Meeting Report for 22 February 2016

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Written by Ash

Here we go
The evening’s meeting was opened by long-serving member Hari, who stepped in as acting president for the evening. Hari, a professional public speaker, knows only too well the value of Toastmasters and reminded us all, members and guests alike, that the Toastmasters tried and tested formula develops not only great speakers but great leaders.

We were then handed over to our Toastmaster for the evening – Henry, who was later described as a ‘natural leader ‘ by our general evaluator for the night.

With inspiration from his youngest daughter, Henry introduced us to his theme for the evening – Toast, and what we most like to eat on it.

 

Roles for the evening

Grammarian: Eloquent and articulate as always, our grammarian Nathaniel introduced us to his insightful word of the day ‘Perspicacious’.

Time Keeper: Sheldon kept us all to time

Sergeant At Arms: Swarajit, our former president, welcomed a high volume of guests. Great to see so many potential members!

 

Prepared Speeches and Evaluations

Revitalised Education Program

Subodh

Our first speech of the evening took a different turn to our usual Monday meeting.  Our general evaluator, Subodh, discussed the ‘Revitalised Education Program’ being rolled out by Toastmasters in this educational slot. We learnt that Toastmasters are combining the current 2 tracks, communications and leadership, to become 1, currently in alpha testing and due for roll out from January 2017. The aim is to engage members further and increase achievement.

 

Speech 2: Organise your speech: If we found alien life near earth, should we be happy or sad?

Heleana

A thought-provoking question raised by Heleana in her number 2 speech. She provided a balanced and well-structured take on the question, offering the pros and cons. Overall she thought that maybe they should be more afraid of us than we should be of them – due to our history of invading other territories and the risk of subjecting them to Justin Bieber’s latest album – clearly Heleana is a non–elieber, sorry Justin!

Evaluation: Robert

Robert evaluated Helena’s second speech and felt she went from strength to strength in her delivery. Careful with the ums and pauses said Robert, and less looking at notes but all in all great energy Robert thought – well done Heleana!

Speech 6: Vocal Variety: Conflict over conflict: have humans always made war?

Sarah

Next up was Sarah, with her informative and educational number 6 speech. We learnt that Hobbes and Russo had differing views on whether humans lead a quiet peaceful hunter-gatherer lifestyle or a life of warfare.  She considered our closest relatives, the chimps, renowned for attacking lone chimps and destroying other colonies. Like the chimps, we also share 98% of our DNA with the Bonobos – who prefer to settle disputes through sex – good news there then, Sarah.

Evaluation: Janet

There was a great deal to see, hear and feel throughout Sarah’s speech according to Janet.  A well thought out speech by an ‘extremely confident woman’, well-educated and with impressive knowledge.  Janet heard the nerves at times throughout Sarah’s delivery and encouraged her to slow down and breathe – a good tip for us all.

Advanced Speech: Regrets… hell yes!

Atul

What’s Atul’s biggest regret? Well, let’s just say that in Atul’s advanced speech we learnt that for him, 3 is not the magic number.  Atul delivered an inspirational speech encouraging us all to take more risks and just say YES. A message we can all relate to. Atul did a great job driving the message home – ‘regret is a disease, don’t let it stop your awesomeness’. You certainly didn’t stop your awesomeness, Atul – well done on a well deserved winning speech of the night.

Evaluation: Egor

In his evaluation, Egor noted that Atul went out on a limb at times with his content and took the risk of alienating some of the audience, but this showcased Atul’s confidence.  Atul factored in great examples we can all relate to in life and ended on a quiet note, which Egor found very effective. Egor rounded his assessment up with the simple close – ‘just great’!

 

Table topics
Our table topics master for the evening was Hari – who posed questions on the evening’s theme of ‘Toast’.

·         Heleana – when asked ‘what would you say to toast a CEO who had just announced redundancies’ concluded she would deliver ‘less of a toast and more of a roast’.

·         Victoria did a sterling job selling the benefits of bread, especially being gluten free herself.

·         Guy considered a new super hero – Toastman and decided he might be square and thin but with the array of possible toppings, he would be one versatile guy.

·         Ash sold the benefits of Toastmaster recounting her chance encounter with Mark Owen from Take That.

