The Lamb pub in Lamb’s Conduit Street hosted the second meeting of the year with club founder Nazia Soon not only performing her normal presidential duties, but also taking on the role of the evening’s Toastmaster.
Timekeeper Kate Osborne gave a lively overview of the role and left us with the following time-related quote: “Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils”.
Harkmaster for the evening Alex Goldsbrough encouraged everyone to listen attentively during the meeting as he would be testing our memories later on.
Prepared speeches
The first speech (of five – it was a packed evening!) was a very impressive icebreaker by our newest member Babur Yusupov. Framing his speech with an ingenius Back To The Future theme, Babur gave us a fascinating insight into his early life in Uzbekistan and a life-changing decision later on to stay in London after his family had moved back home.
In a rousing and inspiring speech Alex Donald questioned whether society adequately recognised and rewarded hard work and innovation, inviting us all to channel the “superhero” within ourselves and reach our full potential as leaders.
Todd Wade used the staggering failure rate of New Year’s Resolutions (apparently only 1% are kept!) as a springboard for a frank and highly entertaining speech about his new strategy for making his own (alcohol-related!) resolutions stick.
In the fourth speech of the evening Glen Long introduced us to some of the “Dark Arts of Language” and explored three language patterns that might be used by the amateur conversational (or covert!) hypnotist to nudge someone’s unconscious mind in a certain direction.
And in a speech from the Advanced Communicator manual, Femi Asaolu told us about his love/hate (but mostly love) relationship with the London Underground. By the end of his warm and wonderfully conversational speech we had learned many new facts about the capital’s vital subterranean network and of Femi’s personal fondness for the Victoria line!
Next, Bloomsbury member Simon Abbott invited all the evening’s guests to briefly introduce themselves to the rest of the group.
Speech evaluations
After a short break, Dave Longley provided an thorough and encouraging evaluation for Babur, particularly commending the even-handed way he had chosen episodes from his life for his speech (i.e. had not just cherry-picked the bits that would paint him in the very best light).
First-time evaluator Adam Horne gave a concise and focussed assessment of Alex’s speech, complimenting him on his “great energy” and inviting him to abandon the notes next time round.
In a detailed and thorough evaluation of Todd’s speech, Joyanta Raksmith highlighted not only the power of the simple statistics Todd used to make his point, but also the way in which he drew upon personal experience to really engage with the audience.
Henry Playfoot evaluated Glen’s speech and commended Glen on his voice projection and emphasis of key words in his speech to reinforce his points. He felt that potentially dry material was brought to life through well-chosen examples.
In the final evaluation, Nazia evaluated Femi’s advanced speech and commended him on the way his enthusiasm and passion for his subject brought real warmth and humour to a speech which appealed to the trainspotter in all of us.
Table Topics
Swarajit Das was in charge of the impromptu speaking section of the evening, inviting people to take on the role of a politician to answer some of the difficult questions based on situations from the recent news. There was no shortage of volunteers and the line-up included many guests and the general standard was very high indeed.
A general evaluation of the meeting as a whole and of all participants not evaluated thus far was given by Citi Criers member Tracy Kirlew – many thanks Tracy.
Awards
Alex G rewarded attentiveness with confection as he resumed his role as Harkmaster, and Nazia wrapped up proceeding by presented the awards for the night, as voted by all those present. Best impromptu speech went to guest Michael, best evaluator to Henry Playfoot, and best speaker to Glen Long. The president’s discretionary award went to Adam Horne for his sterling work in his first club evaluation.
The next club meeting – quite possibly with a romantic theme – is on Monday 14th February.
Everyone is also reminded of the forthcoming evaluation workshop, which promises to hone everyone’s critical and summarisation skills and will be led by some of London’s evaluation superstars. Cost is only £3 and you can book online here:
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