A Whatsapp frenzy, summer rain showers and flasks of hot water…it can only mean one thing – this weeks London Victorians Club meeting has started! This meeting marking almost the end of the summer …
Our stand in president Eleanor got us of to an inspiring start revealing a personal story on how Toastmasters has helped her with her career and smash that very important interview (Ministry of defense – in case your curious!). Before introducing our toastmaster of the evening Stephen Nice.
Toastmaster for the evening – Stephen
The toastmaster Stephen began with a general recap on the club and agenda the evening, before introducing his unique theme for the evening – Keep It Simple! Otherwise know as no theme, giving himself an extra challenge in coming up with content and letting the roles speak for themselves.
Functionaries
Next we had our functionaries for the evening: Cleo as timekeeper, Alexandria the grammarian, Charlotte the hark-master and lastly Ed our sergeant in arms. Two of our 4 functionaries used quotes in their speeches (Charlotte + Cleo), this helped reinforce the key messaging of their speeches.
Speakers
Jo delivered his first speech (the icebreaker) to the group, a natural on stage and seemingly no nerves he delivered a speech names ‘Not all those that wonder are lost’. A speech based on his travels, which I think inspired, the audience to pack up their bags too!
Next onto the stage we had Jasmine all the way from the USA! (international bunch we are). A guest-speaker she was an experience member but had decide to go back and revisited the icebreaker speech. Her speech was inspiring and asked us all the question – what would you do if you were not afraid?
Last prepared speech of the day was from a new member Mohammad. A recorder breaker for London Victorians he had done his first speech 1 week earlier! Now a mear 7 days later he was back and with a speech on education he called for us all to be part of an education revolution!
Evaluators
Now we moved onto one of the most valuable parts of the toastmaster experience, evaluations. Einstein once famously said ‘insanity; doing something the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’. Evaluations provide value feedback to speakers on what they did well and recommendations to help improve speeches for next time.
We had Claudia, Fahad and Karen providing feedback from there respective speeches. Claudia provided the classic evaluation structure CRC (commendation recommendation commendation), whilst Fahad did not have a note in sight and Karen who commendation the mention of Tony Robbins in Mohammad’s speech
For the meeting Terry took the role of Toast Master with his theme of Childhood Memories. For every functionary the question is asked. “What is your best memory of your childhood that will live with you forever, and what triggers you remembering it.”
So the first functionary up is Joe as the role of Timekeeper with his childhood memory of surfing in Cornwall that and is reminded of this every time he smell the ocean. He came up and explains of his role and also reminds us never to rush for a Victorian Line train.
Next functionary is Alex in what ends up being the start of many roles. His memory is of playing in the mud near the woods which he remembers every time he is near the mud. Alex explains the role and decided to put a different spin and introduce and anti word. With this anti word he encourages speakers not to use a word. He chooses the word Just as he has seen it over used in several emails even in other speeches with people saying you’re just …
Then it’s the Harkmaster’s time Alexandra to explain her role. Her memory was playing Handlall at school and she remembers that every time she passes Pimlico Academy. She explains that listening is the ability to accurately recall and interpret messages.
The final role to be explained was Andrew for the meeting reporter role when he recounts his memory of going to Australia and he remembers that every time it’s very warm.
The speeches
So first up for speaking is Mathew doing his ice breaker speak with a brilliantly titled speech, “The here and now”. He talks about how his analytical and rational side is useful in his job as a civil servant, but can affect him outside of work too. He loves planning holidays but admits that he can get carried away with it, at the risk of not enjoying the here and now. His ambition is to have better correlation with the here and now and be more mindful.
Second up is Andy, and his childhood memory of playing around on boats that is triggered every time he is on boats. Andy speech is from the “Organise your speech” speech titled “Are you a phone addict”. He explains the dangers of the phone and becoming of spombuies (Smart Phone Zombies). He also explain how phones can control you and how we should try and all go and go on a phone detox.
Third up is Diane who was speaking on her birthday. Her memory was of falling of her horse into horse poo and finding the funny side. Her speech titled “Successful companies do it too” from the “Research your topic” with her talk explaining how some companies have employee trust as part of their philosophy. This trust has serious benefits and companies with trust at their heart can outperform similar companies. She also explains trust from her own personal experience and how it benefited her in her own company.
Last prepared speech is Alexandro with his memory of walking barefoot on a beach in Spain that is triggered every time he goes back home. His speech Research your topic speech is titled “The magic of quantum mechanics. He explains that if you can explain the subject like you are explaining to a child then you know it well. So he starts to explain the subject by going through 3 principles and even gets two willing volunteers to spin to demonstrate electrons.
