Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Swarajit Das)

Introduction

This meeting was a must-see! There was a full house made up of club members, regular guests and many new faces. There was also general theme of humour and comedy, which meant that the meeting was loaded with jokes from start to finish!

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who welcomed the new guests and gave an overview of Toastmasters’ learning-by-doing ethos.

The Toastmaster of the evening who guided us through the agenda was Club Treasurer Swarajit Das. He encouraged the audience to tell jokes during the meeting and introduced every speaker to the stage with their favourite joke, which made atmosphere relaxed and stimulated for speaking. Swarajit was assisted by the Timekeeper Joe Lake and the Grammarian Stella Meadows, a guest from the Northern Lights Speakers club in Camden, who introduced word of the day – tandem – while the club’s Sergeant at Arms Adam Horne led the guest introductions.

Prepared speeches

It is always a great pleasure for the club to have an Ice Breaker speech during a meeting and this evening Swarajit introduced brand new member of the club, Richard Gibbs, to give his. It’s an important step in the Toastmaster’s programme and in his very humorous first speech entitled “Favourite Holidays” Richard compared and contrasted his regular holidays in Devon, where he enjoys countryside walks, sitting by the bonfire and listening to the sound of rain, with a holiday in Sri Lanka with his wife where he was shocked by driving without rules, was hit by an elephant and even tried out jet skiing.

The second speaker was Elena Fanaberova, who delivered her No. 2 speech “I like shopping here”. Elena compared her shopping experience in Russia where you can risk freezing your hands while shopping at outdoor markets in the winter, with shopping in the UK where sellers seem to care much more about their customers and offer great deals such as “Buy 1, Get 1 Free” – something that would be unheard of in a Russian market.

The next speaker was VP of Membership and Mentoring Hari Kalymnios, who appeared to have many fans at the meeting, with his speech No. 6 entitled “I can make you”. In this entertaining speech Hari spoke about his experience of being put into a trance by a CD and book called “Instant Confidence”, using vocal variety to represent different subjects.

The last speaker was Jennifer Zou, a visiting member from London Corinthians club, with her advanced speech entitled “A Red Flower”. Jennifer told us a very sensitive story about a small girl who asked her mum “Why do people wear poppies?”

Speech evaluations

Evaluation is a crucial part of our meetings for speakers because they are able to receive recommendations for further improvements. It is also a good opportunity for evaluators to enhance their critical and communication skills and for the rest of the audience to learn about both of these areas.

The first evaluator Femi Asaolu evaluated Richard’s very engaging Ice Breaker speech. He reminded us that the objective of the Ice Breaker speech is to discover speaking skills that the speaker already has and areas where improvements could be made. Femi commented that the speech was honest and personal, which is what the first speech should be like, and that Richard already has a great joke-telling skill. Femi also suggested focusing more on body language in the future.

The next evaluator was relatively new member Ann Connolly and she evaluated Elena’s No. 2 speech. She commented that the speech had been well prepared with smooth transitions. Ann recommended that Elena should speak a little bit louder.

The third evaluator Henry Playfoot evaluated Hari’s exceptional No. 6 speech, the aim of which was to apply vocal variety. He commented that Hari had had a very powerful stage presence and his message was congruent with its delivery. Henry pointed out an area for improvement – making more use of pauses.

The last evaluator was Todd Wade who evaluated Jennifer’s advanced speech. The goal of her touching story was to invoke emotions. Todd commented that the goal had been met and emphasised Jennifer’s exceptional story-telling and vocal variety, for example when the child spoke to her mother. He made one suggestion: to walk around the stage more.

Table Topics

Participating in Table Topics (impromptu speaking) is great practice for both new and experienced members as well as brave guest volunteers.

The Topics Master of the evening was club Secretary Kate Osborne. She prepared humorous Table Topics for the evening, which was in a friendly “tandem” with the general theme of the meeting chosen by Swarajit. Her questions for the speakers were:

• If you were prime minister for the day, what would you implement in order to give people in London a laugh?
• Tell us about something funny that happened to you or your friend whilst you on holiday.
• Tell us about something funny that happened when you were growing up.
• Mixing alcohol and text messaging should be banned – your comments.
• Tell us about a funny film or book that you have seen or read recently.
• Have you ever made a fool of yourself or embarrassed yourself in public?

Six people including a few guests tackled one of Kate’s questions and got some great experience of thinking on their feet.

The Table Topics evaluator this evening was Ratan Lele who incorporated a lot of humour in his evaluation and commented on each participant. His recommendations, common for all speakers, were to stand a little bit closer to the audience, smile and try to answer the question asked.

