Category: Past meetings

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Past meetings

Our meeting on the 6th of December – Revisited

Despite a number of last minute changes to the agenda, London Victorians Toastmaster meeting on 6th of December was full of great speeches and incredible energy as always.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Lorenzo, who is working in London for 6 months and has decided to join our club while he is here. Lorenzo is a Toastmaster in Milan, Italy and his experienced showed in coordinating a great meeting.

Lorenzo’s theme for the evening was Languages, and we heard every speakers dream language to learn in the future. Lot’s would like to learn French & Spanish and some would like to learn the language of love, and Klingon!

We had two Icebreaker speeches (the first speech in the Toastmaster Communications program) and they were, once again, delivered to an exceptionally high standard.

Dan’s speech ‘The Power of Ideas’ and Phill’s speech ‘Lesson’s learnt, Lesson’s Taught’ both showed the audience that these two guys have bags of natural skills to make future speeches great, and that they both have aspirations to use public speaking in their lives to inspire others in the future. No doubt they will!

dan-and-phill-icebreaker

Gary then gave us a project 2 speech and taught us ‘The art of an effective cold call’. A classic speech structure of Introduction, Body and Conclusion was used to show the audience what not to do, what should be done and to encourage us all to not be afraid of cold calling. Great techniques throughout the speech included using props and referencing others, all added to the delivery.

Our reunited member Eddie asked us to ‘Make the Time’ in our lives for things we might have left behind. Personal stories enhanced the effectiveness of the speech and his purpose was clearly delivered and inspired us all to take time for things other than work (and inspired us to vote for him because he won the Best Speaker ribbon).

eddie-best-speaker-ribb

Karen finished off the prepared speakers with another inspirational speech entitled ‘The Added Value of work’, using personal stories, references and body language to highlight how we should all consider how we should not take lightly the value of what we have, sighting the incredible feats of people with disabilities to achieve great things in the face of challenging personal circumstances.

More than just speeches

Our meeting also included giving feedback in the form of evaluations. Terry, Florian, Christophe, Nuala and Fahad all gave detailed, encouraging and useful tips to the audience about what was good and what could be improved in the 5 speakers speeches.

Fahad’s evaluation of Karen’s speech was the favourite of the audience and he won the nights evaluation ribbon.

fahad-best-evaluator

Members and guests alike should take time to see & hear evaluations from our members, the things they notice that are worth commendation and the tips for improvements should be considered by everyone in their own speeches.

Our Table Topics section was skill fully handled by Cleo, with a theme inline with the meeting of languages. With no prior knowledge of the subject coming their way 5 speakers came to the stage a gave 2 minute speeches about language and hit us with humorous and informative impromptu speeches on the subjects.

Particularly notable was John, who would like his future partner to speak French, because of the way that anything spoken in French sounds ‘sexy’. He won the Best Table Topic ribbon with his humorous effort.

john-best-table-topic

Robert gave the table topic speakers a set of encouraging evaluations. Skilfully navigated his way through 5 evaluations in a few minutes and gave great tips on what everyone can do right in this section.

Rounding of the meeting we have feedback from our Grammarian, who’s word of the day “foible” was used by an impressive amount of characters and recommended everyone replaces filler words with a …….. pause.

Our ‘hark master’ Diane prepared some brilliant and challenging questions from sections of the meeting to check on the audiences listening skills.

Time was carefully recorded by Caleb and he held back from the bell for our stand in GE John, who gave an exciting set of feedback for the functionaries and in particular started a new trend and London Victorians by describing evaluators commendations as the ‘bun’ and recommendations and the ‘meat’ in a a feedback sandwich.

A great meeting as always!

Categories
Past meetings Toastmasters International

Toastmaster Meeting – Inspirational Leaders

On the 4th October Isabelle made her debut as Toastmaster of the Meeting in confident style. Isabelle had asked all speakers and functionaries in advance who their most inspirational leader or speaker was and why. She then used their answers whilst introducing them to the stage.

Prepared Toastmaster Speeches

The first speech was Karen who spoke about the “Gig Economy”. She talked about disruptive “market transforming technologies” and used the examples of eBay and Uber to paint a picture of what she believed was coming to the freelancer market. It was an informative speech talking about the risks and the opportunities to those involved.

Next up was Nuala who spoke about mindfulness. Nuala used a metaphor to explain what mindfulness was, she said “buses are like thoughts in our heads, we can let them go past or get on board”. She used visual aids in the form of photos of everyday items, such as washing up liquid, and taught us how we can practice mindfulness while doing the most basic chores.