·         Ed creatively decided a way to use toast without eating it would be as a canvas for his art or a weapon.

·         Sam sold us sliced bread – informing us that it will fit in our toasters perfectly.

·         Manish convinced us that we could power London by giving up bread.

Evaluation: Peter R.

A fan of the quintessentially British favourite, cheese on toast, Peter R. gave a very British but far from cheesy round up of our impromptu speaking session – toasting all participants on a great job.

Awards

Best speaker: Atul

Best evaluator: Peter

Best table topic: Ash

 

Close

We ended the evening with a round up from our general evaluator, Subodh. He complimented a ‘well managed and excellent club’ that should wave its banner proudly.

See you all at the next meeting, which is on 7 March from 6:30pm-9pm        at our usual venue    The Clerk & Well pub 156 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1R 5DU

Don’t miss Exceptional Evaluations with Freddie Daniells on 29 February 2016 same place same time

Come to the             International Speech & Evaluation Contest on 14 March 2016 from 6:30pm-9pm  at          The Perseverance                 63 Lamb’s Conduit St, London, WC1N 3NB

Meeting Report for 23 November 2015

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Introduction

President Helen opened this regular meeting – back at our regular venue, The Clerk & Well – by extolling the virtues of the Competent Leadership manual, one part of the Toastmasters International educational programme that is often overlooked. Helen then passed proceedings on to Carrie to run the rest of the meeting as Toastmaster.

Carrie’s chosen theme for the evening was parties, and she had prepared her introductions for the meeting by asking each speaker what their ideal form of party would be. Before the prepared speeches began, Julia (who would like to throw a Star Wars themed party) explained her role in keeping the meeting running efficiently as timekeeper.

Prepared Speeches & Table Topics

New member Sebastian got the prepared speeches started off with his Icebreaker speech entitled “One World”. Growing up with parents from Spain and Argentina, Sebastian spent much of his youth between various countries, ending up in Italy by the age of 15. His father had once said to him that ‘the world is getting smaller’ and this had certainly proven to be accurate with experience.

In her No. 2 speech “Running with Purpose”, Margarita told us how she was required to enter a half-marathon after taking a job with a children’s charity. While the race took place in France, Margarita was unable to obtain a visa and so ran an equivalent race in the not-so-glamorous location of Milton Keynes. Regardless, the experience taught her that although she was not a sporty person, she was capable of more than she thought.

Olga‘s No. 7 speech “How to Lose the Tour de France” explained the origins of the Lanterne Rouge, awarded to the race’s last placed competitor and how some of its recipients achieved this dubious honour. Techniques included hiding behind a car and walking across the finish line!

Finally, Helen gave an advanced technical presentation entitled “Responsive Rebuild”, describing why Bloomsbury Speakers’ own website should be brought up-to-date in terms of compatibility with web browsers on modern smart phones and tablet computers. In a very informative and persuasive talk, she explained how search engine rankings for our website are affected by how responsive it is, and even obtained some volunteers from the audience to help take the suggested improvements forward.

After the break, each of the four speeches was given an individual evaluation by Hari, Egor, Peter and Paul.

This evening’s topics master was Ahmed, who began by explaining the benefits of practising impromptu speaking in Toastmasters to gain confidence in speaking elsewhere. Using Carrie’s theme of parties, Ahmed asked participants a range of questions, including how they might persuade people to attend a party at the north pole, what their craziest party experience had been and what the best and worst party-based films they had seen were.

Topics evaluator Jo gave each of the impromptu speakers some constructive feedback on their speeches, before visiting Area 34 director Jay evaluated the meeting as a whole as general evaluator.

Awards

Closing the meeting, president Helen returned to present the awards for the meeting.

  • Sebastian was presented with a commemorative ribbon for his Icebreaker speech;
  • Peter was voted best evaluator;
  • Hari and Paul were jointly awarded the best table topic certificate; and
  • Helen herself was voted best speaker.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday, 7th December and our last meeting of the year is on Monday, 14th December at The Clerk & Well (venue subject to change).

We’re having a joint Christmas dinner with our friends from Clerkenwell and Kings Cross Speakers on Tuesday, 15th December at Mem & Laz in Islington. Get in touch via info@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk if you’d like to come along.

