Newsletters - Page 13 of 22 - London Victorians Toastmasters Club

The stage is all yours – 17th May

Post author By London Victorians
Post date May 20, 2016

The sun shone brightly over Victoria ahead of our previous meeting. Owning the stage as Toastmaster of the evening was our VPPR Nuala who came up with a general theme for the evening based on luxuries. Her team of assistant was made up of Cleo to keep tab on time, Thomas as grammarian with “opulent” as word of the day and finally Hannah as harkmaster.

The first speaker to take the stage was Eleanor H with a speech mysteriously titled “Great PR or magic”. Eleanor told us the history of fairies from once scary and evil creatures such as changelings to the lovely and graceful flying creatures of today. No one knows what caused this momentous change but it is likely a bit of magic and a bit of PR. Second on stage was Eleanor G “Sleep tight”. Her objective of persuading us of the importance of sleep was met by a clever use of the stage and by telling us a story of when she experimented not sleeping for 3 days. This experiment didn’t end well and included hallucinations, losing balance and skin discoloration. Don’t underestimate the value of sleep folk! The third speaker on stage was Prateek “Me Inspire me”. Prateek inspired us by telling his own journey from an average teenager, to the person he is today that is able to travel at leisure and has a dream job. The secret was quite simple “act more, think less” and he urged everyone to follow a similar formula in order to be successful. Our final speaker on stage was Mahbub. Mahbub did an advanced speech from the Communicating on Video manual, simulating a press conference on the subject of sport and exercise.

Second to the stage Eleanor G — Second to speak Eleanor G

The stage was then set for speech evaluations, with Terry, Robert, Fahad and John evaluating each of the evening’s speakers in turn. Each speaker was provided commendations and recommendations on areas like his/her use of the stage, vocal variety or speech structure.

Timekeeper Cleo doing one of her reports

After a short break our table topics master Stephen facilitated a fun impromptu speaking session with “is this a luxury or a necessity”. This being a washing machine or yearly holidays abroad. The session was then evaluated by George.

Functionaries Thomas and Hannah came back on stage to give their respective reports followed by our general evaluator of the evening Area Director Laurent Nicourt.

World Champion of Public Speaking – Tuesday 10th May

Post author By London Victorians
Post date May 15, 2016

On Tuesday we had the pleasure of hosting Mohammed Qahtani the 2015 World champion of public speaking. The workshop was split into two parts, the first part entitled “Conquer adversity and live up to your dreams”, The second section of the workshop was entitled “Inject more humour into your speeches”. Mohammed delivered a very dynamic, humorous and energetic workshop with Q&A sessions after each section.

Mohammed began the first section of the workshop by stating that in order to achieve your dreams the word “impossible” should not exist in your vocabulary. To effectively achieve your dreams successfully, he broke down the challenge of achieving your dream into a number of steps and listed adversities that you may encounter. For each item, he also included a fact or anecdote as an example.

Mohammed explained to the audience the need to have specific goals, and included the advice that goals should not be superficial; ideally they should have a higher or noble cause. Once you have identified your dreams, Mohammed provided advice in facing limiting fears by using facts to dispel worry. He cited that often what we fear is irrational. Using the common fear of snakes as an example, Mohammed stated that “16% of snakes are poisonous, 40% have fangs than can bite, 2% have poison that can kill humans and often snakes only bite when they are being attacked.” Therefore like many fears, the fear of snakes is, in some ways irrational.

Mohammed’s workshop offered practical advice that he finds effective in controlling fear. He demonstrated this in an exercise with the audience, asking participants to breathe deep into the belly to get the benefits inhaling and exhaling slowly, to calm nerves.

Mohammed added a humorous element by demonstrating to the audience how to become more self aware. He did this by utilising Nadia a member of the audience, to throw rolled up paper balls at him if he said anything negative during the proceedings. This added comedy value throughout his workshop and highlighted to the audience that we should have more self awareness and approach life in a more positive manner.

In summary of the workshop in dealing with adversity and living up to your dreams, Mohammed urged the audience not to live an ordinary life. He went on to end the section with the statement “Don’t just exist, live” explaining that he has a bucket list and every year he adds 5 things to this list to complete before he dies. Mohammed told the audience that he reminds himself of this bucket list daily, continually adding and stroking off goals once completed.

The second section of the workshop began with Mohammed explaining the reasons why humour is important in order to catch the audience’s attention, maintain audience engagement, and how humour can often help in delivering an important message. He spoke about his basic rules of comedy, different types of humour, and the benefits and pitfalls of each. He then demonstrated his skills with a very humourous prepared speech in which he recounted an aeroplane journey where he changed his seat multiple times and encountered new issues each time, intertwining a message at the end; that we should take control of our lives and actively change our circumstances if we are unhappy.

Thanking our guest and the audience for an amazing event!

Overall Mohamed’s two workshops were very inspiring and included excellent practical advice on humorous speech making, goal setting, positive thinking and how to lead extraordinary lives.

Refreshments for the break kindly provided by Savse Smoothies. — Amazing refreshments for the break were kindly provided by Savse Smoothies.

We would like to thanks to Savse for the smoothies and Warren Sheng for the photographs!

Tags education, Past meetings, speaking, Toastmasters, workshop

Announcements Past meetings Toastmasters International Workshop

After Competent Communication Manual – Tuesday 3rd May

Post author By London Victorians
Post date May 8, 2016

On Tuesday we had a packed meeting, Sophia was Toastmaster and had a team to assist her; Thomas was Timekeeper and Cleo was Sergeant At Arms. Nuala was Grammarian and Tatiana was Harkmaster.

At toastmasters, initially all members deliver speeches from the Competent Communication Manual. This is a series of 10 self-paced speaking assignments. After completing this, members can choose from 15 advanced manuals to learn more specific and specialist skills. On Tuesday, two of our advanced speakers were delivering speeches from the advanced manuals.

First speaker was Fil, who did his icebreaker, which is first speech in the Competent Communication manual. He delivered a very humorous speech about how his life has transformed since the birth of his children. He even included the use of a baby doll prop, which added humour and enhanced the visual aspect of his speech.

Fil delivering his Icebreaker with his baby prop

Second speaker was Joyce who delivered a speech from the interpretive speaking manual. She selected work from the author David Meade to read aloud. This was a vivid and dramatic prose, allowing Joyce to demonstrate her skills in voice modulation and dramatization.

Third on the stage was Fahad and his speech was from the special occasions manual. He accepted the LOVPEY award and took the audience on the journey of how he achieved this award, including anecdotes of his time as Vice President of Education at London Victorians. In his acceptance speech, Fahad demonstrated sincerity and graciousness.

This Tuesday London Victorians have the pleasure of hosting World champion speaker Mohammed Qahtani to the club. It promises to be a dynamic and interactive workshop. Everyone is welcome to join us, tickets are limited and can be purchased here.

Past meetings Toastmasters International Workshop

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