The third speaker was Annabel who won best speaker for the meeting with her speech titled “A Short History of Fashion”. As a speech 8 (get comfortable with visual aids) Annabel used Powerpoint to help tell the story of Coco Chanel and her greatest rival Elsa Sciaparelli. She took the opportunity given by the subject to use rich and varied adjectives, talking about “innovative, imaginative – almost dreamlike” designs.

The fourth and final speaker was Warren who gave an adaptation of his recent humorous speech contest speech. He explained the reason he didn’t win in the contest was not because his speech was not funny but because the audience didn’t recognise his jokes. He therefore said he would helpfully hold up a sign saying “Ha” so we wouldn’t miss out. An innovative approach well worked into a funny speech on his predictions of our future relationships with robots.

Table Topics

The second half of the meeting Terry took the role of Table Topic Master. Continuing the inspirational leaders theme, he asked participants to imagine they were in certain leadership roles and to give impromptu speeches to further their cause. Eddie won the best table topic by acting the CEO of a naturist society who encouraged everyone to get naked for world peace!

Join us at our next meeting on Tuesday 11th October at St James the Less Church in Pimlico.

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Contest Past meetings Toastmasters International

Homorous Speech and Table Topics Contest

The lights were dimmed, guests were in their seats, and the judges had been briefed; most were relaxed, looking forward to the evening’s entertaining speeches. The contestants and organisers were looking a bit more serious. 13th September 2016 was the London Victorians contests evening.

rsz_IMG_1082The first half of the meeting was the Humorous Speech Contest and, after a short introduction from the club President, Sophia to took the stage as Contest Chair.

Sophia bounded with energy and enthusiasm as she explained the important rules and order of events. Looking calm and relaxed on stage, it is great to see the amazing benefits of regular toastmasters practice coming together for such a demanding role. She made sure each and every contestant was welcomed to the stage with rapturous applause, London Victorians style.

Humorous Speaking Contest

We had four humorous speeches lined up. Christophe was first, with a speech titled “Worst Advice”, where he told us of all the wonderful advice he has received in his life, along with the consequences. With advice like “just be yourself and everything will be fine” and “if you ignore the bullies, they’ll get bored and leave you alone”, Christophe took life examples many people can relate to and emphasised the ridiculousness of the advice they are  often given. A sure fire way to ensure the audience would be roaring with laughter.

Next up was George who used a part of his life story to take us on his journey from being “caught” by his wife through the Plenty of Fish dating website to his experiences as a white man living in Uganda. In particular, the way he was perceived by the locals and his attempts to negotiate a fair price on anything he bought. George mixed his humour with a serious message, concluding with a plea to treat everyone fairly.

rsz_IMG_1105Then came AK who taught us the art of lying. He said that lying was a very bad thing…if you don’t have the skills. AK then proceeded to go through the ethics of lying with using very funny examples.

Last but by no means least was John who, apparently (see photo), is a life coach but is definitely aware of how prolific the industry has become with “self help gurus”. John explained that he specialised in helping those suffering a “quarter life crisis”. He dispelled some myths in his attempts to convince us the condition was real and was adamant that a quarter was not equal to half a midlife crisis, rather it was a full on medical condition in its own right!

Table Topic Contest

The second half of the meeting Tom took over as Contest Chair for the Table Topics Contest. The format here was slightly different so Tom asked the Sergeant at Arms, Stephen and Ed, to escort the contestants outside the room. They then returned one at a time where they each answered the same table topic question:

“What little white lies do you tell?”

As you would expect, each contestant put their own spin on their responses but, let’s just say, it turns out a lot of London Victorians lie about their age!

Tom kept everyone entertained with an informal table topic session while the judges formalised the results. He then handed the stage to Florian who, as Chief Judge, announced the results of both contests.

John and Christophe took first and second place respectively in the Humorous Speech contest. Christophe, Lawrence and Gary came first, second and third in the Table Topics.

rsz_IMG_1180

Categories
Past meetings Toastmasters International

Toastmasters Meeting – 6th September

On Tuesday 6th September guests and members were treated to a meeting full of fun, energy and enthusiasm as former President Florian Bay took to the stage as Toastmaster of the Meeting.

Eleanor G was grammarian with the word of the day being “quaint”, which with this being London Victorians, this meeting was never going to be! Gary stood in at the last minute as timekeeper, telling us that if you want to be a valuer of life then you should be a valuer of time. Eleanor H completed the functionaries as harkmaster, ensuring everyone listened intently, with the promise of chocolate rewards if we did.

