Category: Toastmasters International

The day when ones becomes a speaker and takes to the stage is always special. In our last club meeting, we were delighted to have six members of London Victorians doing their first speech. Alongside four others doing other speeches from the Competent Communication manual.

Edwin was our toastmastering our first ever speakathon. Ably assisted by Nuala as timekeeper and Hannah as vote counter.

Our first speaker of the night was Sandra ‘Find the Best, Remember the Joy’. Sandra spoke to us about his hometown of Timisoara and her study of Chemistry in the United States. She was followed by Abigail ‘When a man is tired of London he is tired of life’ as second speaker. While she never intended to move to London, it is now Abi’s home and where she met her family including two bunnies whose antics are legendary! Charles with ‘The Opening’ followed as third speaker. Charles told us his childhood in Paris, how his parents’ travails affected him and how he grasped the nettle and decided to change for the better himself. ‘What do you do?’ was Olivia’s speech on her job in the responsible investment industry and her objective to bring it in the mainstream. Finally our last speaker of the first half was Isabelle with ‘Journalism: the good, the bad, the ugly’.

Evaluating each speaker in turn were Eddie, Fahad, Yvonne, Marina and Prateek. Recommendations included using the stage more, incorporating more vocal variety, eye contact and not using notes if possible.

The second half of our speakathon followed after the break. The speaker opening it was Sophia ‘Facing my fear’ outlining her journey so far in facing her fear of public speaking. Nadia followed with her Icebreaker speech, where she talked about the story of launching her own smoothie making business and her travels to Jordan. Stephen followed on with ‘Bitcoin’. There we learnt all there was to learn about Bitcoins, including that they are linked to virtual wallets and how there are 21m of them out there! AK then did a project #3 from the Competent Communication manual ‘Friendship’. Giving the example of two relationships with friends and how they changed and evolved over the years. Thomas was then our final speaker of the evening with ‘Two Stars’ a review of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey seen on an airplane.

Our evaluators for the second half were Florian, Terry, Joyce, Eleanor and Kate. Recommendations given covered included use of notes, speech structure and length and the usage of body language.

The mammoth task of evaluating our ten evaluators fell to Polina who provided feedback to everyone.

Well done everyone on making our first speakathon a rousing success!

Our second meeting in our new airy venue of St James Church was special as three of our member took to the stage with their icebreaker speech. The very first speech one gives during the course of their Toastmasters journey.

Toastmastering the session was legendary Croydonian Joyce Reid, who launched the meeting with her usual energy and enthusiasm. Assisting her as timekeeper, was Isabelle. Followed by John as grammarian and “fluid” as his word of the day. Karen then introduced the harkmaster role and urged everyone to open their ears wide and listen. Finally Sandra explained her vote counter role.

Our first icebreaker was by Eleanor “Bowler Hats and Pin Stripes”. Eleanor talked about her career as a civil servant, from working in the excise department in Heathrow’s customers to influencing policy and saying “Yes Minister”. Following on with her icebreaker was Nuala “Creative Threads” on her passion for art and creativity. Said creativity led her to study textile design and she now works in this industry. The third icebreaker was “Cymru” by Hannah. During this icebreaker speech, we learnt everything there was to learn about Wales, including some Welsh and the local traditions of Hannah’s hometown of Porthcawl. Our fourth speech of the evening was my club president Florian “Travel by Train”. A humorous speech peppered with anecdotes from his various experiences of travelling by train all over Britain.

Evaluating the first icebreaker was Alex who praised Eleanor limited use of notes but suggested that she tell more about herself. Edwin then evaluated Nuala’s icebreaker, highlighting her purposeful use of the stage and recommending more eye contact next time. Thomas followed on as the evaluator of Hannah’s speech, praising her effective use of visual aids but recommending more vocal variety and stage presence. Finally, Florian’s speech was evaluated by Fahad who suggested a cleaner and more seamless delivery.

Tonight’s table topics session led by Prateek featured ten random words such as royalty, bikini, Viking, boulevard, alligator. Each participant had to make up a story feature as many of the words as possible with the next speaker taking on where the story had left. An intriguing concept that went down a treat! Yvonne evaluated the table topics session and gave feedback to all the speakers taking part.

