Introduction

Still very fresh, our President Swarajit opened the meeting by giving a brief history and the purpose of toastmasters before introducing the toastmaster for the evening.

Joe Lake the toastmaster explained the three-part programme – 6 prepared speeches and evaluations with no impromptu speaking as it was a special evening to give members an opportunity to do their speeches.  He introduced a theme for the evening:  “Holidays, your favourite holiday and a place you wouldn’t like to go”.  He also introduced two of the ‘functionaries’  the timekeeper and the harkmaster who would be helping him run the meeting:

• Marie – the Timekeeper – kept watch of the time and reported back to the audience how everyone used their allocated time.

Prepared speeches

Helen kick-started her 2nd speech entitled, ‘In your pocket’, with an intriguing question, “What do you have in your pocket?”.  Almost everyone had a mobile phone in their pocket which reinforced findings from Ofcom that 92% of the population uses mobile for calls and data. The history of mobile phones was outlined and how it has changed us and made us more spontaneous.

Rufina on her 3rd speech entitled ‘Where should I relocate next?’ started by expressing her frustration with the unstable weather conditions, especially in Britain. Next, she described the extreme hot weather in her home country Ghana were everyone had a compulsory tan – whether or not they wanted one. We then heard a comparison of a number of countries before New Zealand was eventually revealed as her preferred choice because of its amazing landscape, relaxed lifestyle and favourable weather.

Rajeev in his number 4 speech entitled ‘Summer starts’ took us on a journey of failed attempts to get his summer started before he finally succeeded. On his first attempt to enjoy summer, he lost his personal assistant which turn out to be his mobile phone. The second time he tried cycling around, his trusted steed had a puncture 30minutes into it. However on the last attempt to enjoy summer finally came true when he had an unplanned BBQ at home with his friends.

Joowon set about her number 2 speech entitled ‘New Trend in Bonus culture’ and in setting off her speech asked the audience which of them had shopped in the retail shop John Lewis & Waitrose in the last 8 months. As a strategy,  we heard how John Lewis set up a mutual scheme where every employee was made a shareholder thereby enjoying bonuses. In so doing employees were motivated to speak directly with customers to know what they wanted and brought those feedback to the boardrooms. The pros & cons of this bonus scheme were outlined in the rest of Joowon’s speech.

Sam gave his 5^th speech entitled ‘Mua Mission’ an amazing little church in the middle of a bush in Malawi. He said if there was a secret wonder of the world it could be counted as one. It was oozing with wonderful and detailed carvings including that of 8 foot carved men with shields and spears that look very real. Some carvings looked like that of Picasso where he got his inspiration from. The church was headed by a Canadian priest who was initiated into Mua’s secret society.

Michael began his advanced management speech entitled ‘New Deal’ by promoting the progress and success of his company, Age UK as the largest retailers of gas and electricity. In continuing customer loyalty, he expounded on how a new change was been introduced where people can buy energy on a yearly contract basis. “This new scheme will,” he explained, “work just like buying insurance and they are confident that customers will remain and still attract more based on their bonus system.”

Evaluations

Elena commended Helen’s use of question in the opening of her speech because it immediately engaged the audience and she was very pleased with her strong conclusion. Other commendations given were great body language, voice projection and pauses, however she could give the speech from another point of view.

Henry who evaluated Rufina’s third speech commended her on a well structured and conversational speech. He described Rufina as a queen of hand gestures which worked well in addition to injecting good jokes. However the speech was heavily based on the weather and he was not entirely convinced she would moved solely because of the weather.

Femi enjoyed Rajeev’s speech enormously which was a feast of beautiful words that could be heard over and over again without getting bored. He also liked the great structure of the speech however spotted a grammatical error and advised Rajeev to avoid these as they can undermine a speaker’s credibility.

Ratan before evaluating Joowon’s speech briefly outlined the objectives of her speech. He  started by commending her on a good opening which drew the audience in, picking a subject matter everyone could relate to and for delivering a very informative speech. His recommendation was for her not to apologise to the audience but go ahead with the message.

Glen thought Sam’s speech was fantastic as he took us on a Mua Mission journey. He commended his impressive stage presence and firm stance which he also cheekily likened to that of a bouncer. But he was fascinated about the story and the details of the art brought the story to life for Glen. Glen’s recommendation was to be more concrete about what knowledge he had.

Hari started Michael’s evaluation by outlining the speech objectives and praised him for the sincerity of his speech. Despite the sincerity, Hari felt he was not entirely clear about the changes being described. All the same, he commended Michael on bringing to life information that was new to the audience and how Michael had improved a lot in his speeches.

Reports

Harkmaster

Janet the Harkmaster tested the audience’s listening skills by asking questions based on speeches heard in the evening. Who ever got the correct answer was rewarded with a chocolate.

Dele Ogun a member of Early Birds toastmasters club was our General Evaluator for the evening. He gave expert feedback for all those that had not yet been evaluated and for the club as a whole.

