Written by Chantal
Introduction
On Monday 25 July we met upstairs at our regular venue, the Clerk and Well, for a regular meeting of Bloomsbury Speakers. As always we were treated to a range of fascinating topics delivered with gusto by our speakers.
Roles
Toastmaster Clare confidently captained the evening, introducing Timekeeper Andrew who kept schedule timings trim. Clare also introduced Chantal, the Grammarian, whose role was to appraise speakers’ uses of language and to provide a word of the meeting: “laudable”.
Prepared speeches
After opening remarks, the first speaker was Margarita with her No. 9 speech ‘The Importance of Catching Them All’ – a funny and impassioned discussion of the Pokémon Go craze. Her verdict: it’s great!
The second speaker was Henry, who gave us his Storytelling No. 2 speech ‘Living the Dream through Podcasting’. Henry told us how he was being true to himself and to the world by podcasting, a new and exciting foray for him. Check kitchentabletales.co.uk for his latest podcast!
Third up was Helen, delivering her Technical Presentations No. 5 speech ‘What your facebook friends aren’t telling you’. Helen masterfully explained how online social networks can polarise groups and entrench beliefs, and even provided practical advice on how social media users can avoid getting trapped in “echo chambers”.
After the break, we heard from the four evaluators who had been preparing feedback for the three prepared speeches – Peter F, Swarajit and Peter R.
We were then handed over to Table Topics Master Agnes, who served up a delightfully funny Agony Aunt scenario for the Topics speakers. Timekeeper Andrew then gave us the timings for each impromptu speech.
Abraham presented feedback on each of the impromptu speeches we had just heard, before Andrew returned to provide timings for each of the evening’s evaluators.
After a report by Grammarian Chantal, visiting General Evaluator David evaluated all speakers not yet evaluated and provided feedback to the club.
Finally, Sheldon, the President of Bloomsbury Speakers, announced the awards for the evening.
Awards
Best Speaker: Helen
Best Evaluator: Peter F
Best Table Topic: Peter R
Next meeting
Our next meeting will be Monday 8 August at the Clerk and Well (though the venue may be subject to change). Please get in touch at [email protected] if you have any questions!
