Speech Improvisation or “improv” for short is about working together as a team with other improvisers to spontaneously create group stories, scenes & sketches to maximise impact of speakers.
Best courses for people new to improv are the Beginners Improv Courses.
Our fabulous member Karen has kindly written up the following blog as an overview of the awesome workshop given at London Victorians Toastmasters Club in January:
Ever wondered what it takes to deliver a world class speech? Or how to communicate a message powerfully and persuasively?
London Victorians were given the tools to do just that last week at a masterclass in speech craft delivered by Toastmasters veteran and legend, Freddie Daniels. With speech season about to get underway, Freddie shared lots of tips on how to make it to the Olympics of public speaking – Toastmasters World Championships! For those of us less focused on contest glory, there were lots of useful insights and tools to help improve our communication skills. Top among Freddie’s tips were:
Keep it simple
Don’t underestimate the power of a simple, relatable message. Speeches that highlight common challenges, life lessons or universally accepted wisdom do well at speech contests. Freddie encouraged us to think about our own experiences and the lessons we’ve learned. What advice would you give to your younger self? Wisdom is the bedrock of inspiration as Freddie reminded us and an audience loves a speech it can relate to.
Watch a movie
What do Hollywood movies and world class speeches have in common? Freddie showed us that both have a well-told story at their core. The Pursuit of Happiness, the Kings Speech and Disney movies are examples of great storytelling. They all follow a predictable pattern, the ideal structure for a cracking speech – a situation, a main character, a goal, an obstacle and a journey to success. If you’re concerned it might not be possible to fit all that into a ten-minute speech, check out toastmasters website to see recordings of previous winners.
Have a laugh
Freddie really emphasised the power of humour. Speeches that win at district, area and international level are those that entertain. He reminded us that even when speaking about the most serious of topics, a dash of humour has the power to move an audience and keep them interested.
You can never have enough mentors
They say it takes a village to raise a child… Freddie’s workshop really showed that it takes a whole bunch of mentors, supporters and friends to craft a great speech. Freddie stressed the importance of practicing at different clubs, getting tips from those who have done well before, gathering feedback and constantly refining the delivery.
Interested in pushing yourself and taking your step towards the final? London Victorians club contest is taking place on 7 March and there are still places available. As Freddie said, someone’s got to win and that someone could be you!
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.
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.
We would like to thanks to Savse for the smoothies and Warren Sheng for the photographs!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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