Meeting Report for 28 January 2013

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Introduction

It was all change at this week’s meeting as, due to illness, a last minute switch of roles was made.  Immediate Past President Glen stepped in to act as President once more. He opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and outlined the Toastmaster’s programme to new guests. He then handed over to current President Femi who was the evening’s Toastmaster.

Femi quickly had the audience clapping at his demand and requested everyone to applaud participants warmly and keep the energy in the room high.

Timekeeper Adam explained the importance of keeping to time during the meeting and outlined the colour coded programme and how he would be timing participants.

Grammarian Glen explained his role as the person responsible for looking out for good and bad uses of language. His Word of the Day was possibly the shortest ever – ‘apt’ – and he encouraged everyone to try and slot it into their speeches.

Prepared Speeches

Guest speaker Kimberley was the first speaker up to give her No 2 speech “It’s not what you do, it’s what it does to you”. She spoke about her views of travelling and the life skills it can teach you. She explained this by showing how you could respond to interview questions by referencing events from your travels.

The second speaker was Eugenia. Her No 3 speech “I do not have a TV” reasoned that we should not be made to feel bad by people who say they don’t have a TV as they are not better than us. In fact you can still watch TV without actually owning one and people who watch no TV are isolating themselves from the real world.

The final prepared speech from Chris whose No 5 speech was entitled ‘Grey power… How the old will shape our future”. He reflected on the aging population and what it means for the world.

Before the break Swarajit led the guest introductions where non-members said a few words about themselves to the rest of the room.

Evaluations

After the break the meeting continued with the evaluations section, where each speaker received feedback from other members.

Carrie evaluated Kimberley’s No 2 speech. She commended her smile, open body language and clear opening statement. She noted the humour in the speech and the referencing of interview questions. She recommended a longer opening to signpost the upcoming structure and to keep returning to this structure to keep the listener informed as to where we were in the speech.

Janet was the evaluator for Eugenia’s No. 3 speech and commended Eugenia’s confidence, passion, use of the rule of 3 and the humour and through the use of the TV catchphrases. She recommended not drawing attention to the moment she lost her train of thought as otherwise the audience might not have realised.

The final evaluator was Michael who gave his assessment of Chris’s No 5 speech. He liked that Chris had tackled a serious topic, had facial expressions which matched the topic and used the full stage. He also commended the expressive language and closing statement.

Table Topics

Jo was the Topics Master for the evening and as we had only heard three prepared speeches there was time for 8 topics. The topics were all related to events which had occurred on January 28th in previous years. These included:

  • the anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion – do we need space travel and space exploration?
  • the birth of Jessica Ennis – what sporting event would you like to train for?
  • the anniversary of the first UK speeding conviction – convince us you don’t deserve that speeding ticket.
  • the patenting of Lego – what are your memories of Lego?
  • the anniversary of the publishing of Pride and Prejudice – what is your favourite book and why?
  • the anniversary of the death of Henry VIII – what would you do if you were suddenly made England’s monarch?
  • the birth of Elijah Wood – which film role would you love to play?
  • the anniversary of the death of Jackson Pollack – convince us that your art is very valuable.

Taking on the challenge of evaluating all of the topics speakers, Joe offered his feedback for the speakers. He found it a very humourous set of responses but had a few recommendations.  These included really getting into the role play when applicable, avoiding saying ‘I can’t think of anything else’ as a closing statement and, if you find a good idea, keep running with it.

Reporting as Grammarian and having heard a ‘tsunami of vocabulary’, Glen picked out some of his favourite phrases and also made a few recommendations where language could have been improved.

General evaluator Paul commended the club and highlighted what an enjoyable evening he had had and provided evaluations to all functionaries who had not already been evaluated.

Awards

Closing the meeting Acting President Glen thanked Femi for stepping in as Toastmaster before giving out the awards for the evening.

The President’s Award went to Carrie for her evaluation of Kimberley’s speech.

Based on audience votes, Glen gave out the remaining awards: best Table Topic went to Paul, best evaluator to Joe, and best speaker to Eugenia.  Chris also received a ‘Half Competent Speaker’ ribbon to recognise he was now halfway through his 10 speeches.  Well done all!

Next meeting

Members: Don’t forget our Evaluation Workshop on Monday 4th February entitled ‘Exceptional Evaluations’ and run by Freddie Daniels

Our next regular meeting is Monday 11th February, upstairs at The Clerk & Well, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU.