Awards

Swarajit made some club announcements and gave out awards based on votes from the audience:

• Sam after delivering his 5th speech received a ‘half-competent communicator’ award.
• Best evaluator went to Glen.
• Best speaker went to Helen and Michael.

Next meeting

Our next regular meeting will be held on Monday, 22^nd July 2013 upstairs at The Clerk & Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DU.

Doors open at 6.30pm for a prompt 6.45pm start.

Introductions

Brand new President Swarajit opened his very first meeting by telling the story of how he came to join Toastmasters three years ago before handing the meeting over to his immediate predecessor Femi who was the evening’s Toastmaster.

Femi explained the three-part programme – prepared speeches, evaluations and impromptu speaking – and introduced his theme for the evening: favourite smartphone apps. He then introduced two of the ‘functionaries’ who would be helping him run the meeting:

• Rufina – the Timekeeper – explained the three colour codes for speech timing and cautioned speakers to be mindful of the gavel. She also shared the story of a colleague who was supposed to give a 15-minute speech but ran on for 45 minutes, delaying everyone’s lunch.
• Alex – the Grammarian – introduced herself alliteratively as the “Grumpily Grateful Grammarian” (grumpy because of a missed morning coffee, grateful because of the weather) and introduced the word of the day – “malleable”.

Prepared Speeches

The first prepared speech was an Ice Breaker speech from Liz entitled “My Life”. She told the story of her eventful early life, which included being born in central London, growing up with a foster mother and attending the Judi Dench acting school. She told us that having her own daughter gave her a “steely determination” to succeed while a period of overwork gave her a different perspective on life.

The second speech was a No. 4 speech from Samuel who told us about his experiences of boarding schools when he was growing up in Africa. In the first school he was forced to stand with his face to the wall for 2 hours and “think about why he was there” and on another occasion to roll a pencil across a field with his nose! His second school was even worse – pupils were forced to exercise from 3am-5am in the mornings and bad behaviour was punished by beatings.

Henry gave his No.8 speech entitled “Digital Disruption”. Despite challenges with his visual aids (computer and external screen refusing to play together) he calmly presented his speech while balancing his laptop in one hand! Henry told us of the highly disruptive nature of digital technology and its ability to fundamentally change whole industries in a very short space of time. We learned that while it took radio 38 years to reach 50 million ‘users’, it took Facebook less than 4 years.

Glen gave his first advanced speech from the Storytelling manual entitled “Folk Tale: Death’s Messengers”.  By way of introduction he told us about his search for a lesser-known tale to tell, which he picked from more than 200 fairy tales published by The Brothers Grimm. His final choice was a story about a boy’s chance encounter with Death which led to a rather unusual promise being made.

Evaluations

Mike, evaluating Liz’s Ice Breaker speech, commended her on the level of detail in her speech which demonstrated lots of preparation, but cautioned against trying to fit too much content into one speech.

Peter commended Samuel’s great voice projection and said that he connected strongly with Samuel’s choice of topic. He thought the speech was particularly impressive given that Samuel had stepped in at the last minute.

Jo said that she felt Henry’s technical issues had been due to him tempting fate by giving a technical presentation about “digital disruption”! She said he had good body language despite holding the laptop throughout and also liked his use of repetition and the variety of his language.

Renars was impressed by Glen’s storytelling and said that it took him back to a time as a child when he would listen to fairy tales on an old Russian radio. His only recommendation was to watch the time because he felt the speech had ended a little abruptly.

Table Topics

Topicsmaster Ahmed introduced his theme – Work – and challenged members and guests alike to answer a number of work-related questions, including:

• You are Boris Johnson’s PR manager – how do you persuade people he’s a serious person?
• What’s the most embarrassing situation you’ve ever encountered at work?
• If you lived 100 years ago what would your job be?
• Why do some companies prefer graduates to have a 2:2 degree instead of a 2:1 or 1^st?
• You are a “parking enforcement officer” – tell us why you are good for the economy

Reports

Bronia was the Table Topics Evaluator and took on the tricky task of almost immediately providing feedback to each topic speaker.

Alex presented her Grammarian’s report, highlighting her favourite uses of both language generally and of the word of the day “malleable”.

Immediate District Governor for UK and Ireland Freddie Daniells was our General Evaluator and gave expert feedback for all those not evaluated elsewhere and for the club as a whole.

Awards

Swarajit gave out the awards for the evening. His president’s award went to Samuel for giving a speech at short notice after another speaker dropped out. The remaining awards (voted for by the audience) were as follows:

• Best Table Topic went to Ben for his persuasive defence of traffic wardens
• Best Evaluator was shared by Jo and Bronia for their evaluations of Henry and the table topics respectively
• Best Speaker went to Glen for his folk tale “Death’s Messengers”

Closing the meeting Swarajit reminded members that Bloomsbury would be hosting a free Humorous Speech and Table Topics workshop on 29th July (get tickets here), run by past UK & Ireland champions Ola Aralepo and David Jones.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting is a special “Speakathon” and will be held on Monday 15^th July 2013 upstairs at The Clerk & Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DU.

Doors open at 6.30pm for a prompt 6.45pm start.