It was the first meeting in July and Terry’s first night as president. Nuala was Toastmaster choosing the theme of surprises for the meeting. Tatiana was Timekeeper, Prateek was Grammarian and Christophe was Harkmaster.
Terry President of London Victorians
We had two speeches on the night, an icebreaker and a number 10 speech to complete the competent communication manual.
Romain was first on stage delivering his icebreaker. He took the audience on his journey of moving to London, from arriving to St. Pancreas station to discovering the bad weather and experiencing London’s leisure time and lifestyle.
Second on stage was Eleanor G who delivered speech 10, “Inspire your audience”. Eleanor’s speech was about grit. She explained how we are all capable of getting what we want with the right attitude, self control and ultimately harnessing the gift of grit; perseverance, resilience and ambition.
Best Speech and Best Evaluation Award Winners
We had a night packed with 11 table topics. Thomas provided volunteers with the beginning of a story which the speaker then had to continue, providing an opportunity for all to use their skills of thinking on their feet. The beginning of the stories ranged from being a lone cowboy in a ghost town, to discovering the World is flat, right through to being on Noah’s Ark and discovering that two cows are missing.
Romain completing his Ice Breaker
An excellent, fun-filled night. Join us next week for more table topics, speeches and evaluations!
On Tuesday Eleanor G was Toastmaster, engaging the audience by asking them to solve riddles throughout the meeting. She had a team to assist her; Paul was timekeeper and Terry was Sergeant at Arms. Bruna was Harkmaster and Prateek was Grammarian choosing “Wild” for the word of the day. We had four speakers delivering speeches from the Competent Communication manual.
Eleanor G the Toastmaster of the meeting
First on stage was George delivering speech 2 “Organise your speech”. He had just returned from his farm in Uganda and to coincide, his Ugandan farm was also the subject of his speech. He wore a Ugandan hat during the speech while informing the audience of the hot climate, the traffic, and how he grew pineapples, passion fruit and bananas on his farm.
George wearing his hat
Second on stage was Hannah delivering her Speech 4, “How to say it”. She tackled the complex subject of the EU referendum. Using clear and concise language she explained to the audience reasons for and against remaining in the EU.
John was next who was also delivering speech 4 from the manual. John spoke about fear, vulnerability and the need for belonging in his speech. He referenced ways we can belong by having courage and acceptance, proposing a new law of the jungle, to keep people connected. He ended the speech in a quote “the strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf”
John’s prepared speech
Finally, Robert delivered his speech 6 “Vocal variety”. His speech was about Bolivia, the best place he’s ever been. He told stories of a friend jumping into water where unknown to his there were crocodiles. He informed us also about the piranhas and also that Bolivia is the only place in the World you can see pink Dolphins!
Robert’s speech about Bolivia
Eleanor B was table topic master asking volunteers to give an impromptu speech on whether they agree or disagree with her chosen statement. Her statements ranged from the view that computer games encouraged violence, to whether climate change is a load of rubbish. Six volunteers got the opportunity to speak on stage with no prior knowledge of these questions, and then were evaluated by Annabel who provided each speaker with commendations and recommendations for forthcoming impromptu speaking situations.
Join us next week for more speeches, evaluations and impromptu speeches.
Prateek was toastmaster last tuesday, he started the meeting with a breathing exercise encouraging audience members to ignore distractions and focus on the meeting. He ran an energetic meeting with a team to assist him; Lawrence was timekeeper and Eleanor G was harkmaster.
The first half of the meeting had three speakers, and three evaluators, the second half of the meeting was London Victorian’s Annual General Meeting (AGM).
First speaker on stage was Cleo, delivering her icebreaker. She informed the audience of the challenges she has faced in her life, and how this has shaped her positive attitude and approach to life. Her evaluator Sophia praised Cleo’s infectious smile and her ability to connect with the audience.
Cleo delivering her Icebreaker
Second on stage was Toby, delivering his speech five “Your Body Speaks” from the Competent Communication manual. In the speech, Toby discussed the disadvantages of investment strategies and how to reduce risk. Toby’s evaluator Tattiana commended his reassuring and appropriate tone of voice that built trust with the audience, she also pointed out areas where Toby could enhance his body movements even more to deliver a more impactful speech.
Third speaker was Joyce who began her speech by tapping a glass coffee container to get into character, her speech from the interpretive reading manual involved a monodrama where Joyce read aloud from a book. Her evaluator Terry praised Joyce’s reenactment of the characters and recommended Joyce could enhance the drama at certain stages of the speech to engage the audience further. Congratulations to Joyce who received Advanced Communicator Bronze Award after completing this speech.
Joyce completing her final speech before being awarded Advanced Communicator Bronze
The second half of the meeting was our AGM, where founding president Florian Bay highlighted successes of the year, provided members with information on the club’s budget and explained the committee structure.
London Victorians’ AGM with Florian Bay
London Victorian’s elected committee for next year:
Terry was Toastmaster of the evening choosing the uplifting theme of birthdays for the meeting. Proceedings included birthday poppers, hats and a rendition of happy birthday to amplify the theme.
A team helped assist Terry in the running of the meeting; Joyce was timekeeper, Cleo was Harkmaster, Eleanor G was Sergeant at Arms, and Nuala was Grammarian selecting the word of “Merriment” to coincide with Terry’s theme.
Toastmaster Terry with a party popper
The first speaker to take the stage was Eleanor B. Her speech summarized four art pieces signifying specific movements that she felt contributed to the evolution of Western art, including visual examples from cave men, Degas, Turner, and Da Vinci.
Stephen was the second speaker and his humorous speech describing the struggles he overcame in purchasing a bike and his ambitious plan to cycle from London to Brighton.
Stephen describing his bike adventures
Annabel was third, a speech describing her three favourite alcoholic beverages, intertwining both Chinese and Scottish cultures surrounding social drinking, ending her speech with a quote from Churchill “I’ve taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me”.
Founding club President Florian completed his Advanced Communication Gold on Tuesday. His educational speech involved visual aids and background research demonstrating an in-depth knowledge regarding potential reasons why Britain’s economy is weaker than it should be.
Florian’s final speech before being awarded Advanced Communication Gold
Join us next week for more speeches and evaluations. We will also be having our Annual General Meeting during the second half where we will be electing our committee, reviewing our successes and planning the future of the club. Everyone welcome!
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.
Our guest of honour Mohammed Qahtani
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 addressing our packed venue
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.
Packed room for this special event!
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.
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!
You must be logged in to post a comment.