Meeting report by Jo.

Meeting Report for 21 January 2013

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Introduction

Club President Femi opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and setting out the skills that Toastmasters could help participants build including confidence.

Femi handed the meeting over to the Toastmaster for the evening, Glen, who likened himself to a drummer in a band who’s in charge of the set list and keeping everyone else on time. He also introduced his theme for the evening – alternatives – asking speakers to say what sets them apart from others.

Timekeeper Damien explained the importance of keeping to time during the meeting and outlined how he would be timing participants.

Grammarian Elena explained her role as the person responsible for looking out for good and bad uses of language and promised chocolate to anyone who assisted in her report at the end of the meeting. She also introduced a Word of the Day – “flabbergasted” – and encouraged people to use it during their speeches.

Prepared Speeches

Recent member Gemma was the first speaker up to give her No 2 speech “Surviving a Meltdown”. She explained the concept of mindfulness – a method for helping us deal with stressful situations and even got the audience practicing as part of her speech.

The second speaker was Wayne. His No 4 speech entitled “Alexander the Great” questioned the greatness of Alexander and drew comparisons between him and Hitler in terms of motives and reputation.

Next up was Janet whose No 7 Research speech “Progress” debunked some of the popular beliefs about single parents. She argued that they are not a drain on society and do not produce delinquent children using data found from a variety of sources. She ended with a video clip of her daughter explaining what she wanted to do when she grew up.

The final prepared speech was an Advanced speech in which Paul was ‘interviewed’ by our Toastmaster Glen and spoke about his first feature film ‘Blood will Tell’ which was also the title of the speech.

Before the break Chris 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.

Ed gave us his evaluation of Gemma’s No 2 speech. He commended Gemma’s body language particularly use of her hands and eye contact. He recommended not using the lectern as it encourages the speaker to talk to it.

Ahmed evaluated Wayne’s No 4 speech. He described it as thought-provoking and noted the use of short sentences and pauses to enable the listener to digest the content. Ahmed would have liked Wayne to include more vocal variety to emphasise Alexander’s character.

Adam was the evaluator for Janet’s No. 7 speech.  He commended the clear structure including the use of three main points and her body language as she moved around the stage. He recommended she avoid handclasping and suggested a stronger ending may have been possible.

The final evaluator was Swarajit who gave his assessment of Paul’s Advanced speech. He liked Paul’s vocal variety and highlighted that even when he dropped his voice to a whisper there was still good voice projection. Swarajit questioned if the speech should have been delivered primarily to the interviewer or the audience and also recommmended replacing filler words with pauses.

Table Topics

Joe was our Topicsmaster for the evening and the topics were all related to New Year’s resolutions with participants discussing their best and worst resolutions, why they were a waste of time and even trying to persuade Boris Johnson to make them mandatory for all.

Taking on the challenge of evaluating all of the topics speakers, Renars pulled no punches with his candid but valuable comments for the speakers. These included standing forward but not so far forward that the front row have to turn sideways, keeping a steady eye contact and keeping hands out of pockets while speaking.

Reporting as Grammarian, Elena commended the speech used throughout the evening and picked out some of her favourite moments. She then kept true to her word and offered a chocolate to everyone who commended someone else’s language.

General evaluator Ian commended the club for its warm welcome on a frosty evening singling out Femi’s smile and Glen’s great energy as Toastmaster.

Awards

Closing the meeting President Femi thanked Glen for his polished Toastmaster role before giving out the awards for the evening.

The President’s Award went to Gemma for her Kung Fu Panda quote “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift, and that is why it’s called the present.”

Based on audience votes, Femi gave out the remaining awards: best Table Topic went to Chris, best evaluator to Ahmed, and best speaker to Janet. Well done all!

Next meeting

Our next meeting is Monday 28th January, upstairs at The Clerk & Well, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU.

See you there!

Meeting report by Jo.

Meeting Report for 14 January 2013

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Introductions

Club President Femi opened the first meeting of 2013 by speaking a little about Toastmasters and welcoming the many guests in attendance. He encouraged members to take full advantage of Toastmasters to meet their goals this year and gave advance warning of a forthcoming evaluation workshop on February 4th – a great way to prepare for the evaluation contest in the Spring.

Femi handed over to the Toastmaster for the evening – Hari – who gave an overview of the meeting agenda and introduced his theme for the evening – 80s movie heroes! (He’d just read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography).