Competent Communicator Speeches

Bruna doing Competent Communicator Speech 2 - Organise Your SpeechMajdouline El Aasemi gave the first speech with her icebreaker titled “Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum” which translates to “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am”. Majdouline’s speech gave us insight into how she views the world by sharing some short stories of her life. An impassioned speech, definitely achieving the objectives and displaying a vast array of speaking skills far in advance of an icebreaker.

The second speaker was Bruna who was doing her second speech from the competent communicators manual. Immediately grabbing the audience’s attention with a theatrical opening, Bruna used rhetorical questions throughout to encourage us to think about how we make decisions in life. The speech was titled “Oh, noooo, it’s going to be a disaster” but Bruna’s confidence and engaging style made sure it was never going to be.

The third speaker of the meeting was Fahad who was doing an advanced speech from the Speaking to Inform manual. Fahad had the whole audience involved, he had us all on our feet, eyes closed, breathing purposefully, demonstrating how we can find calm in stressful situations. He called this finding your “Ha-Ra”, which was also the title of his speech. With everyone feeling so calm and refreshed after his interactive demonstration, it’s not surprising Fahad won the best speaker award for the meeting.

Table Topics

Terry doing Table Topics

The second half of the meeting Sophia took to the stage as Table Topic Master. Instead of asking a question of the speakers, Sophia asked them each to pick a surprise item from a bag and to sell it to the audience. This led to some hilarious instances including Pranav almost convincing us that a paint brush was in fact a magical brush that makes you love life and Terry doing an amazing improvised sketch of a mum and daughter extolling the virtues of the platinum range of Fairy Liquid.

The competition was tough as the standards were high but it was Florian who won the best table topic speaker award with his promotion of a can of hairspray that would, apparently, prevent your hair from making you look like a shrew!

Join us at our next meeting on 13th September when London Victorians will be hosting their annual Humorous Speaking and Table Topics contests.

View all the meeting photos in our gallery or see us on Facebook.

Categories
Past meetings Toastmasters International

Speaking in the Summer – 30th August

On Tuesday 30th August, St James the Less Church buzzed with anticipation as toastmasters and guests took their seats. Eleanor Gelston filled in for Terry as President and kicked off the meeting by reminiscing about her own Toastmasters journey and how she had faced her fear of speaking in public. She ended on a powerful notes “all you have to do is do it” before handing over to the Toastmasters of the evening, Prateek.

Toastmasters give rapturous applause
Enthusiastic club members

Prateek immediately filled the room with energy and enthusiasm. He encouraged both sides of the room to cheer and clap as loudly as possible as he first introduced the functionaries and then the speakers.

Christophe gave the first speech of the night. Speaking about the US Presidential Elections and why his support goes to Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. He used powerful language to describe why Clinton would drive the USA to the ground as opposed to Trump who will make the country great again. He analysed the candidates’ solutions to three current issues: international trade, Russia and the terrorist organisation ISIS. He concluded that Trump has brought these issues to the forefront and is committed to solving them, while Clinton has no real solutions.

The second speaker was Eleanor Bucher who took us on a journey through Iceland. She guided the audience through the country by their senses, describing the sensation of standing on tectonic plates, the sound of horses’ hooves, the smell of “lip-curling” sulphur, the taste of salty fish and finally the magnificent sight of the honeycomb harbour building in Reykjavik.

Eleanor Handslip spoke next about “another Eleanor” (Eleanors took centre stage at this meeting!) and told us about the difficult life of Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the USA. She described Eleanor Roosevelt’s sad childhood as an orphan and her marriage to Franklin D.Roosevelt which was complicated by his interfering mother and his affair with his secretary. She then related how Eleanor Roosevelt overcame these challenges and became a role model for ambitious women as well as an advocate for human rights.

The final speech was by Thomas who shared a powerful and persuasive message: everyone must share in globalisation and wealth. He told us that he put money behind Brexit and described the vote to leave the EU as a “vote against globalisation”. He then outlined the history behind globalisation and international trade, taking us back to the Industrial Revolution. He highlighted the link between globalisation and xenophobia and the rise of nationalism.

Tom doing his competant communicator speech 9 - persuade with power
Toastmaster of the meeting Thomas

In the second half of the meeting we listened to some entertaining and insightful table topics. Isabelle who chose “looking back and moving forward” as the theme asked speakers to talk about memories and future plans. Questions ranged from “would you take part in a mission to Mars” to “if you could invite a historical figure to dinner, who would you choose?”

It was a great meeting which showcased the talent of London Victorians – come along to the next meeting on Tuesday 6th September at 6.45pm!