted to tell the story of how the cowboys got space helmets in the first place.
• “Which movie would you watch again and again and again?” Swarajit – Back to the Future – he already knows the script by heart!
• “A movie is being made of your life story – who would play you?” – Joe said Arnold Schwarzenegger would play a ten-year old warrior version of him
• “Which film star would you invite in for a cup of tea and how would you do it?” – Keiran said he’d persuade Patricia Arquette to be in a realist romance with him.
• “Persuade Boris Johnson to let you blow up The Gherkin in your film” – Liam said he’d just tell Boris it was a firework display.

Taking on the challenge of evaluating all of the topics speakers, Jo (memorable film Grease) had some great comments for the speakers, such as: Glen should tone down his occasionally “frantic” body language, Swarajit should be careful not to allow his hands to become a barrier between him and the audience and Keiran had a great story to tell and made great use of expressive body language.

Reporting as Grammarian, Bronia commended the inspiring and thought-provoking speeches and picked out some great grammar moments, such as some effective replacements for “really” including: “hugely”, “awesomely”, “surprisingly”. Also she noted some fantastic imagery from the speakers, particularly from Alex in her speech.

General evaluator Dave commended the club for the high attendance despite a change of venue and it being an extra meeting. He liked Femi’s use of questions in his introduction and Renars’ great energy as Toastmaster. He enjoyed Gemma’s personal story in her Timekeeper’s introduction and commended Bronia’s language tips for speakers in hers. He liked Glen’s enthusiasm during the guest introductions and also had useful comments for all those other meeting participants not evaluated elsewhere.

Awards

Closing the meeting President Femi thanked Renars for his great performance as Toastmaster and made a few announcements before giving out the awards for the evening.

He gave Ice Breaker certificates to Barney and Alex for reaching the landmark of giving their very first Toastmasters speech.

Based on audience votes, Femi gave out the remaining awards: best Table Topics award went to guest Keiran; best evaluator to Adam; and best speaker to Eugenia. Well done all!

Next meeting

Our final meeting of the year is Monday 10th December, again at The Apple Tree, 45 Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell, WC1X 0AE. To celebrate the end of a great year for Bloomsbury Speakers we’ll be providing some nibbles after the meeting. Please wear something Christmassy!

See you there!