Speech evaluations
It is then time for evaluations with commendations that the speaker had a good use of self deprecating humour, good use of space, lack of notes, good vocal variety and good use of sources. The recommendation for the speakers reminds us that we need good eye contact and to have a good summary at the of the speeches.
Then is the Sergeant at arms Yumi who tells us about her childhood memory of summers in Japan, that she is reminded every time she goes home. Her questions to the guests are what your favourite food is when you grown up and the answers range from Kebabs, French Fries, Ice cream, Lasagne, Pizza & Curry.
After a quick break it’s the turn of table topics with Cladia taking the helm. Her childhood memory is climbing around in trees. So she starts the session with theme “Memories of a child with the adult ability to argue”. These situations range from Sneaking Out of the house, convincing parents of a new toy drone, convincing Santa exists, leaving housework till later. Then some excellent role play occurred from Nuala as she tried to convince her teacher also played by her that she was ill. Finally it was Alex 2nd appearance as he tried to convince us that broccoli was evil. It was finished off with a swift evaluation from Florian with his childhood memory or his grandmother’s pasta dish … Which is slow cook beef.
The evening then follows with functionaries reports and harkmasters questions before the awards. The awards where , Best table topics being awarded to the Nuela, Alex for the best evaluator and the Best speaker being awarded to Andrew.
Well done to our members Eleanor and Matthew for collecting their Competent Leadership & Icebreaker Ribbons at this meeting!!!
Our Toastmasters Club meeting in Westminster this week was full of informative speeches and inspirational learning.
London Victorians new president Nuala banished our fears by opening the meeting with a reminder of how our efforts to become public speaking ‘Hero’s’ will have a beneficial effect on other fears that hold us back.
Picking up the role of Toastmaster of the Meeting, Karen continued the energy and explained how the meeting would work, and how Toastmaster Clubs like ours near Pimlico give huge support to everyone who comes to the stage with huge applause and cheering.
Karen then introduced the functionaries of the meeting, Stephen in-charge of timekeeping, Fahad in-charge of grammar, Cleo in-charge of listening and Terry in-charge of the meeting report. Each functionary came to the stage and introduced their roles and what to expect from them later.
Karen’s theme for the meeting was inspired by summer and her FOMO (fear of missing out). She asked everyone taking part in the meeting for tips on things to do in London (other than Toastmasters) during the summer. This tied the meeting together nicely and gave everyone some ideas for what to do with their spare time!
Our grammarian Fahad offered the Word of the Day which was ‘Sizzling’, this was quite contrary to the weather, however every time it was used on stage the audience got to cheer “ooooh yeah’ in their sexiest possible voices that warmed us up a little.
Tonight’s Toastmasters meeting in London was blessed with 3 fantastic prepared speeches from our members.
Kicking us off, and our diet in to shape was Gabriele, who’s speech outlined what we need to know about carbohydrates in our diet, the effects of too much ‘white’ carbs and how we can change what we eat to make us healthier. Coming from an Italian the suggestion to reduce pizza & pasta in our weekly meals was obviously a tough recommendation.
Isabelle delivered the second speech of the evening with a project 8 speech from the Competent Communicator manual which sets the objectives of getting comfortable using visual aids. Her images conjured emotion and the artistic impressions within them lead to speech that needed to be explained, the perfect use of images when presenting.
Her speech linked art with protest and was a great example of not only how to use visuals to make point and enhance a speech, left us with takeaways that literally stayed impressed on our minds……. certainly long enough until the voting for Best Speaker which Izzy won for this great speech.
Izzy was the winner of the best speaker (give me that ribbon Nuala)
Our third speech at the London Toastmasters club this evening was from Thomas. An advanced speech from the ‘Speak to Inform’ manual this speech was perfectly executed to help the audience understand complex information in a non-technical way.
This was carried out perfectly by our in-house finance professional by explaining the importance of diversifying your investment portfolio to mitigate risk. Or ‘egg’s in a basket’, though I’m not sure whether the chicken came first.
Our speech evaluators Diane, Pascale and Negin carried out the role we learn so much from by offering the audience very professional evaluations of each speech.
Diane pointed out the value we can take from the power of facts and clear advice. Pascale cleverly used visual aids in her evaluation to reinforce the impact they have on a good speech. Negin wrapped up the evaluations with very analytical detail on how the technical speech was made amenable for our non-technical audience.
Diane won the Best Evaluator Ribbon for a great evaluation, in particular for using no notes at all to give a 3 minute evaluation she’d only had 10 minutes to prepare for, well done!
Just before the break it was the turn of our guests to introduce themselves. They contributed to Karen’s theme of the meeting by giving tips on what we can do in the London in the summer including outdoor Zumba, visiting fake beaches on the Thames and drinking beer!
