Written by Svetlana
Introductions
Our President Swarajit opened the meeting by giving a concise description of what Toastmasters is about and how it can help build confidence in public speaking and leadership skills and even help build excellent career in politics. He announced that it was his last meeting as President and said the experience was extremely rewarding and it had also inspired him to join and become Vice President Public Relations at Excalibur Advanced Speakers Club, and he welcomed the audience to follow the updates and attend that club to learn more about it.
After that, Swarajit introduced the evening’s Toastmaster Jo. He announced that Jo was about to take over as the new President of Bloomsbury Speakers, but Swarajit would continue to provide all-round support and advice as the Immediate Past President, according to the tradition.
Jo gave a brief overview of the agenda and introduced the theme of the day, “endings”, asking each speaker: What period in your life (or a situation in the world) have you been glad to see end and why? What time in your life have you wished would never end and why? Or what film or book has a really great or terrible ending and why?
Jo then introduced the functionaries who were going to assist her that evening:
- Henry, the Grammarian. Henry explained his functions as a Grammarian, that is, watch everyone’s grammar and style and, at the end of the meeting, provide an evaluation of the language usage by speakers, point out mistakes and good figures of speech. He offered the word of the evening “wholeheartedly”, which is an adverb, typically of an action or activity, meaning “with complete and sincere devotion, determination, or enthusiasm; marked by complete earnest commitment; free from all reserve or hesitation”. Henry encouraged all the speakers to use it in their speeches.
- Emily, the Timekeeper. Emily explained her role and encouraged the audience to be aware of the time requirements for speeches, and to take the sound of the gavel seriously. Delivering a speech within a given time slot is an important skill, and in a competition setting failure to do so would mean disqualification of the speaker. She also emphasized that it was important not to finish before the green light was on, which was equally undesirable.
Prepared speeches
With an Icebreaker speech entitled “Living Life Sideways” Peter introduced himself to the club officially (although many of us know Peter as a brilliant impromptu guest speaker, he is now one of us). Peter gave us the gist of his life and professional experiences with a reiterating allusion to the image from early childhood when he was growing up in a chicken farm where occasionally a slaughtered chicken managed to escape and run around, headless. That image translated into an image of a freedom-loving misfit, who strived to escape from oppressive routine wherever he faced it, be it at school, university, or his professional duties and enrich his life with personal intellectual interests and pursuits – his tendency to drift sideways, namely, into studying philosophy, publishing essays in journals, engaging in conversations with philosophers and taking part in philosophical conference in Mediterranean, which he described as a bit of chaos. At the end of the speech the audience couldn’t help applauding with a sense of “wow, what a great journey”.
After that, our second speaker Rebecca, whose answer to Jo’s question about “endings” was that she wished her afternoon nap never ended, delivered her No. 3 speech “Don’t Talk to Strangers”. Rebecca gave three reasons why skills in “small talk” are important in growing up and overcoming the fear of strangers everyone has due to our upbringing and being told not to talk to strangers. In fact, small talk helps us develop gracefulness and acceptance of other people and differences; it’s an excellent icebreaker and an important step in networking; and last but not least, small talk, in so many cases, was the start of important life-long relationships. Rebecca supported her message with humour and lots of personal examples and stories.
Our third speaker Helen delivered her No. 7 Speech “The Dunning-Kruger Effect”, which was quite a smart talk based on scientific research by David Dunning and Justin Kruger (1999) with a message, which sounds a bit of a paradox and pun, “If you don’t know, you can’t know that you don’t know”, or in other words, “If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.” The message is actually quite valid for so many different contexts, such as sales of a learning product, where unperceived need is great, but the buyer doesn’t know about it. Or, for a person in a new job, or for a student, as Helen started her speech with a personal story from her university years when she, being a good student, was shocked by scathing comments from her professors to a presentation, which seemed perfectly well-prepared to her. Tonight though, she kept her audience very attentive by juggling with unusual terms bringing it all to a fairly simply worded conclusion, which sounded like a joke and wouldn’t make sense when you first heard it, “If you don’t know, you can’t know that you don’t know”! There is also a valuable message for Toastmasters was you can’t become a good speaker without experience, guidance and training.
Our fourth speaker Carrie gave her No. 9 speech entitled “The Only Way is Up”. First, she described her personal attitude towards Botox and her first experience of using it. She referred to it and other beautifying and rejuvenating technologies, which women start contemplating from a fairly young age, and not because they are getting older, but because they are scared of getting older. Carrie then delivered a message, which was truly in the spirit of the No.9 speech project “Persuade with Power”. It was based on scientific research, which proved that 52, on average, was an age when woman thinks she is very attractive, and 85 is when she feels the happiest. Carrie finished with the quote “Youth is an illness, which we all will get over”. He speech was received with special applause as the audience felt uplifted that their best years are still to come and that, indeed, life is more about what we feel.
The meeting’s Sergeant at Arms Jon, whose answer to the Toastmaster’s theme of the day was that he wished his travels to South America never ended, introduced our most welcome guests. The introduction was warm, supportive, and encouraging.
Evaluations
Paula evaluated Peter’s icebreaker speech in her very methodical and thorough way. She commended Peter for producing a speech which revealed an experienced storyteller. The performance was brave, resourceful, engaging, with good portion of humour and a lot of really interesting facts from his personal story of enriching his life by drifting away from rigid routine and also allowing his talents of a philosopher and speaker flourish. Paula’s evaluation was expressive, energetic, with signposting adjectives with a lot of content, just like the speech she evaluated.
