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Delivering Speeches – 14th June
On Tuesday 14th of June Stephen was Toastmaster with a team to assist him, Romain was Timekeeper and Annabel was Sergeant at Arms. Tatiana was Grammarian, Ed was Harkmaster.
There were four speeches, three from the competent communication manual and one from an advanced manual.
Lawrence was first on stage with his icebreaker “Never Forget Where You Came From” which informed the audience about his childhood in Ealing and his Italian roots which influenced much of his upbringing.
Nuala was next delivering speech 6 from the manual “Vocal Variety”. Her speech detailed one of her first experiences living in London which involved a defrosting rat on the cooker, how she has a love-hate relationship with the city however, ultimately feels it is a great place to live.
Third on stage was Thomas who delivered a visual presentation educating the audience on why bullet trains were invented, how they work and detailed the countries that currently use them. Citing aerodynamics, and a continuous welded track as two of the main technologies that enable bullet trains to function, Thomas illustrated these elements through the use of visuals.
Fourth speaker was Prateek who delivered a speech from the Humorously Speaking manual. Entitled “Money See Monkey Do”, Prateek told tales of New Years Resolutions gone array, characterising different types of gym goers and relating them to monkeys through humour and body language.
The four speeches were evaluated by their respective evaluators; Eleanor B, Sophia, Florian and Isabelle. Each evaluator praised the speaker on positive aspects of their speech and also suggested improvements to make their technique in speech delivering even better.
The second half of the meeting involved impromptu table topics provided by Cleo which were then evaluated by Eleanor G.
Join us next week for more speeches, evaluations and impromptu speeches.
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The stage is all yours – 17th May
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.
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.
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.
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.
Join us next Tuesday 12th April for our next meeting!
It was to an almost full room, upstairs in the Windsor Castle pub that another night of speaking, oratory and fun began. Opened up by an anecdote by club president Florian Bay, on the big decisions made 75 years ago that impacted the wider world and how these were defended or countered by the power of public speaking. Toastmastering the evening was Niels coming from London Athenians. Assisted by Edwin as timekeeper, grammarian Terry unveiling ‘exceptional’ as word of the day and lastly by Alex as vote counter.
Two of our members speaking tonight began their first steps in their Toastmasters journey, with their icebreakers speeches. Opening the show was Thomas ‘The building blocks of my life’ speaking of the time he moved from then West Berlin to Vermont and how his passion for lego helpd him integrate in his new environment. Following on was Yvonne ‘Facebook’, speaking on her recent move from Taiwan to the United Kingdom. Moving on from her upbringing of always showing one best side to learning to show herself more as she learnt from British culture. Speaking next was Natalie ‘Inspirational Tables’ on Chef’s Tables, a program she recently discovered through Netflix. We were treated to the stories of three chefs from all over the world and how they overcame difficulties to pursue their cooking dreams. Closing off a great night of speaking was Daniela with ‘Networking – Cinderella style’ from the Entertaining Speaker advanced manual. A night of networking in Oxford between old friends was recounted to us, including the quest for reliving old pub crawls in the city, only to discover that some old haunts are now closed.
An essential component of Toastmasters are speech evaluations. For his first time as evaluator (well done!) Prateek evaluated Thomas’s speech. Posture is key in public speaking and Prateek’s recommendation focused on avoiding hand clasping and moving in a slower and calmer manner on stage. Magda’s evaluation of Yvonne also covered posture and the importance of vocal variety to spice up a speech. Florian’s then evaluated Natalie’s speech, recommending that the full length of seven minutes be sued for speaking, alongside using more vocal variety to complement’s Natalie great use of language. Hiram’s evaluation of Daniela’s focused on the possibilities offered by using the stage fully to accentuate parts of one’s speech.
As befitted the summer atmosphere, cocktails were the themed of the table topics impromptu speaking session headed by Eddie. Members and guests were invited to describe off the cuffs inventive cocktails such as a ‘Roaring Hercules’ from Greece, a ‘Red Star’ from Russia and the ‘Realpolitik Bismarck’ from Germany. The session was evaluated by club treasurer Ayokunle. Followed by Terry’s grammarian report and Warren’s general evaluation of the entire evening.
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