Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Glen Long)
Introduction
The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who welcomed the new guests and gave an overview of Toastmasters, likening the ten speech communication programme to going to the gym – you need to keep “increasing the weights” to see progress.
The Toastmaster of this evening was a very experienced speaker and past president Nazia Soon, assisted by the Harkmaster Hari Kalymnios and the Timekeeper Elena Fanaberova, while Adam Horne led the Guest Introductions.
In fact Hari was particularly busy this evening playing three roles: Harkmaster, giving an educational speech about “Mentoring” prior to the prepared speeches and as the evaluator of one of the speakers – Neil Ward.
Prepared speeches
It is always a great pleasure for the club to have an Ice Breaker speech during a meeting and this evening, Jo Higham, who has been a member for only one month, gave hers. It’s an important step in the Toastmaster’s programme and in her very first speech entitled “Less Is More” she quoted “the things you own end up owning you” from the film Fight Club, which encapsulated her own personal philosophy.
The second speaker was Neil Ward, who delivered his No. 2 speech “A Winning Mindset”. In his very clear and memorable speech Neil gave us the mnemonic ABC for success: action, belief in yourself and commitment.
The last speaker was Joe Lake, who has really thrown himself into Toastmasters since joining and is already on his fourth speaking project with his speech “Manage It”. In this speech Joe described different types of managers and explained how to be a good manager by using three rules: “neighbourhood mentality”, “make it personal” and “learn from everyone and everything”.
Speech evaluations
Evaluation is a crucial part of our meetings for speakers because they are able to receive recommendations for further improvements. It is also a good opportunity for evaluators to enhance their critical and communication skills.
The first evaluator Nazia evaluated Jo’s impressive Ice Breaker speech. Nazia said that she heard a quote, a joke and a question all in the beginning of the speech which engaged the audience very effectively. Also Nazia observed that Jo was very relaxed and used very effective facial expressions. She gave only one recommendation regarding the Jo’s stance.
The next evaluator Hari evaluated Neil’s memorable speech. He commended Neil for using a question that hooked the audience in the opening and also his ABC approach that gave the speech a clear structure and made it more easily understandable. However, Hari would have liked to have heard smoother transitions between the three distinct sections.
The last evaluator Glen evaluated Joe’s speech. Glen commented that he heard good use of language and of rhetorical devices as required by the objectives of the speech. Also he very much liked Joe’s relaxed and affable style. The main recommendation from Glen was that he would like to have even more rhetorical devices to make the points more memorable, e.g. use of repetition.
Table Topics
Participating in Table Topics (impromptu speaking) is great practice for new members and for experienced ones as well as brave guest volunteers.
The Topics Master of the evening was Swarajit Das, the Club Treasurer. Swarajit prepared a Table Topics session with a theme that is relevant for many people at the moment – job interviews. His questions were taken from real interviews and included:
- In an ideal world, what would be your dream job?
- What is your greatest achievement?
- Sell me this pen.
- Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
- What is your biggest personal strength?
- Describe the worst job you have ever had.
Six people tackled one of Swarajit’s questions – including several guests – and got some great experience of thinking on their feet.
Club secretary Kate Osborne was the Table Topics evaluator this evening and praised the choice of topics and gave the participants some encouraging recommendations.
Our General Evaluator was Philip Landergan, who is a member of Bromley Speakers club. Philip evaluated all the meeting participants who were left to be evaluated and gave a very useful outside perspective on our club with some very helpful recommendations.
Awards
Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on votes cast during the evening.
The Best Evaluator award went to Kate for her Table Topics evaluation, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to guest Brendan who successfully “sold” Swarajit his own pen and the “highly coveted” Best Speaker award went to Jo for her speech, who also got a certificate for successfully completing her Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster.
Finally the President’s discretional award went to the returning guest Richard for his humorous Table Topic.
Next meeting
Our next meeting is on Monday 14th November at The Rugby Tavern.
And make sure you put Monday 12th December in your diary as well – it’s our Christmas-themed meeting and we’ve already got lots of fun ideas for seasonal speaking!