Hari introduced his first “helper”, Chris, who gave an overview of his role as the Timekeeper and explained the “traffic light” system used to help speakers keep within their allotted times.

Grammarian Carrie (80s hero – Baby from Dirty Dancing) explained her role as having two main responsibilities: 1) Picking a word of the day and 2) Assessing the quality of language used throughout the meeting. A self-confessed psychology junkie, she introduced “gratitude” as her word of the day – hoping that it would subconsciously make us all more grateful for what we have!

Prepared speeches

The first speaker was Paula (80s hero Tom Selleck) with a No. 4 speech entitled “Promises, Promises, Promises”. She told us that the promise she’d made last year was to work more for herself. By reading around the subject and navigating a path between two schools of thought – the “love yourself first” and “set big goals” points of view – she did achieve her goal. However it turned out that she didn’t enjoy working for herself as much as she thought but learnt a useful lesson.

The next speaker was Ahmed (favourite 80s film Alien) with his No. 6 speech “New Year Resolutions”. He told us that New Year Resolutions don’t work due to the lack of an action plan and recommended setting New Year goals instead. The steps were: write down your goal; write down the benefits; identify any obstacles; determine what skills/knowledge you need; and identify the people, organisations and networks you need to help you.

The third speaker was experienced member Kate (80s hero – Kenneth Williams) with her first advanced speech taken from the Storytelling manual. Kate presented the classic tale of Dick Whittington and his cat. In a very engaging style she told the story of Dick’s ascent from farmhand to kitchen servant to cabin boy to merchant to Lord Mayor of London!

The fourth and final speech of the evening was from Punam (80s hero – Wonder Woman) with an Ice Breaker speech entitled “Origins of a Fear”. Starting with her first childhood crush, she told the story of how her fear of public speaking started – being put on the spot by her family when she was just 7 years old.

Evaluations

Damien (80s hero – MacGyver) evaluated Paula’s speech about promises. He felt that her speech was very strong in terms of body language and voice projection – and he particularly liked her “authoritative” hand gestures. He suggested that Paula could have been a little more succinct with her sentence structure.

Angela (90s hero – Macaulay Culkin) evaluated Ahmed’s speech about New Year Resolutions. She liked the way Ahmed energetically launched into his speech and the way he made a potentially negative subject ultimately positive. She liked the power of his voice but felt that there could have been more overall variety in volume and more pauses.

Joe (80s hero – John Rambo) evaluated Kate’s advanced storytelling speech. He liked the elegance and precision of Kate’s language and her use of metaphor which he felt lent the story a real sense of adventure. He also loved Kate’s transitions but recommended that she could have “ramped up” the theatricality of the various characters.

Finally, Renars (80s hero – The Terminator) evaluated Punam’s Ice Breaker. He said that he had really enjoyed the speech and felt it had managed to kill three birds with one stone (!) because it had an “amazing structure”, it managed to draw parallels between public speaking and attraction, and it was personal to her – which is ideal for an ice breaker. He recommended a greater use of the stage and more hand gestures.

Table Topics

Continuing the informal parallel theme of New Year Resolutions the Topicsmaster Steven asked a number of guests and members to give impromptu speeches based on the following suggested resolutions:

  • Resolve to eat more healthy foods
  • Resolve to not take up jogging
  • Resolve to quit your job and join the circus!
  • Resolve to ignore old friends and make new ones
  • Resolve to have big parties instead of weddings
  • Resolve not to have a baby but do babysitting instead

Topics Evaluator Glen (80s hero – John McClane from Die Hard) had praise and recommendations for everyone and particularly commended those guests who had been brave enough to put their names down to present a topic.

Returning with her report, the Grammarian Carrie commended all speakers on their language but singled out Kate for the particularly evocative language in her speech.

Awards

Closing the meeting, Femi handed out various awards:

  • President’s award went to Hari for his great performance as Toastmaster
  • An Ice Breaker certificate went to Punam for her first speech
  • Best evaluator went to Joe for his evaluation of Kate’s advanced speech
  • Best Topics Speaker went to Michael for his response to the “ditch your old friends” topic
  • Best Speaker went to Paula for her “Promises, Promises, Promises” speech

Next meeting

Our next meeting is an extra meeting on Monday 21st January 2013, upstairs at The Clerk & Well, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU.