Meeting Report for 9 January 2012

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Written by Elena (edited by Swarajit)

Introduction

This was the first meeting of 2012, with a new venue for the club and a lot of new faces!

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen who welcomed new guests, returning guests, regular members and the club committee. He invited the audience to use the Toastmasters educational programme as a guide to better public speaking and leadership.

The Toastmaster of the first meeting in 2012 was past president, and very experienced member, Nazia. She announced the theme –The goals for 2012– and introduced every speaker to the stage with what they had chosen as their own goal summarised in one word, which was quite a challenge! Nazia was assisted by the Timekeeper Richard, who did this role for the first time.

Prepared speeches

This evening we were very happy to have two Ice Breaker speeches from our new members Maureen and Paula, who made their first step into their Toastmasters careers through the Competent Communication (CC) programme.

This part of the meeting was opened by Paula with her Ice Breaker speech entitled “Going for Gold”. She gave us a very descriptive overview of her life from school age up to the present and also her plans for the near future, including setting up her own website, in the 2012 Olympic year – going for gold.

The second speaker was Maureen, who presented her own Ice Breaker speech entitled “How Risk-Averse Mo Became a Bloomsbury Speaker”. Maureen told us her life story over the last few years explaining how she learnt about Toastmasters through an acquaintance and finally pushed herself to take the plunge and join Bloomsbury Speakers to enjoy the opportunities on offer.

The next speaker was Jo with her speech No.2 from the CC manual entitled “Unexpected Sights in Buenos Aires”. The main objective of this speech project is to organise your speech so that it has an opening, body and conclusion with appropriate transitions between each. Jo told us about several unusual but very popular sights which she had seen during her travels to Argentina including a cemetery, a branch of the famous department store Harrods, the Mothers of Plaza De Mayo and tango dancing.

The fourth speaker was Neil with his No. 4 speech, “Finding a Room in London“. The main purpose of this project is focused on “how to say it” using rhetorical devices. Neil vividly described several highly amusing situations that arose during his search for a room in London, and the characters he met along the way. Happily, it ended with him eventually finding a beautiful place to live earlier in the day.

The last speaker this evening was Swarajit with his No. 5 speech entitled “Evolution of an industry”. The main purpose of this speech project is to make use of body language and physical gestures to convey your message. Swarajit explained how the UK music industry had changed over the last few decades and why he thought this was a bad thing. He argued, using humour, that the rise in popularity of live concerts was unjustified due to the considerable discomfort of attending such events.

Speech evaluations

After the break we had the evaluations part of the meeting, where speakers can get constructive feedback on their speeches and some useful ideas for further improvements.

The first evaluator, Nazia, evaluated Paula’s Ice Breaker speech. She commended a very well structured speech containing three short stories about moving to South Asia, becoming a psychologist and how Paula set up her own business. Nazia also noted Paula’s confident and good strong voice. The only recommendation was to make a more powerful conclusion.

The second evaluator was Joe, who evaluated Maureen’s Ice Breaker speech. He commented that Maureen had excellent vocal variety, used humour that was very engaging with audience, and the structure was good which made it easy to follow the story. Joe made only one minor recommendation: to move on the stage slightly more.

The next evaluator, Adam, evaluated Jo’s No. 2 speech. He commended a very clear message, the great opening and structure of the speech, and an engaging voice and humour. Adam would have liked to have seen a bit more body language from Jo.

The fourth evaluator this evening was Joyanta, who evaluated Neil’s No. 4 speech. He commented that Neil is a very good storyteller, he had fairly successfully joined three small stories into one in the speech and concluded with a memorable quote – “Good luck!” Joyanta encouraged Neil to speak on something like a technical subject in his next speech in order to stretch himself further.

The last evaluator, Elena, evaluated Swarajit’s entertaining No. 5 speech. She recapped the aim of the project and commented that Swarajit had used gestures, facial expressions, eye contact to express his message when delivering his speech, and met that goal. Elena recommended that Swarajit should try to rely less on notes.

Table Topics

During the meeting everyone has a chance to speak and the Table Topics section is one part which ensures this. Participating in Table Topics is great practice for both new and experienced members as well as brave guest volunteers.

The Topics Master of the evening was Hari. He transformed the audience into a group of potential investors and the topics speakers into people looking for investment to realise their goals. The investment seekers were:

  • One of the Wright brothers who have a goal to build an aeroplane.
  • Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee who needs to convince us to have a world wide web.
  • Creator of a web site where people can reveal all of sorts of details about themselves – a social network.
  • Percy Spencer, looking for investors for an experimental way of cooking food using microwaves.
  • An unemployed IBM scientist whose goal is to start up new business to produce computer.

Five guests took part in the Table Topics including a visiting member from Holborn Speakers.

The Table Topics evaluator this evening was Glen, who evaluated each participant. Common recommendations were: do not be repetitive during the speech, grab the stage and try to use the whole allotted time.

General Evaluator Rosalind, also visiting from Holborn Speakers, evaluated all the meeting participants who were yet to be evaluated and encouraged us to not be afraid to give a few more recommendations because they are gifts for the speakers.

Awards

Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on the votes cast during the evening and one President’s discretional award.

The Best Evaluator award went to Adam for his evaluation of Jo’s speech, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to guest David for his well-structured topic and the highly coveted Best Speaker award went to Neil for his excellent speech. The President’s discretional award went to a guest Oli for his very impressive Table Topic.

Two certificates for successfully completing their Ice Breaker speeches– an important landmark for any Toastmaster– went to Paula and Maureen.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 23rd January at The Real Man Pizza Company.

January 2012 Mini-Newsletter

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Hello and welcome to the very first newsletter of 2012!

Hope you had a great Christmas and New Year and are raring to get started again with ramping up your public speaking skills.

I’m going to keep this newsletter short and sweet as it’s only been a couple of weeks since the last one, which appeared a little later in the month than normal.

So, in true Toastmasters style I’m going to give you just three pieces of information.

Here we go…

1) Venue Reminder

You should know this already, but we have a new venue! It’s downstairs at The Real Man Pizza Company. Check out the details here:

https://www.bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk/meetings/

2) Meetings This Month

Our regular meetings this month are on Monday 9th January and Monday 23rd January.

We already have five speakers (including two Icebreakers) booked for each of these meetings – wow! – but there are still a few supporting roles to be filled:

9th January: Topics Evaluator and Speech Evaluator
23rd January: Timekeeper, Topics Evaluator and Speech Evaluators

Please book yourself into ClubPlan or email our VPE Femi at education@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk to nab your slot.

3) Club Social – Bowling!

There’s still time to book a place on the club social – ten pin bowling at All Star Lanes on Monday 16th January.

Please email Femi at education@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk by Monday 9th January if you’d like to attend.

Tip of the Month – Evaluate!

Want to be a better speaker? Evaluate someone else’s speech! This will help you to develop analytical skills that you can apply to your own speeches.

However, we know that some people find the idea of evaluating someone else a bit daunting, so we’ve put together a brand new role guide to help you:

What Does An Evaluator Do?

P.S. If you really want to improve quickly – record your speech and try to evaluate it as if you were evaluating someone else. Painful but very useful!

That’s all for now. Told you it would be short and sweet. 🙂 Hope to see you at a meeting soon!

Best wishes,

Glen Long
President

president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

December Newsletter – Happy Christmas!

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Hello and welcome to the December newsletter from Bloomsbury Speakers!

There are just two days until Christmas, so I hope you’ve done all your shopping. If not – good luck fighting your way through the crowds.

It’s been a busy year so I’m personally looking forward to a little downtime before Bloomsbury ramps back up in 2012.

But before that, I wanted to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and give you a quick roundup of the latest club news and some details of a fun social event early in the New Year.

Recent news

It’s been a hectic last few weeks of the year. Highlights since the last newsletter include:

  • Two great meetings in November including one with so many guests it was standing room only!
  • A well-attended Christmas-themed meeting where we got into the festive spirit with seasonal tunes, mince pies and even a cracker-assisted table topics session.
  • A nice mention in popular London blog Londonist on its list of Things To Do In London On The Cheap

And of course, it’s always a highlight when someone new decides to join the club and so I’d like to welcome our newest member Paula! We look forward to helping Paula achieve her public speaking goals in 2012.

Next meetings

Our next two meetings are:

  • Monday 9th January 2012 – our very first meeting of 2012! We already have a packed speaking agenda but we still need a Timekeeper, a Topics Evaluator and more speech Evaluators
  • Monday 23rd January 2012 – our very second meeting of 2012 😉 Again, we have a full speaking bill (though we could squeeze in an ice breaker), but we still need a Timekeeper, Harkmaster/Grammarian, Topicsmaster, Topics Evaluator and speech Evaluators

Please note that both meetings will be at our new venue (see below).

New year – new venue

The Rugby Tavern has been our home venue since Bloomsbury Speakers first started meeting back in 2009. After the venue-hopping of the summer while the Tavern was being refurbished we’d hoped to settle back in for the rest of the winter but sadly it wasn’t to be.

The management has recently decided to more than double the cost of hiring the room and so both Bloomsbury and Holborn Speakers (who meet in the same venue on different evenings) have been busy looking at other venues.

We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve found a new venue we think will work great for us. It’s a private room downstairs at The Real Man Pizza Company – just a short walk from the Tavern.

It’s a nice room and big enough to allow us to expand. Also there’s a small bar in the room itself which the manager says he’ll open after each meeting. Oh, and also they serve some great food too!

Find out more about the new venue here:

https://www.bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk/meetings/

Club Social – Monday 16th January – Bowling!

Our VPE (Vice President of Education) Femi Asaolu is organising another fun evening social – ten pin bowling at All Star Lanes in Bloomsbury – on Monday 16th January.

It will cost £8.75 per person per game plus whatever you spend on drinks. Based on similar events in the past it’s great fun and don’t worry if you’re not the world’s best bowler – you won’t be the only one!

Please email Femi at education@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk by Monday 9th January if you’d like to attend. Places are limited!

See you there. STRIKE!!!

Tip of the Month – Make a Resolution!

It’s that time of year where we traditionally make resolutions for the new year.

Just think, people we haven’t met yet are right now resolving to improve their public speaking skills and will show up at a meeting early in the new year…

If you’re already a member, you’ve got a big head-start on this crowd, so why not make some specific resolutions about your Toastmasters activity in 2012? Here are some ideas:

  • If you’re a new member and haven’t done your ice breaker yet, resolve to do so early in 2012 – in fact book yourself into ClubPlan right now!
  • If you’ve got one or speeches under your belt already, resolve to complete a certain numbers of speech projects in 2012 – I would recommend at least four. (If you’ve only a few speeches left – resolve to complete the manual by a certain date)
  • If you’ve done most of the functionary roles but have never been Toastmaster, resolve to tick that one off early in 2012. It’s great fun and great experience.
  • If you’re a mentor, why not resolve to really “over-deliver” for your mentees in 2012? Check in with them on their goals for the new year and think of three ways you can help make them happen.

And finally, if you’re not a member yet, but keep resolving to join, why not take the plunge and sign up now. Then you can really relax this Christmas knowing that your public speaking skills will definitely improve in 2012!

Well that it’s for this newsletter. Have a fantastic Christmas and a ridiculously fun New Year and I look forward to seeing you at a meeting early in 2012.

Best wishes,

Glen Long
President

president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

Meeting Report for 12 December 2011

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We had a good turnout for our very last meeting of the year, which was held in the London Welsh Centre on Gray’s Inn Road. Arrivals were greeted by Christmas music and some seasonal nibbles laid on by our “Chief Elf” Kate Osborne and her “little helper” Elena Fanaberova.

Introductions

Club President Glen Long opened the meeting by welcoming everyone in the room and likening the venue to a stable which had given the club shelter for the evening at this busy time of year. Glen gave an overview of Toastmasters for the benefit of guests and explained how practicing your public speaking in a safe and friendly environment can help reduce anxiety levels and allow natural communication skills to emerge.

He then handed over to the evening’s Toastmaster, Henry Playfoot, who described the evening’s agenda as a “Christmas feast” and took us though the various elements of the programme. He also introduced his theme for the meeting – favourite Christmas songs – and invited the evening’s Timekeeper Neil Ward up to speak, whose own favourite turned out to be Silent Night.

Neil gave us an overview of his role – to help meeting participants keep to time – and explained the green, amber and red “traffic light” system used to set time limits for each part of the agenda.

After Neil has finished his section, new member Richard (favourite song “Don’t Let The Bells End” by The Darkness) stood up and explained his role as the meeting’s Grammarian – to “encourage and commend the good use of English language” by the various speakers, but also to pick up on poor grammar and filler words such as and “ums and ahs”. He revealed the word of the day – “festive” – and encouraged all members to incorporate it into their speeches and introductions.

Prepared Speeches

Henry then introduced our first speaker, AG (favourite song “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues and Kirsty McColl) who was giving her No. 2 speech entitled “The Lazy Consumer”. In a very well-structured and informative speech she explored the question of why consumers often don’t make choices that seem to be plainly in their best interests – is it simply because they are lazy? In fact, she concluded, there are a number of good reasons, including what price they put on their own time.

The second speaker was Hari, whose favourite Christmas song is “Happy Christmas War Is Over” by John Lennon. In his seventh speech “Beliefs and Stockings” Hari used a childhood story about trying to catch his parents in the act of filling his Christmas stocking (and thus proving the non-existence of Father Christmas once and for all) as the entry point to a speech about beliefs and how these affect our behaviour and ultimately our success and happiness. He likened the “references” that support our beliefs to the legs of a table that support the table top and invited us all to think what new beliefs we could adopt.

The third speaker was club president Glen Long (favourite song “Let It Snow!”), with a No. 9 speech entitled “Warning: May Contain Nuts”. In his tongue-in-cheek festive speech, Glen attempted to persuade us that there were compelling reasons to abandon the traditional Christmas turkey in favour of a meat that was more ethical, more sustainable and even free – the humble squirrel! Say ‘no’ to turkey and ‘yes to Tufty he urged.

Visiting from Northern Lights Speakers in Camden, our final speaker Doug Williams, delivered an advanced informative speech entitled: “Causes of Ill-Health”. In a thought-provoking speech Doug asked us to question the true intentions of pharmaceutical companies and invited us all to take responsibility for our own health by looking closely at the lifestyle decisions we make every day.

Evaluations

After a short break to recharge our glasses and feast on a few festive nibbles, Henry reconvened the meeting and introduced the next section – evaluations of the four speakers.

Regular visitor to Bloomsbury Speakers Jennifer Zou evalauted AG’s speech “The Lazy Consumer”. She commended AG on her structure – satisfying one of the main objectives of the No. 2 speech – and the way she signposted key points. She also commended good use of hand gestures and eye contact but recommended more variety of pace.

Hari’s speech was evaluated by Joe Lake who noted that the content had been drawn from various sources and commended his “excellent posture” and the way Hari had projected his voice to the very back of the room. His recommendations were to vary the vocal variety to be more impactful and also to simplify the content – Joe felt Hari was trying to achieve too many things in one speech.

Glen’s speech was evaluated by Ratan Lele. Ratan commended Glen on a firm stance and good eye contact and said he found himself being convinced by the speech despite feeling “nauseous” at the prospect of eating squirrel instead of turkey! Ratan felt that Glen could have spent more time in his speech looking at other alternatives to turkey before settling on his controversial choice, but promised to consider eating squirrel on Christmas Day, albeit with a pinch of salt!

Femi Asaolu was tasked with evaluating Doug’s advanced speech. Opening with a quote, Femi noted it was clear that Doug cared about his topic passionately and this served to make us seriously think about the points he raised. Femi recommended that Doug might have signposted some of his points more clearly and should perhaps have gone to greater lengths to substantiate his main arguments.

Table Topics

After the evaluations, Kate led a lively table topics sessions with a Christmas twist! Volunteers were invited to put on a Christmas hat, take a shot of cherry brandy, and then pull a cracker – hidden inside each cracker was a special topic to tackle.

In fact, each was asked to give an impromptu “Elf Report” from a particular location or event, resulting in:

  • Paula reporting from the family lunch on Christmas Day
  • John reporting from the office Christmas party
  • Jem reporting from Westfield Shopping Centre on Christmas Eve
  • Bithika reporting from the school nativity play
  • Sandra reporting from Santa’s Grotto
  • Doug reporting on a local Christmas Eve party

After the final cracker had been pulled, Todd Wade stepped up as table topics evaluator with the challenge of giving feedback to all six impromptu speakers. He commended all of them for a “fantastic” session where they all “hit their beats” and went on to give specific praise and recommendations to each in turn.

Reports and awards

As Grammarian, Richard gave his report, citing numerous examples of good uses of language, such as Henry’s description of the agenda as being full of “titbits and tasty morsels”. He also commended Doug for his good use of repetition in his speech.

Finally, highly experienced Toastmaster Liz Hobbs gave a general evaluation of the evening and the club as a whole, with a number of useful recommendations for the club and those participants who’d not yet received feedback.

Closing the meeting, Glen announced the awards based on votes from the audience. Best table topics speaker went to Doug for his report on a local party and best evaluator to Joe for his evaluation of Hari’s speech. Glen’s squirrel speech got the most votes in the prepared speech ballot, but he chose not present himself with an award on the basis that it would be embarrassing! The president’s discretionary award went to guest Sandra for her sterling table topics performance.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting is also the first meeting of the New Year – on Monday 9th January.

This meeting will also be the first in our new venue – downstairs in The Real Man Pizza Company on Clerkenwell Road. It’s only five minutes walk from the Rugby Tavern and we’ve got a great room with an integral bar that the manager has promised to open at the end of the meeting.

It’s an exciting new chapter for Bloomsbury Speakers and we look forward to seeing you there.

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!

Meeting Report for 28 November 2011

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Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Swarajit Das)

Introduction

This was a particularly educational meeting with an extended prepared speeches section. We had a special guest from Holborn Speakers, Freddie Daniels, who treated us to an Educational Speech on evaluation tips as well as playing the General Evaluator’s role.

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who welcomed new guests, returning guests, regular members and the club committee. He encouraged new members and guests to be brave and to take the plunge and “just do it”, which over time would help them to lose some of their nervousness.

The Toastmaster of the evening, who guided us through the slightly different speech agenda to a typical meeting, was VP of Membership and Mentoring Hari Kalymnios. Hari was assisted by the Timekeeper Jo Higham, who did this role for the first time, and the club’s Past President Nazia Soon who succinctly explained her role as Harkmaster for the evening.

Prepared speeches

During this part of the meeting several members usually present their speeches based on the Competent Communication (CC) Manual, but this evening in addition to two such speeches we had an extended Impromptu Speech and an Educational Speech as well.

The first speaker this evening was Neil Ward with his entertaining No. 3 speech from the CC Manual entitled “Where I Go to Relax”. Neil told us that he likes to relax in St. James Park in London where you can meet many different and sometimes unexpected animals including squirrels, various kinds of geese, swans and so on. We were even involved in a social experiment that Neil had built in to his speech.

The second speaker was Joe Lake, who presented his No. 5 speech from the CC Manual entitled “The Bark Is Often Worse than the Bite”. We heard Joe’s wise and personal story about his fear of a dog and how he coped with it when he was a paper boy. Joe argued that things look bigger and scarier in our minds than they are in reality, believing that irrational fear comes through stereotypes developed by media and people we spend time with. In the conclusion of his speech Joe encouraged people to be careful and selective about who they spend time with as well as what they read and watch.

The next speaker was club VP of Education Femi Asaolu with an impromptu seven-minute speech on a topic chosen by the audience – “Space”. He started with a humorous quote suggesting that dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space programme! Femi proposed that to survive we need to change continuously and look for expansion into space, for example to Mars.

The last speaker was Freddie Daniels with his Educational Speech entitled “Tips on Evaluating”. The main three tips for evaluating were: to provide motivation, encouragement and confidence to speaker; to bring the evaluation in on time; and to make a point on structure, content and delivery. An extra bonus tip from Freddie – evaluate everyone in a meeting even if you’re not the assigned evaluator – because this is the best way to improve.

Speech evaluations

After the break, Hari moved on to the evaluations part of the meeting, where other members of the club took to the stage and gave their own thoughts on one of the preceding speeches in order to highlight good practice and make recommendations on how the speakers might improve in future.

The first evaluator and relatively new member Ann Connolly evaluated Neil’s No. 3 speech. She reminded everyone that the aim was to create a speech that had a general and specific purpose and organise it so that the audience can follow the speech and be engaged with it. Ann commented that Neil did very well in these respects and was very warm and sincere. The main recommendation she made was to link the speech title with the beginning of the speech for a more effective opening.

The second evaluator was Joyanta Raksmith, who evaluated Joe’s No. 5 speech. Joyanta emphasised Joe’s excellent speech structure and brilliant wrapping up. The recommendation was to be more energetic at certain points in the content.

The last evaluator, club Secretary Kate Osborne, evaluated Femi’s fantastic off-the-cuff speech. Kate commented that she liked Femi’s delivery style: confidence, effective hand gestures and a big smile! She also pointed out strong areas in the structure of the speech: the use of the quote and humour in the beginning, the development of his argument in the middle part and the conclusion – all had kept the audience engaged throughout. Kate’s main recommendation was for Femi to stick to his chosen points and to not allow the speech to deviate too much from them.

Table Topics

It is our aim during the meeting that everyone has a chance to speak and the Table Topics section is one part which ensures this. Participating in Table Topics is great practice for both new and experienced members as well as brave guest volunteers.

The Topics Master of the evening was AG who took on the role for the first time. She prepared a theme for the session entitled “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

She asked the speakers to imagine themselves as children again and to tell why they wanted to have a certain career when they “grew up”. Careers included:

  • a chef
  • a football player
  • a banker
  • an archaeologist
  • a doctor
  • an accountant

Six people including some guests tackled AG’s questions on the spot and got some great experience of impromptu speaking.

The Table Topics evaluator this evening was Babur Yusupov, who evaluated each participant. He noted that the speakers used a lot of humour, applied the recommended 1-2-3 structure of a speech, gave personal stories and showed a deep knowledge of a subject they had just been given.

To round off the meeting, Harkmaster Nazia tested the audience’s listening skills with a set of quick-fire questions based on what they’d heard during the meeting and rewarded correct answers with sweets.

As the General Evaluator Freddie gave feedback to all the meeting participants who were yet to be evaluated. Some common and useful recommendations were: using examples and keeping no more than four to five points which can help the audience to better understand a speech evaluation and trying to exclude ‘filler’ words and phrases like “you know”. A useful recommendation for evaluators was to talk about a speech or a speaker and not directly to a speaker, to help the rest of the audience feel included.

Awards

Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on the votes cast during the evening and one President’s discretional award.

The Best Evaluator award went to Kate for her very detailed evaluation of Femi’s impromptu speech, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to Adam Horne for his well structured topic about wanting to be a chef and the highly coveted Best Speaker award went to Joe for his excellent prepared speech. The President’s discretional award went to a guest Johnnie for his very impressive Table Topic about ‘wanting’ to be an accountant.

Finally Glen announced that our club had been officially recognised with a DCP award – Distinguished Club Program – for club achievements in education and membership.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 12th December – it’s our Christmas-themed meeting and we’ve already got lots of fun ideas for seasonal speaking!

IMPORTANT There has been a change of venue – this meeting will now be held at Lower Hall, London Welsh Centre, 157-163 Gray’s Inn Road, WC1X 8UE.