Author: London Victorians

Evaluation Workshop – Tuesday 26th April

Post author By London Victorians
Post date May 1, 2016

On Tuesday, London Victorians held an evaluation workshop with guest facilitator Catherine Casale. Eleanor G was Toastmaster, Fahad as Sergeant At Arms and Stephen took on the role of timekeeper.

Catherine hosted an interactive workshop, including a visual presentation and there was lots of audience interaction. Toastmasters has a longstanding tradition of evaluating and there are many benefits to this practice.

Catherine hosting the Evaluation Workshop

During the workshop Catherine highlighted the fact that the practice of delivering constructive feedback builds emotional intelligence, develops critical thinking skills and these transferable techniques can easily be incorporated within scenarios outside Toastmasters. She split the Evaluation workshop into three main sections; why evaluate, key evaluation concepts, and practice makes proficient.

During the workshop we explored how each participant benefits during the evaluation process from the three main stakeholders; the evaluator, the audience, and the speaker’s perspective.

In the third section, Catherine invited 6 volunteers to evaluate two speeches, and after Rob’s speech she invited three volunteers to try out new structures in order to experiment with technique and explore ways to develop and improve the evaluation process.

First speaker on stage was George who delivered his icebreaker. His speech informed the audience of his multi-faceted life; from being in the Royal Air Force, to writing books on ebay selling techniques and most recently acquiring a farm in Uganda. It was an entertaining and informative speech which was very engaging.

Robert delivered a well-structured speech educating the audience in some of the psychological aspects of playing tennis, and how the game is not just a physical sport. Whilst training at professional level, Robert recounted the lessons of sportsmanship versus gamesmanship. During his tennis training he was taught techniques such as breaking your opponents playing rhythm when they had built momentum with stalling techniques for example, tying shoelaces or bouncing the tennis ball.

An excellent workshop…Join us on for our next meeting on 3rd of May!

Tags evaluation, speaking, workshop

Past meetings Toastmasters International

A Meeting Full of Proverbs – April 19th

Post author By London Victorians
Post date April 24, 2016

Stephen was toastmaster for the evening, with the theme of proverbs for the meeting and he had a team to assist him to ensure the smooth running of the meeting. Terry fulfilled the duty of timekeeper and Sergeant At Arms. Andy was grammarian and Eleanor H was harkmaster imparting the quote to summarise the purpose of her role “if speaking is silver then listening is gold”.

Stephen as Toastmaster, with the theme of proverbs

There were four prepared speeches during the first half and impromtu speaking during the second half of the meeting. Fahad fulfilled the role of Table Topics Master, and keeping with the theme of proverbs he provided each volunteer with a proverb from different parts of the World for each speaker to focus on.

Fahad using the theme of proverbs from around the World as Table Topic subjects

First speaker was Eleanor H delivering her icebreaker. She explained how she has added spontaneity to her life by travelling and setting aside one day a month to do something unplanned. Eleanor H cited the advantages of putting yourself in situations that don’t feel comfortable in order to learn about oneself, resisting our human desire for stability and structure.

Nuala delivered her speech five from the Toastmaster’s competent communicator manual. Speech five focuses on eye contact, posture and body language. During her speech she told the story of the first time she made a poached egg for a family friend when they came to visit.

Eleanor G delivering her speech about tears

Eleanor G delivered a well researched speech on the topic of tears, and crying. She explained how crying is often a reflection of society and one’s environment. The research touched on many aspects of the act of crying; interestingly studies show that people cry more frequently in warmer climates and affluent countries such as America and Australia.

Prateek began his speech lying on the floor describing a time when he felt the fight or flight response. His speech outlined the survival instinct of humans explaining the effects of stress hormones. He made the point that the brain can’t always differentiate from a real threat or a perceived threat. Often the stress hormone in our body reacts similarly to a stressful situation, for example, giving a speech as our body would react to a life threatening event.

Join us on Tuesday 26th of April for our next meeting

Tags education, Past meetings, speaking, Toastmasters

Past meetings Toastmasters International

An Energetic Meeting – 12th April

Post author By London Victorians
Post date April 17, 2016

Toastmaster Prateek hosted an energetic meeting with a team to assist him during the meeting. Eleanor B was timekeeper, Fahad was harkmaster, Kirsten was table topics master and Rob was Sergeant at Arms. Karen took on the role as grammarian, enlisting “Rapturous” as word of the day, which in turn encouraged the audience to give rapturous applauses throughout the meeting.

