Once again the sun enlightened the upstairs room of the Windsor Castle Pub during our last meeting. Toastmaster of the evening Sergey outlined the structure of the meeting, with the customary prepared speeches, followed by evaluations and then table topics. Covering the whole spectrum of a typical Toastmasters meeting.
Once day an unknown Toastmasters member said “Toastmasters is all about a set idea within a set period of time” and Rosie made sure that we all lived up to the saying. For her first role as a new club member, Abi (congrats Abi) was grammarian with “magnified” as word of the day. To tally up the votes and collect those all-important feedback slips, was Eddie as vote counter.
Our first speaker was Alex whose speech ‘A brief history of tattoos’ recounted the history of tattoos. Did you know that caveman Otzi already had tattoos? I did not! Until I learnt it at Toastmasters! Thomas followed on with a project #7 from the Competent Communicator manual. Answering the question of ‘What caused the 2008 Financial Crisis?’ was anything but simple. Nevertheless Thomas tackled the subject with aplomb. It all started with the subprime market in the United States, whose risks where spread out in collateral debt obligations, which were then purchased by international investors. The variety of speeches and speakers is one of the great beauty of Toastmasters, which each speech project tackled in unique ways!
Since two speakers dropped out at the last minute, our Toastmaster of the evening asked for two volunteers to do improvised speeches. Club president Florian stepped in first by doing a speech on the ‘British Summer’. Extoling the virtues of Pimms and Lemonade on grass and of a milder weather compared to other countries. VP Mentorship Edwin followed on with ‘Nuclear Power – Yes Please’ although he turned the subject on its head and outlined his opposition for the energy due to its potential dangers. Some true Toastmasters spirit on show here by just doing it! Well done both!
Eleanor evaluated the first speech, commending Alex for his effective use of visual aids but recommending that he reviews his speech structure. Fahad evaluated Thomas next, congratulating Thomas for using the full length of the stage, but highlighting that all hand gestures should be open and not closed. Natalie evaluated Florian’s improvised speech, by recommending more profound eye contact but nevertheless commending audience involvement. Finally, Terry evaluated Edwin’s speech and reminded everyone one the rule that only 7% of the meaning of a message is conveyed through the word we use. Thence, vocal variety and body language are key to emphasize a message.
The table topics session was chaired by Lindsay and featured questions such as “imagine you are an alien invading earth” or “you are taken back 200 million years ago”.
The session was evaluated by Magda, which congratulated everyone for taking part and for the use of humor in the speeches. Abi followed on with her grammarian report, including a very precise count of ‘hums’ ‘err’ and other verbal crutches.
At Toastmasters, everything is evaluated and we were very privileged to have a general evaluation Christian coming all the way from Johannesburg!
See you all at our evaluation workshop on August 4th!
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