Our second meeting of May was an occasion to ponder the last few months of the club but also to prepare its future. Our newest club member was welcome at the start of the meeting. It is our official club banner that came all the way from California by post. She will now stand proud and tall at every single one our meetings and no doubt be coated with numerous ribbons in a short space of time!
Toastmastering the meeting was current Area 52 governor, Marc Lottig whose towering presence meant that we were in very safe hands indeed. Our timekeeper of the evening was Alex, (well done Alex for your first club role!). The word of the day of tonight’s grammarian Edem was ‘ponder’. Closing the trio of assistant functionaries was Monica as vote counter.
Prateek started the evening of speeches with the third speech from the Competent Communicator manual. In “Rules of Engagement’ we were treated with a very factual speech on modern day dating app Tinder and its 22 billion daily swipes! Following was Marina with a speech from the Speeches by Management manual. Her speech ‘LinkedOut’ explored how to give feedback in an unsuccessful job application. Closing off the evening of speeches was Alan Thomas, with ‘Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind’ from the Entertaining Speaker manual. A dramatic talk on the story of an author meeting sprites and spirits in a house.
The first evaluator of the evening was Terry, who emphasised the importance of not having too loud a voice tone and of moving on stage while making points for added impact. Fahad then evaluated Marina, highlighting the importance of choosing the right speech topic for the manual’s objectives. Daniela finished off by evaluating Alan, emphasising the importance of effective vocal variety and of setting up props correctly.
London Victorians annual general meeting then followed. Starting off with the election of the new committee. The club committee for the 2015/16 Toastmasters year will consist of:
President: Florian Bay
Vice-President Education: Fahad Alturkait
Vice-President Membership: Terry Pullin
Vice-President Public Relations: Marina Lussich
Vice-President Mentorship: Edwin Atiegoba
Treasurer: Ayokunle Sangoyomi
Sergeant at Arms: Prateek Trehun
A short overview of the past year was made by club president Florian Bay, highlighting the impressive achievement of having started the club from scratch and now having 24 members with more in the pipeline. The club’s ambition remains to become the leading Toastmaster club in London and to meet every Tuesday. The next Toastmasters year already looks promising but it is the sum of the individual achievements of all the members that will make the club great!
The table topics session led by Eleanor was themed around the titles of strange books. Participants had to tell the story behind interesting titles such as ‘Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter’ or ‘How to play with a Lion’s testicules’. Rosie evaluated the session for her first crack at an evaluation role (bravo Rosie!). The entire meeting was finally evaluated by Gagan Singh coming from London Athenians.
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