Club President Nazia Soon opened the meeting with an introduction to Toastmasters and recalled the very first meeting she ever attended where the thought of getting up to speak filled her with anxiety. But through practice and the support of other members she quickly gained confidence and competence.
Femi Asaolu took over from Nazia in his role as the evening’s Toastmaster and introduced the theme for the evening – the London Olympics 2012. Inspired by the fact that it was the last day to apply for event tickets, Femi urged us to book our ticket with a quote – “Don’t put off to tomorrow what you could do today” but assured us he didn’t work for the Olympics committee!
Femi explained that he would be supported in his role by other members, and introduced the evening’s Timekeeper Elena Fanaberova who gave us a very thorough overview of her role.
Prepared Speeches
Femi then took us into the prepared speeches section of the meeting, introducing each speaker with their given answer to his question: “Which sport would you most like to attend during the Olympics?”, starting with Hari Kalymnios.
In his third speech – entitled “O2” – Hari educated us in the importance of proper deep breathing for having maximum energy. Of the three things essential to life – food, water and oxygen – Hari reminded that it was oxygen we could survive without for the least time and gave us a specific strategy for improving our own breathing. He challenged us all to try it for two weeks and report back to him with the results!
In “The Invisible College”, Swarajit Das celebrated the achievements of three scientists – Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke – who formed an informal group called The Invisible College (which later became The Royal Society) that would meet to discuss new scientific ideas. His passion for the topic shined through and we all gained a fascinating insight into the impact of these great thinkers.
In a number 5 speech (which focusses on vocal variety), Anna Maloney told us about her experiences on jury service. In “Sitting In Judgement” we learned of Anna’s first period of jury service – on a high profile trial at the Old Bailey at the age of 18. Only a month ago we learned, Anna had sat in on two more trials. Should we receive our own “pink letter” – calling us for jury service – she urged us to get excited about the prospect but recommended taking lots of reading material – apparently there’s a lot of waiting involved!
Evaluations
After the break, Toastmaster Femi introduced the first of the speech evaluators – Nazia on Hari’s speech.
Nazia commended Hari on already having a broad set of public speaking skills despite being relatively new member of the club but recommended that he balance his (very thorough) research with other elements of the speech so as to not reduce the impact of his message.
The next evaluator was Dave Longley, discussing Swarajit’s speech. In his opening remarks he described “The Invisible College” as “very dense – but I mean that as a compliment!”. Dave also commended Swarajit on the sheer range of his speech – “covering science, history and even office politics” and recommended using a bigger prop when demonstrating Hooke’s Law (you had to be there!).
Finally Alex Goldsbrough evaluated Anna’s speech, commending her on her use of language to paint a vivid picture and recommending she make better use of pauses to improve the pacing.
Table Topics
The next part of the meeting was an (also Olympics-themed) table topics session run by Glen Long designed to give people a chance to practice their impromtu speaking skills. Guests and members alike stepped up to tackle Glen’s questions including:
- What are the qualities of a world-class athlete?
- Will the Olympics have a lasting impact on London?
- Should our schools encourage competition or cooperation?
After a timing report from Elena, Henry Playfoot took on the task of evaluating all the table topics speakers:
- He commended Nazia on her ability to draw us in and recommended a stronger ending.
- He commended guest Jenny on tackling her topic head-on and recommended she worked on using more pauses.
- He enjoyed watching guest Inge’s exploration of her topic and recommended a stronger beginning.
- He felt that first-time guest Bal really “owned the stage” and encouraged better use of eye contact.
- Mehnaz had a persuasive list of points and a strong conclusion and Henry recommend she brought more physicality to her speeches.
- And finally Henry was hugely impressed by Femi’s slick performance and felt he was “channelling Sebastian Coe”.
A very accomplished general evaluation was given by Freddie Daniels with commendations and recommendations for all those participants that had not yet received feedback.
At the end of the meeting, president Nazia gave out the awards – best topics speaker went jointly to Bal and Femi, best speaker was given to Swarajit, best evaluator to Henry and the President’s discretionary award went to Elena for her sterling performance as Timekeeper.
The next regular meeting is on Monday, 9th May 2011, upstairs at The Rugby Tavern.
