London Victorian’s AGM

This week was London Victorian’s AGM, so we had an extra special meeting! In the first half of the meeting there were 2 fantastic speeches from our members, as well as a speech from Sonia about the upcoming Pathways programme. The second half was dedicated to the AGM.

Terry, our President and focused his introduction on the guests in the meeting and talked about the various reasons why people join Toastmasters.

Terry handed over to Isabelle, our Toastmaster for the evening. Isabelle is now an expert in this role and performed it seamlessly. She set the theme for the evening by stating that while our comfort zone is a very nice place to be, there is no growth there. We need to push ourselves to develop and improve and asked each speaker when they pushed themselves outside their comfort zone (apart from public speaking). Our courageous members have done marathons, stand up comedy, dance lessons and insanity workout programmes, to name a few.

Isabelle was supported by Paul M as Timekeeper and Ed as Harkmaster.  Annabel was our Sergeant at Arms. She introduced the hidden benefits of joining toastmasters (leadership skills) and warmly greeted the 5 guests.

Speeches and Evaluations

In the initial section of the meeting, there were 2 prepared speeches, followed by their evaluations.

First up was Negin, performing a number 3 speech, on her unlucky traveller hypothesis. Negin used great structure, visual aids and humour to describe how no matter where she travels, she will always have bad luck!

Pascale was up next, with a speech number 5 on “How to make your best better”. She used storytelling to emphasise the importance of asking for feedback and how to give it effectively.

After the speeches Florian and Alex performed evaluations for Negin and Pascale respectively. Audience members also completed feedback slips.

Speech feedback tip for using PowerPoint presentations (from Florian): A good PowerPoint presentation includes lots of pictures and little text.

Pathways

After the speeches from our members, we were fortunate to have Sonia from London Cardinals speak to us about the upcoming pathways programme. Sonia answered all our questions about how the programme works in practice, after experiencing the programme during her recent trip to America. ‘Pathways’ is due to come to district 91 from March 2018 and will eventually replace the current educational programme. Please click here for more information.

AGM

The second half of the meeting was for the club’s AGM. Terry, our 16/17 president, took us through the fantastic achievements London Victorians had made over the past year. Not only have we attained the President’s Distinguished Club award (the highest level of recognition available) for the 2^nd year running, we hosted the Area finals for Humorous Speeches and Table Topics and celebrated our 100^th meeting! Terry also highlighted that the great quality of our speakers is what makes London Victorians a truly superb club to be part of.

Florian took the reins from Terry to discuss the Club Finances and did his best to make it interesting and interactive! Finally Terry returned to the stage, with the help of Sonia to vote in the new committee for the 17/18 Toastmaster year.

London Victorians is pleased to welcome our new committee…

President                           –             Nuala McHugh

VP Education                   –             Eleanor Handslip

Club success manager  –             Alex Liberatore

VP Membership               –             Pascale Monteil

Membership manager  –             Cleo Bispo

VP Public Relations       –             Terry Pullin

VP Mentoring                   –             Fahad Alturkait

Treasurer                           –             Florian Bay

Events manager              –             Paul McCoy & Paulina Dabrowska

We wish the committee all the best in their new roles and look forward to an exciting Toastmasters year ahead! Well done to all who made this a fantastic meeting and AGM and we look forward to seeing everyone next Tuesday!