Meeting Report 26 October 2015

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Written by Svetlana

Introduction

Bloomsbury Speakers Club hosted its regular meeting on Monday 26th October 2015 with an enthusiastic opening from President Helen encouraging and advising the future and current speakers that each speech should contain a message, which should be delivered with clarity and athenticity.

Prepared Speeches

After the Introduction, Helen handed the meeting over to the Toastmaster of the Evening, Peter F., who introduced the theme of the day – Moments of Embarrassment. A very dramatic question was handled mainly with humour and wit.

Functionaries of the day were: Michelle, the Timekeeper, and Zita, the Grammarian, who introduced the word of the day “Alacrity”

There were three prepared speeches on the agenda. The first speaker was Peter R. who delivered his No. 2 Speech, entitled “It’s Impossible” with humour and passion revealing to us that three most widely spread technological advances such as plane, computer and television were predicted as impossible to sell and to have a market in the world. Tracey delivered her No. 6 speech project entitled “18th Birthday?” about a very memorable 18th birthday party where a family decided to have a very big guest list, but the evening turned sour and then very-very sour. Helen’s Advanced Story telling speech “The Dinner Bill” was devoted to gender equality in relationships – a rather innovative topic for toastmasters, which kept everybody’s attention high!

We had warmly hosted guest introductions from Swarajit and thorough evaluations from Svetlana, Sheldon, and Robert.

Table topics

 

The table topics session was conducted by Janet and the theme was all about those Embarrassing Moments:

Margarita told us about a real life story how her trousers ripped in parts in a public place in the presence of her co-workers and she became famous in several country offices of her company with photos!

Marco told us what happened when his best friend’s mum heard something he would not want her to hear!

Laura told us how her trousers fell down on a sports day at school!

Heleana shared her worst best case scenario about an imagined first date when a loo roll was hanging from her trousers behind her and she knew exactly what to do!

Anya told us what could happen if she was texting while walking and walked into a pole in the presence of a very good-looking guy. She would use it as an opportunity to strike a conversation depending on how badly she would hit the pole of course!

Magdalena told us that sending an incorrect email to her boss would not spoil her career as she would handle the situation towards a positive outcome.

Fabiano told us about a 10-year-old boy who confused a cop for a friend.

Sonya said she would turn around a situation where she sent a nude photo of her husband to a wrong person.

Hari gave a concise and informative evaluation of topics speakers with some useful analysis and tips for improvement.

Grammarian Zita’s report was quite substantive.

Kate McNeilly provided an excellent and thorough general evaluation of the evening with recommendations to all functionaries of the evening and evaluators who were not evaluated.

Awards

Best Speaker award went to Helen; Best Evaluator award went to Hari; and Best Impromptu Speech award was handed to Heleana!

Next meeting

Our next regular meeting is on Monday, 9th of November upstairs at Wedge Issue, 91-95 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BX. Doors open at 6:30pm.

Meeting Report 12 October 2015

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Written by Carrie

Introduction

 

The Perseverance pub kindly hosted us following a last minute venue switch for our regular meeting on Monday 12th October 2015.

 

Since our President was held up en route to the meeting, our Toastmaster for the evening, Henry, stepped in to welcome us with a warm and witty overview of tonight’s agenda.

 

As his theme for the evening, Henry had surveyed our ‘dominant feelings’ on the season of Autumn prior to the meeting, but to catch up on time, he was unable to share results with us, reassuring the audience that he could make use of our emotive responses by using them to write some poetic literature!

 

Functionaries of the day were Sarah, who kept us to time, and Carrie, who as grammarian, introduced us to her word of the day “congruent”.

 

Speeches

 

Fabiano introduced himself to the Bloomsbury gang with his ice breaker entitled “We are our choices”, sharing his entrepreneurial ventures, his major life decisions, and how they have impacted his life.

 

Peter also broke the ice in this extra chilly Toastmasters meeting telling us all about his story to date, dividing his speech up into alliterative chunks which were easy for the audience to digest. We learnt plenty about his favourite ‘places, people and philosophies’.

 

Sheldon entertained us with his speech project number 5, “Emotional Resonance”, which gave us a technical yet highly comedic insight into why music impacts our emotions. With real audio features, he demonstrated the power of music to bring any story to life – even one about washing a pair of pants.

 

Rufina took us into advanced speech territory with an informative and inspiring review of her recent safari in her speech, “Hakuna Matata Holiday”.

 

Just before the congregation hopped off to sample the Perservance bar in a refreshment break, Michelle gave a warm welcome to our guests.

 

Table Topics

 

Our table topics mistress for the evening, Michelle, kicked off part two of the meeting with an impromptu speaking session which focused on the festive delights of this distinctive Autumnal season.

 

Our first impromptu speaker, Robert, was asked to tell us what kind of superhero he would attend a Halloween party as, while Egor was challenged to reveal the gory details of his favourite scary film of all time.

 

Olga told us all about her favourite winter snack, and Paul told us all about his favourite sport as we reflected upon the rugby World Cup mania hitting the country this week.

Ayesha closed our lively table topics session with an amusing and imaginative review of her perfect winter get away.

Our table topics evaluator, Peter Francis, gave a positive and fluent review of all the impromptu speeches we just had seen with some tips for improvement, before our grammarian, Carrie, took to the stage to give her detailed report.  Carrie shared examples of powerful rhetorical devices used throughout the night, whilst reminding us how important is it to use language to appeal to the listener’s emotional brain.

 

Our General Evaluator for the evening, Jonathon Mueller from Russian speakers, finished the meeting with a dynamic, engaging and dare we say, brutally honest, review of everyone who hadn’t been evaluated until now.  He concluded that despite the tardy start due to challenging venue circumstances, the meeting was a great success, with plenty of talent in the room – good job Bloomsbury speakers!

 

Awards

 

The best speaker award went to Peter Richardson, best evaluator award to Peter Francis and best table topic speaker went to our guest, Ayesha.

 

Fabiano and Peter were awarded their ice-breaker ribbons.

 

Next meeting

 

Our next regular meeting is on Monday 26 October 2015 at our normal venue at The Clerk & Well

156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU, London

Contest Report for 21 September 2015

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After a last-minute change of venue, Bloomsbury Speakers’ autumn contest night was opened by Helen in the dual role of club president and contest chair for the first of the night’s contests.

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Humorous Speech Contest

With the order of speakers determined earlier by a random draw, the Humorous Speech contest was started by Samuel with his speech “Finding the Fire”. Sharing funny anecdotes from two of the worst jobs in his career, Samuel encouraged us to consider what it is we’d do for free in order to find our own ‘fire’ within us.

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In her speech, “Sleep Your Way to Success”, Svetlana used humorous albeit dubious facts about the benefits of sleep to explain how it might help us overcome all our problems.

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Paul‘s speech, “Wipe-out”, recounted his surfing trip to Cornwall with work colleagues. Using his storytelling skills entwined with physical comedy, Paul described his hopeless struggle to even get over the very first challenge – putting the wet-suit on!

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In Peter F‘s speech – simply entitled “Public Speaking” – he told us about some of the occasions where addressing an audience proved even more challenging than usual – including being baffled by hecklers at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park.

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Finally, in her speech “Three Essential Skills While Travelling”, Olga shared the tale of a trip to Greece with her family that was memorable for all the wrong reasons!

Table Topics Contest

After a short break, Rufina took to the stage to chair the Table Topics contest. All of the contestants were given the same topic to speak about for 1-2 minutes: “What would you do if you were Mayor of London?”

Svetlana, Peter R, Olga, Matt, Helen and Peter F each addressed the audience with their individual responses to the question. Answers included hiring a DJ to keep morning commuters entertained and making sure all election promises are fulfilled, even if they contradict each other!

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Results

After the judges’ votes had been counted and verified, the contest chairs returned to the stage to present the winners with their awards.

In the Table Topics contest, the results were:

  • Third place – Matt
  • Second place – Peter R
  • First place – Helen

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The results of the Humorous Speech contest were:

  • Third place – Svetlana
  • Second place – Samuel
  • First place – Olga

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Next Round

Congratulations to Olga and Helen who will now go on to represent Bloomsbury Speakers at the Area 34 finals on Thursday, 1st October. Please go along and show your support!

Next Meeting

Our next regular meeting is this Monday, 28th September, upstairs at The Clerk & Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DU. Doors open at 6:30pm.