John and Karen than came back for their reports. With general evaluator Kate then giving feedback on the entire meeting.

See you all at our next meeting on November 3^rd for our speakathon!

What a fantastic debut meeting in our brand new venue! Despite the wet weather we were well attended by our members and also new and returning guests. Terry Pullin was our acting President for the evening and got the meeting off to an energetic start.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Prateek. Prateek was doing the toastmaster role for the very first time. He came across as a veteran though as he expertly guided us through the evening’s proceedings. Assisting Prateek in running the meeting was Sandra (first time) time keeper, Yvonne (first time) grammarian and Nadia as vote counter.

In our prepared speech section, we had three speeches ranging from ice breaker to advanced manual. Isabelle gave her maiden speech, and took us on a journey from the Netherlands to the UK. Alex was giving his number four speech, took us behind the scenes of a games developer. Our VP of Education Fahad, speaking from an advanced manual gave us an inspirational argument for helping refugees in need.

Evaluating, we had Stephen for Isabelle, Eleanor for Alex and Terry evaluating Fahad’s speech.

Introducing the guests was done by our VP Mentorship Edwin. As always we had a good number of new and returning guests.

The second half of the meeting was led by Eleanor, doing the Table topics master role for the first time. Eleanor gave an array of coffee related questions which all our participants thoroughly enjoyed answering. The evaluations for the table topics were carried out by our very own Joyce who gave enthusiastic and insightful evaluations to all our participants.

Our General evaluator for the evening was Samantha Sherwood, President of the ACCA members Breakfast club. Samantha gave some great recommendations on how to make use of our new venue as well as other helpful hints to make us a stronger club. We hope to welcome her back very soon to see how we have progressed.

Our last meeting was very special, being our last meeting in the upstairs room of the Windsor Castle Pub. September 2014 and the humble beginnings of our now almost forty members strong club now seems like a different era. But London Victorians will forever remain grateful to the owners of the Windsor Castle Pub for providing us with an amazing home for the last year and a perfect place where to start our club!

Taking charge as Toastmaster of the evening was the legendary Joyce, who wasted no time in inspiring us all and in introducing her team for this meeting. Eleanor carefully explained her role in timing the meeting’s different segments. Grammarian Sandra introduced ‘inspirational’ as word of the day. Harkmaster Florian highlighted the importance of active listening. Finally Vote Counter Nuala reminded us all of the importance of providing and collecting feedback during a Toastmasters meeting.

Our first speaker at this meeting was Toby ‘Market Research’. For his very first speech, Toby explained his first job as a market researcher both the great aspects of it and the less positive aspects of customers putting the phone down on him. Following on was Yvonne ‘Starting Drinks’. Yvonne remarked that one can learn the most about a colleague during their leaving drinks and consequently suggested organizing starting drinks to get to know new colleagues better! The third speaker at this meeting was Eleanor ‘Wolf Belly’. Eleanor regaled the audience with the tale of her childhood night-time dreams of being transformed into a werewolf and eating copious amounts of pasta to return to her human form. All the while explaining the origin and meaning of the werewolf myth. Our final speaker was John ‘I hate’ on his complex attitude towards social media and the importance of not substituting it to meaningful interactions with others.

Alex evaluated the first speaker, suggesting a slower speaking pace while commending his stage presence. Prateek’s evaluation of Yvonne’s speech highlighted the importance of voice modulation and he benefits one can gain by using the stage more. Edwin in his evaluation of our third speaker Eleanor recommended using more drama and animations to make the story more vivid still. Finally Fahad evaluated John’s speech and praised his clear message while warning against hand clasping.

The theme of the table topics session run by Stephen was world records. Both members and guest had a go at explaining world records such as the most T shirts worn at the same time, the largest collection of clocks or making the largest rubber band ball. This impromptu speaking part of the meeting was evaluated by Eddie. With Sandra and Florian following shortly after for their Grammarian and Harkmaster reports. Finally Ellie Raycheva of Canary Wharf Communicators did her general evaluation of the club, praising it as “one of the best clubs in London!”

Our next meeting will take place in our new venue of the Monk Room in St James the Less Church. The address is:
St James the Less Church
Vauxhall Bridge Road, Victoria, London, SW1V 2PS