Our General Evaluator was Trang Le, who is a member of four other clubs! Trang gave a very constructive evaluation of all the meeting participants who were yet to be evaluated and expressed her positive experience of visiting our club.

Awards

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

The Best Evaluator award went to Ratan for his very humorous Table Topics evaluation, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to Todd for his brilliant topic about banning alcohol-induced text messages and the highly-coveted Best Speaker award went to Hari for his exceptional speech about confidence.

Richard was presented with a certificate for successfully completing his Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster.

Finally the President’s discretional award went to Ann for her first and very successful evaluation.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 28th November at The Rugby Tavern.

Make sure you put Monday 12th December in your diary as well – it’s our Christmas-themed meeting and we’ve already got lots of fun ideas for seasonal speaking!

Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Glen Long)

Introduction

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who welcomed the new guests and gave an overview of Toastmasters, likening the ten speech communication programme to going to the gym – you need to keep “increasing the weights” to see progress.

The Toastmaster of this evening was a very experienced speaker and past president Nazia Soon, assisted by the Harkmaster Hari Kalymnios and the Timekeeper Elena Fanaberova, while Adam Horne led the Guest Introductions.

In fact Hari was particularly busy this evening playing three roles: Harkmaster, giving an educational speech about “Mentoring” prior to the prepared speeches and as the evaluator of one of the speakers – Neil Ward.

Prepared speeches

It is always a great pleasure for the club to have an Ice Breaker speech during a meeting and this evening, Jo Higham, who has been a member for only one month, gave hers. It’s an important step in the Toastmaster’s programme and in her very first speech entitled “Less Is More” she quoted “the things you own end up owning you” from the film Fight Club, which encapsulated her own personal philosophy.

The second speaker was Neil Ward, who delivered his No. 2 speech “A Winning Mindset”. In his very clear and memorable speech Neil gave us the mnemonic ABC for success: action, belief in yourself and commitment.

The last speaker was Joe Lake, who has really thrown himself into Toastmasters since joining and is already on his fourth speaking project with his speech “Manage It”. In this speech Joe described different types of managers and explained how to be a good manager by using three rules: “neighbourhood mentality”, “make it personal” and “learn from everyone and everything”.

Speech evaluations

Evaluation is a crucial part of our meetings for speakers because they are able to receive recommendations for further improvements. It is also a good opportunity for evaluators to enhance their critical and communication skills.

The first evaluator Nazia evaluated Jo’s impressive Ice Breaker speech. Nazia said that she heard a quote, a joke and a question all in the beginning of the speech which engaged the audience very effectively. Also Nazia observed that Jo was very relaxed and used very effective facial expressions. She gave only one recommendation regarding the Jo’s stance.

The next evaluator Hari evaluated Neil’s memorable speech. He commended Neil for using a question that hooked the audience in the opening and also his ABC approach that gave the speech a clear structure and made it more easily understandable. However, Hari would have liked to have heard smoother transitions between the three distinct sections.

The last evaluator Glen evaluated Joe’s speech. Glen commented that he heard good use of language and of rhetorical devices as required by the objectives of the speech. Also he very much liked Joe’s relaxed and affable style. The main recommendation from Glen was that he would like to have even more rhetorical devices to make the points more memorable, e.g. use of repetition.

Table Topics

Participating in Table Topics (impromptu speaking) is great practice for new members and for experienced ones as well as brave guest volunteers.

The Topics Master of the evening was Swarajit Das, the Club Treasurer. Swarajit prepared a Table Topics session with a theme that is relevant for many people at the moment – job interviews. His questions were taken from real interviews and included:

• In an ideal world, what would be your dream job?
• What is your greatest achievement?
• Sell me this pen.
• Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
• What is your biggest personal strength?
• Describe the worst job you have ever had.

Six people tackled one of Swarajit’s questions – including several guests – and got some great experience of thinking on their feet.

Club secretary Kate Osborne was the Table Topics evaluator this evening and praised the choice of topics and gave the participants some encouraging recommendations.

Our General Evaluator was Philip Landergan, who is a member of Bromley Speakers club. Philip evaluated all the meeting participants who were left to be evaluated and gave a very useful outside perspective on our club with some very helpful recommendations.

Awards

Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on votes cast during the evening.

The Best Evaluator award went to Kate for her Table Topics evaluation, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to guest Brendan who successfully “sold” Swarajit his own pen and the “highly coveted” Best Speaker award went to Jo for her speech, who also got a certificate for successfully completing her Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster.

Finally the President’s discretional award went to the returning guest Richard for his humorous Table Topic.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 14th November at The Rugby Tavern.

And make sure you put Monday 12th December in your diary as well – it’s our Christmas-themed meeting and we’ve already got lots of fun ideas for seasonal speaking!