Impromptu Archives - London Victorians Toastmasters Club

London Victorians is excited to host this years Area 8, Humorous Speech & Table Topic contests.

This will be held at our Toastmaster venue between Victoria & Pimlico stations on Tuesday 27th of September

Anyone is welcome to come along and see some of the best Toastmasters in the Victoria and Westminster area compete to win the chance to speak at the Toastmasters Division B contest in October.

The Victoria & Westminster Area 8 final will start at 18:45 promptly, please arrive any time from 18:30 to get ready for the contest. There will be no admittance once the contest has started!

How to find the Victoria & Westminster Area 8, Humorous Speech & Table Topic Toastmaster contest

Our venue is St James the Less church function rooms. The venue is slightly closer to Pimlico underground station and only a 10 minute walk from London Victoria Station.

The entrance, behind a set of black iron gates is set back from Vauxhall Bridge Road behind a paved square area with trees and planters, along side a restaurant called ‘Moo Cantina’.

Once you go through the black iron gates you will see a black church door, there is a buzzer to the right, please ring and one of our Toastmaster members will let you in.

What to expect at the Victoria & Westminster Area 8, Humorous Speech & Table Topic Toastmaster contest

Toastmaster contests are held twice a year to allow willing members to showcase their skills at Club, Area, Division, District and once a year at an International Level. Our Toastmaster contest in Westminster will showcase the best humorous speech and table topics speakers from the 4 clubs in our area.

During the first half of the meeting you will see up to 8 of the Victoria area Toastmasters delivering prepared speeches, which will be designed to be humorous. These should make you smile and laugh, while being a definite speech rather than a series of jokes.

In the second half of the Westminster area Toastmaster meeting, you will see the best Table Topic’s speakers compete against each other to deliver a 1 to 2 minute speech on a completely impromptu subject. This is a masterful Toastmaster skill of turning a statement, question or sometimes even an object, in to a speech without any prior preparation.

WE WELCOME ANYONE TO COME AND SEE THE CONTEST, and we particularly encourage members from the competing clubs to come and support your fellow members while they attempt to win representation of our great area at the Division B final.

If you have any questions please get in touch via Facebook on our contact us page.

We last meeting basked in summer heat and guess what. With four speeches, including an impromptu one by our past President Florian, we raised the temperature yet further! Robert took charge of the meeting as Toastmaster for the very first time (well done Robert!) and quickly introduced his team of functionaries for the evening. Christophe as timekeeper, Andrew as grammarian and last but not least, Cleo as harkmaster.

Toastmaster of the meeting Robert showing the Competent Communicator manual — Toastmaster of the meeting Robert showing the *Competent Communicator* manual

Andy did the first speech of the evening ‘A Caribbean Pirate’ telling us the story of Wolfie, a dog his family adopted while he was working in the Caribbean. Thomas followed on by beginning his speech ‘Practice Pratice’ with a reference to Carnegie Hall and how only the best musicians perform here. The secret to performing here is indeed practice and Thomas told us a personal story of how as a cello player, he and a friend could have avoided making a routine mistake by practicing more. The third speech was an impromptu one delivered by Florian who was asked what he would do if he became UK Foreign Secretary. Visits to Germany, Russia, France and the United States featured in the speech and an insistence that the UK should always be open to others. Finally, Fahad in the last speech of the meeting ‘The Most Powerful Force in the Universe’ told us the power of exponential growth. A power illustrated by mankind’s population growth since antiquity, house price inflation and many more examples. The value of the pound if our pocket is diminishing as we speak, scary…

Practice makes perfect according to our second speaker!

John, Sophia, Romain and Tatiana evaluated the speakers in turn, giving them feedback on their strong points and areas for improvement.

More impromptu speaking followed after a short break with AK taking control as table topics master. AK came up with questions based on how people would behave in an alternate universe were they were infamous politicians. These could be Nigel Farage pursued by a mob or Donald Trump with his wig falling off. Guests and members took turns answering these questions and were provided feedback on their performance by table topic evaluator Terry.

John and Cleo then came back for their respective reports followed by our general evaluator Karthik.