In our backup venue of The Lamb pub, Club President Nazia Soon opened the meeting and gave an overview of the two Toastmaster ‘tracks’ – communication and leadership – for the benefit of guests and new members.
As the evening’s Toastmaster, Dave Longley got everyone warmed up via a rapid-fire introduction session – inviting each person present to introduce themselves and answer the questions “What is it you like most about Spring?”
In her first ever supporting role, Elena Fanaberova did a great job of explaining the Timekeeper function, taking us through the purpose and practicalities of the role.
As Harkmaster, Alex Goldsbrough adapted a well-known philosophical question asking “if a speaker delivers a great speech to an empty room does it make an impact?”. Stressing the importance of an attentive audience he encouraged us all to listen carefully to the evening’s speaker with the promise of rewards for the most attentive later on.
Prepared speeches
There were two prepared speeches this evening – both from experienced speakers.
The first speaker was Guy Smith and his speech entitled “The Race We Can All Win” was a significant one for Guy – his tenth and final one in the Competent Communicator programme.
Neatly, Guy focussed his speech on the culmination of his competent communicator manual, likening the completion of the ten speeches with running a 110m race. He identified three qualities useful for hurdling that were also valuable for Toastmasters – flexibility, strength and courage.
Ever been for a job interview even though you didn’t want the job? Bloomsbury member Raj Jain has. In “Three Ways to Fail Any Job Interview” Raj shared a range of killer tips covering: creative CV-writing, inappropriate clothing and some very helpful prospect-limiting comments to guarantee failure in any interview scenario.
Evaluations
Hari Kalymnios provided an evaluation of Guy’s No.10 speech, commending him on his ability to transport the audience into his speech, particularly via his description of his “seismic” shaking legs during his first effort speech.
Glen Long evaluated Raj’s speech – taken from an advanced manual on humorous speaking – and commended Raj on his strongly comic topic, multiple humorous examples and confident presentation, but felt the speech could have benefited from a slightly more logical progression.
Table Topics – impromptu speaking
Kate Osborne ran a very entertaining table topics session, inviting volunteer speakers to turn bad news into good news by putting a positive on some rather negative (albeit fictional) situations, including: a nuclear power plant being built in the back garden, London underground employees striking every Monday for a year and Guildford being demolished by Godzilla!
The speakers came up with some very entertaining responses to Kate’s topics and there were also impressive performances from a couple of visiting guests who gamely threw their hats in the ring too!
Afterwards, Swarajit Das gave short evaluations for each of the nine speakers, providing encouragement and recommendations in his relaxed yet authoritative style. He had his work cut out with nine separate speakers but still managed to cover all in the allotted time.
Adopting a “who said what” angle, Harkmaster Alex tested all present on their listening skills by challenging us to identify which speaker was responsible for which quote. Rewarding correct answers with sweets, Alex only managed to stump us once – good listening everyone!
Lynne Cantor was our general evaluator for the evening, fresh from her success at the London final of the annual evaluation contest over the weekend. She lent the same insightful and energetic style to the task of evaluating all the participants who had yet received an evaluation.
Wrapping up the meeting, Nazia gave out the awards for the evening. Guy picked up best Table Topics Speaker, Swarajit received best evaluator and Guy was invited back up to receive the president’s discretionary award for completing his tenth speech, marking his successful achievement of Competent Communicator status.
The next meeting is on Tuesday 26th April at our normal venue the Rugby Tavern. This replaces our Monday meeting since Monday 25th is a bank holiday.
