In the first meeting of 2011 Bloomsbury Speakers returned to its regular venue at the Rugby Tavern with a very pleasing turnout of members and guests alike. It was great to see so many new faces – possibly inspired to attend by new year’s resolutions to improve their public speaking!
Club President Nazia Soon welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained the purpose of Toastmasters, reminding us all that 99% of getting better at something like public speaking is “just showing up”, i.e. taking every opportunity to practice in the right environment.
Following on neatly from Nazia’s theme, Toastmaster for the evening Todd Wade emphasised the value of effective communication in all areas of life and gave examples from his own professional world of how ability to communicate was a much more powerful force for success than, for instance, raw technical ability.
Timekeeper Alex Donald then explained the role with great charm and told us about behavioural research indicating that most people take only seven seconds to form an opinion of someone on first meeting them – a great reminder to every speaker to make those first few seconds really count.
Prepared speeches
Anna Maloney was the first of the prepared speakers for the evening with a No. 4 speech entitled: “In praise of B, N and L”. Over the course of the speech, B, N and L were revealed as standing for Birmingham, Newcastle and Leeds as Anna gave us all a personal tour of her three favourite cities in England. One particularly effective device was to personify each city with a character type, not for the inhabitants but the places themselves.
Anna was followed by Henry Playfoot who, in his speech “Pebble in a Pond” (also a No. 4), told a gripping personal story about an event in his teens whose repercussions rippled through the next 25 years of his life. In a really powerful speech Henry managed that rare thing of making each member of the audience feel he was talking only to them.
Finally, Raj Jain’s advanced humorous speech, which centred around a practical joke at work, was certainly risque by Toastmasters standards but undoubtedly entertaining. It also served as a great reminder that the club is the ideal environment to take a few risks and accelerate the learning process.
After Alex D’s timekeeper report of the three speeches, Nazia introduced the numerous guests who’d turned up for the meeting, helping us all put some names to the faces.
Evaluations
Following a break for refreshments and a quick post-Christmas catch-up we moved into the evaluations of the three speeches.
Alex Goldsbrough gave a brilliantly no-nonsense evaluation of Anna’s speech with some very useful tips on posture and use of notes.
Kate Osborne evaluated Henry’s speech picking up on the impact the content had had on her and the rest of the audience and giving some advice on overall structure.
Guy Smith gave a very engaging evaluation of Raj’s advanced speech tackling the issue of the choice of topic head on and giving some good advice on storytelling.
Table Topics
Next, Joyanta Raksmith introduced the impromptu speaking section of the evening as the Table Topics Master with the topic theme of “quotations”. There were a very healthy number of volunteers to speak including lots of guests.
The various speakers wrestled with numerous wide and wonderfully obscure quotations including:
- “A pun is the lowest form of humour, unless you thought of it yourself.” (Doug Larson)
- “I do not blame you, King, for hitting an innocent man. For, cruelty comes quick to the powerful.” (The Book of Virata)
- “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” (Tom Clancy)
After nine impressive responses to Joyanta’s quotations, evaluator Glen Long had his work cut out providing assessments of each within the allotted time. He started by commending all the guests who chose to participate – a brave act indeed for any new visitor to a public speaking club – and rattled through at breakneck speed to give constructive feedback to each participant, though still fell foul of the timekeeper’s gavel!
Club regular Dave Longley gave a charismatic and thorough general evaluation of all functionaries who’d not been evaluated elsewhere and of the club as a whole.
The awards
Wrapping up the evening with awards based on votes cast during the session, Nazia awarded guest Charlie the prize for best Table Topics speaker, Glen was awarded best evaluator and Henry picked up the best speaker prize. The president’s discretionary award went to Todd for his role as Toastmaster, for conducting proceedings like an old hand despite this being his very first time.
Next meeting
The next meeting is on Monday, 24 January, switching temporarily to a nearby alternative venue – The Lamb pub in Lamb’s Conduit Street.
You must log in to post a comment. Log in now.