Florian’s speech was first and taken from the High Performance Leadership Manual. Florian reflected on his three years at Toastmasters; how he has overcome many of his limiting beliefs and fears, learning valuable leadership skills on his journey. Florian described to the audience the lessons he had learnt from setting up London Victorians which as a result has prepared him in the launch of his own business endeavour.

Next was Tattiana who delivered her icebreaker speech ‘Game of Life’. When describing the many vocations she has undertaken throughout her life, Tattiana explained to the audience the importance of a smile. She employed the use of metaphors relating her view of life to some aspects of playing a computer game. This technique helped her describe to the audience how she felt during the different “modes” she has experienced; from modelling, to research engineer.

Annabel’s nostalgic speech described to the audience about her trips home to Scotland, how many of her masterplans are conceived in the solace of her home environment. Annabel employed metaphors such as “like honey and lemon”, trips home are “soothing to the soul” and reciting quotes from Maya Angelou and Charles Dickens to fully describe to the audience her hometown landscape and family life.

At London Victorians we always welcome guests, and it was our pleasure to host Saba who is a member of a Toastmaster club in the Netherlands. Saba delivered an inspirational speech to London Victorians. He imparted three golden rules he lives by; passion over tradition, happiness over norms, and people over prejudice. An energetic and dynamic speech which even featured the Macareena song!

Join us on Tuesday 19th of April for our next meeting

Tags education, Past meetings, speaking, speeches, Toastmasters

Past meetings Toastmasters International Uncategorized

Completing the CC Manual – 5th April

Post author By London Victorians
Post date April 10, 2016

AK was the toastmaster of the evening with a team to assist in the smooth running of the meeting; Andy was timekeeper and when explaining his role, Andy imparted an interesting quote by Mother Teresa regarding the importance of time “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin”. Stephen as Harkmaster, Joyce as Sargent At Arms and Nadia as table topic master who assigned speaking volunteers with table topics related to Spring. Annabel took on the role as grammarian using Serendipity as the word of the day and speakers during the meeting managed to integrate the word on four separate occasions.

There were three prepared speeches on the agenda, first was Thomas, his speech recounted the time he jumped out of an aeroplane, the speech delivery was peppered with vivid vocabulary, analogies, and dynamic body language.

Prateek’s delivered his 7th speech from the Competent Communicator (CC) Manual “Research your topic”. He educated the audience on the research he had conducted regarding the positives and negatives of Britain remaining in the EU. He informed the audience from an economic perspective on how the results of the referendum was not a binary outcome, backing up his research with insightful facts.

A special moment in the toastmaster journey is completing the CC manual which has ten speech projects. Terry delivered his final CC speech on Tuesday, his inspirational speech explained to the audience the power of thought. Using the formation and evolution of London Victorian Toastmasters club as an example, Terry explained how nurturing your thoughts can lead to great things when leveraged with the power of community.

Terry delivering his 10th speech from the CC Manual

Join us next Tuesday 12th April for our next meeting!

Tags Past meetings, speaking, speeches, Toastmasters

Past meetings Toastmasters International

Grammarian Report – 29th March

Post author By London Victorians
Post date April 3, 2016

The fervent Joyce took on the role of Toastmaster for the meeting, Florian as grammarian, encouraging speakers to use the word ‘constellate’. Nadia as Sergeant at Arms, Kirsten as Harkmaster and finally Rob as timekeeper.

There were three prepared speeches during the meeting, first on stage was Eleanor whose well-researched speech educated the audience on the advantages of Credit Unions.

Second to the stage was Nuala who delivered a speech involving an introspection on building your sense of identity, recalling the building blocks that create one’s self of self.

Finally was AK’s speech recounting the life of James Chen who took on the seemingly impossible challenge of transforming the literacy levels in China at a time when only 2% of the population could read or write. AK used Chen’s extraordinary achievement as an example of how goal setting can help your dreams become a reality.

Yvonne provided topics for speaking volunteers to tackle during the improvised speaking portion of the meeting, we had five guests taking the opportunity to deliver an impromtu speech on stage.

During his role, grammarian Florian managed to count the amount of times each speaker used the filler words “amm” or “uh”. A greatly beneficial report to help speakers realize bad habits they may not otherwise be aware of.

Florian delivering his Grammarian report

Join us on Tuesday 5th April for another meeting packed full of speeches, evaluations, grammarian feedback and table topics!

Tags education, grammar, grammarian, Past meetings, speaking, speeches, Toastmasters