Florian handled a very interesting table topics session, each table topic subject was just a single number. A very clever way of inspiring creative impromptu speeches and we had a range of responses from the humorous to inspirational goal setting to travel. Here is a skill to take a single word or number and make a two-minute speech from it, only we Toastmasters can do this with style.
Out of 6 amazing table topics speeches, the audience picked Lorenzo’s speech about the number 14 quadrillion as the winner of the ribbon. A big reward for the biggest number of the night!
Andrew positively evaluated our table topics speakers, offering each of them a commendation to highlight what they did well in their impromptu speech.
Summaries of great uses of grammar followed from the grammarian Fahad, who made a point of words and phrases used throughout the night that had surprised him (in a good way). He also noted 16 uses of the word of the day ‘Sizzling’ “Ooooh yeah”.
Our harkmaster then tested how well we had been listening to the facts throughout the meeting, I was pleased that she through chocolate rather than healthy treats as the prizes for answering her questions correctly.
Before the meeting was wrapped up we were treated to a General Evaluation of the meeting and all those speakers who had not been evaluated yet by Monika, who visited us from the other London Toastmasters Clubs she is a member of.
The last thing to do was to welcome our newest members, Alexandra, Helena & Misha! Welcome to the club!
It really was a fun, upbeat and educational meeting, can’t believe we have to wait another whole WEEK till the next Toastmasters meeting near Victoria Station in London.
Another interesting and exciting Toastmasters meeting at our great club near London Victoria was held on Tuesday 27th of June 2017.
Our president Terry kicked off, reminding everyone that this was the last meeting of the Toastmasters year and therefore his last meeting as president. From next week our incoming president Nuala will take the reins.
He also reminded everyone how the fear of public speaking is linked to the fear of rejection and by practicing the former, he has helped reduce the later which helps with his job as a sales person.
This evenings Toastmasters was Christophe, who has been caught up with other commitments for the last few months and reminded everyone that because of the nerves he felt carrying out the role this week, it’s important to stay well practiced at the skill of public speaking to help keep these nerves at bay.
Christophe – Toastmaster of the Meeting
Our first speech was from Nuala and it was an educational about the importance of the evaluations that take place for everyone who takes part in club meetings.
Her educational was really well structured and offered a mass of great information on how to enhance these evaluations to give positive, motivational and educational feedback to speakers within the 3 minutes we have to do so.
Our second speech was about the people power involved in political elections. For a subject that could be a little deep, our speaker Karen gave a text book example of how to present a technical subject in an amenable way for any audience.
This speech was littered with audience engagement, humour, great visual aids and the speakers own passion. Combined with hitting the objectives of this Project 8 Speech from the Competent Communicator manual, which is to have fully researched your topic and provide evidence of such in the way of relaying facts, Karen’s speech gave the audience real food for thought about the power of their vote.
The evening’s third speech was the eventual winner of the nights Best Speaker ribbon. Annabel gave us a speech from an advanced manual called The Entertaining Speaker.
Entertaining it was indeed, the topic of online dating made for a humorous speech which engaged the audience and caused many a chuckle from them.
Online dating wins a Toastmasters Ribbon (again)
As always, each of the 3 speeches received a personalised Evaluation. Our evaluators were Terry, Negin & Dan who all made an incredible job of giving motivating and detailed analysis of each speech.
After a break for tea, coffee and chatting we had our impromptu speech practice session called Table Topics. One of the clubs VPE’s, Alex, led the session with topics that challenged the speakers to persuade famous cartoon characters to take abstract courses of action.
Table Topics Winner Dan
As abstract as they were, members and guests alike took the topics in true Toastmasters fashion and delivered their 1-2 minute unprepared speeches with style.
Each table topic speaker was evaluated in style by Fahad, who had at least 1 commendation and recommendation for improvement for each of the speakers to learn for the next topic.
Fahad – Table Topic Evaluator
Toastmasters meetings can’t run effectively without functionaries. Our timekeeper, Florian, kept efficient track of the meetings time and livened up the role with a theme of time travel.
Our grammarian Nick did an amazing job of listening and recalling some great uses of the English language, as well as pointing out the number of filler words used in the meeting and how these um’s and ah’s can detract from our credibility as speakers.
Then our Harkmaster Matt tested our listening skills with some questions about what had been said throughout the whole meeting.
We are grateful to our general evaluator Kim, she tidied up the meeting by evaluating all those not evaluated till then. She also gave some great comments on how good the club and the meetings was, with a few pointers for the future.
Whether you are a meeting participant, audience member or guest, you will have left this meeting having learnt something and with a smile on your face….. If you weren’t there, make sure you come next week so not to miss out.
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