Svetlana (whose answer to the Toastmaster’s question of the day was that she wished the new Bloomsbury Speakers committee to be as efficient as the previous one) evaluated Rebecca’s No. 3 speech “Don’t Talk to Strangers”, pointing out that the speech had a lot of features that characterise good performance, such as eye contact, vocal variety, and humour with a personal touch. Rebecca, indeed, managed to demonstrate how important the skill of small talk is in growing as a social individual. Svetlana had two recommendations for Rebecca; one was to try and get rid of notes, which in this case were clearly used as refuge to hide nerves, but what, in fact, they did was serve as a button, which was turning on and off her naturally charming personality. Svetlana also called on Rebecca to give more of herself to the audience. However, some nervousness can be good, as in her case it added to her cheerfulness and energised the audience.
Joe evaluated Helen’s No. 7 speech “The Dunning-Kruger Effect” referring to his own experience of delivering a speech based upon a researched topic and challenges that speech project presents. He commended Helen for keeping it all together, all facts and names and concepts and managing to relate it to Toastmasters. Our learning curve is very similar to what Helen described through a scientific research example. What a good way to persuade and to promote the speakers movement, the benefit of experience, guidance, and training in becoming proficient public speakers.
James, who stepped in to evaluate Carrie’s No. 9 Speech “The Only Way is Up”, gave a thorough analysis of her performance, how she started off with an example about Botox injections that made the audience wonder how and why that could be relevant to any of us. But Carrie’s speech, indeed, was charged with power and she used that little personal story as a vehicle into a much more important and serious speech. She persuaded the audience that getting older was not a bad thing at all and James characterised Carrie’s delivery as classy.
Table Topics
The table topics section was chaired by Ahmed (whose answer to Jo’s question was the movie The Sixth Sense, which shocked him by its ending, which he will never forget). Ahmed explained the “rules of the game” as being able to think on your feet and off the cuff and produce a speech with a beginning, a middle and an end. He said that impromptu speaking is a core skill, which Toastmasters clubs help to develop, as we are called upon to deliver unprepared speeches on a daily basis, mostly in a professional, formal setting when he have to speak off the cuff and make sense. He asked the table topic speakers various questions, which they never heard before.
- Peter F’s speech was an answer to Ahmed’s question: Why would he persuade FIFA that rugby ball should be used instead of football? Peter managed to make his speech topical and referred to corruption scandals of FIFA and how not to have world cups in summer in hot climates.
- Egor’s speech was his answer to the question: Which is more important: winning or taking part? Egor talked about university instead of sports and said that grades were important. And in sports, participation is important for people who value health, but for those who value status, winning is more important.
- Guest Kathy in her answer to the question about her favourite sport admitted she didn’t know much about sports and gave a personal story with a lot of humour about how she enjoyed a corporate event where the whole staff including her boss played a game. And her manager’s hopping and falling over was the funniest sport she had ever seen.
- Glen’s speech was an answer to the question: Why should ticket touts be banned? Glen said, they represented micro-capitalism, as far as he was concerned, and were filling the need. So, he wouldn’t ban them remembering the quote: “If I wasn’t doing it then someone else would be doing it”.
- Terry had a question: If you were asked to eliminate one sport what would it be and who would miss it: rugby, wrestling, boxing, bull fighting? He engaged the audience in answering this question finding out what would be pros and cons behind each sport. The final conclusion was to eliminate bull-fighting.
- Emma had a question: what sport would you least like to participate in? She said the previous speaker helped her answer this question that it would be bull fighting, but because there is no bull fighting in Britain anyway, so she would instead promote horse-riding and make it as popular as possible, which determined a strong ending to her speech.
Hari congratulated all the table topic speakers on their courage and provided evaluation for each of them with commendations and helpful recommendations.
Conclusion
Henry reported his Grammarian’s findings to the meeting. He said how important it was to focus on the economy of language, on putting words together thoughtfully, to make the language sound sharp and clear as laser points. He commended Peter on the use of language, such expressive phrases as “headless chicken”, which was not just a smart phrase, but produced a logical and imagery linkage to his life events throughout his story. His other remarkable expressions were “residual nerve signals”, and “dross of pseudoscience”, which made his speech quite interesting and memorable. In Rebecca’s speech “grace and acceptance” sounded quite powerful. In Svetlana’s evaluation, Henry picked out the phrases “naturally charming” and “notes are a refuge”. Henry also gave other examples of speech figures and expressions, which speakers used and commended everyone on active use of the word “wholeheartedly”.
Tony, visiting from HOD Speakers Club, kindly stepped in to provide a general evaluation of the meeting. He started with a very high commendation and congratulated the President, the functionaries, and members on having the reputation of the best club in London. He pointed out the warm atmosphere, and how everyone was genuinely enjoying the meeting and taking part in it. He singled out Jon, as Sergeant At Arms for being attentive, supportive and encouraging towards guests.
Awards
After general evaluator Tony’s detailed report, Jo presented Swarajit with a special award to mark his presidency.
Swarajit spoke about the outgoing committee’s good work and presented the honorary awards to the club officers, VP Education Jo, VP PR Rufina, Treasurer Ahmed and Club Secretary Paula.
Swarajit then announced the new committee members: President Jo, VP Education Helen, VP Membership James, VP PR Svetlana, Treasurer Rebecca, Sergeant At Arms Michelle (who was away on holiday), Club Secretary Liz (also absent), and the Immediate Past President Swarajit.
Finally, the regular awards for the meeting were presented:
- Best table topic: Glen
- Best evaluator: Hari
- Best prepared speech: Helen
- President’s discretionary award: Jon
Next meeting
Our next regular meeting will be held on Monday, 14th July upstairs at The Clerk & Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DU. Doors open at 6:30pm.
