Written by Jo (edited by Swarajit)
Introduction
The meeting was opened by Club President Glen who welcomed new and returning guests along with regular members and gave a short overview of the Toastmasters organisation and how it works.
The Toastmaster of the evening was Femi, whose role tonight was to guide the audience through the agenda and to wind up the meeting on time. He was assisted by the Grammarian Swarajit and Timekeeper Carrie, who performed the role for the first time. Femi opened with a warm up exercise and had the audience shaking their hands in the air before several rounds of applause to increase the energy level in the room.
Prepared speeches
In this section speakers present speeches on whatever theme they want around a set of objectives for their chosen project.
Michael opened the session with his Ice Breaker speech entitled “Reflections”. He told us about his earliest memory and described his attraction to cycling speedway before sharing what he believes is important in life.
The second speaker was Wayne, who presented his No. 2 speech entitled “Better things to be romantic about”. He gave us his views on bottled water vs. tap water and illustrated his message using snippets of conversation with his Italian friends who have a favourite bottled water.
The next speaker, Jo, gave her No. 5 speech entitled “How NOT to do just about anything”. She encouraged the audience to look for ways to have more free time by either Declining, Delegating or Deferring unappealing tasks.
The final speaker this evening was Neil, who presented his No. 7 speech entitled “Let’s get back to gold”. Using a series of props Neil discussed the history of money, the declining value of currencies over time and his view that precious metals were the best way to preserve wealth.
Speech evaluations
Hari gave an evaluation of Michael’s Ice Breaker speech. He reminded the audience that the objective of this speech was to discover speaking skills which the speaker already has and skills that need some attention. He noted that Michael had a very relaxed style and had a strong and vivid introduction. His main recommendations were around becoming more conscious of his body language and providing more of the background to his reasonings around what was important in life.
Paula evaluated Wayne’s No. 2 speech. She praised Wayne’s clear structure, open body language and soothing voice. She recommended he concentrate on his projection which dipped a little too low for the room at times.
Joe evaluated Jo’s No. 5 speech. He told the audience that around 60% of your message is transmitted by your body language. He commended her use of the stage and several of the hand gestures she used but advised that he would have liked to see some more energy or pace to the body language used.
Finally, Kate gave an evaluation of Neil’s No. 7 speech. She praised Neil’s progression on use of the stage and his connection with the audience but thought that the structure could have been clearer.
Table Topics
Joyanta hosted this week’s Table Topics session with various questions around embarrassing or difficult moments.
All five participants got challenging questions and were evaluated by the evening’s Table Topics evaluator Renars. He praised the participants’ structure under pressure and advised that when stuck they could get the question repeated and then take a pause to think before beginning.
After Renars’s evaluation, Swarajit presented his Grammarian’s report and evaluated the use of language by participants during the meeting and reminded the audience about the evening’s most memorable expressions and rhetorical devices.
The General Evaluator for this evening was Sue, a guest from London Communicators, who evaluated all the meeting participants that were yet to be evaluated and gave some useful recommendations to the club as a whole.
Awards
Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on the votes cast during the evening and one President’s discretional award.
The certificate for successfully completing his Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster– went to Michael.
The Best Table Topics Speaker award went to Chris for his great table topic about embarrassing moments in his life. The Best Evaluator award went to Hari for his very thorough evaluation of Michael’s Ice Breaker and the highly coveted Best Speaker award went to Neil for his entertaining speech on money.
Finally, the President’s discretional award went to a guest Michael who gave a great Table Topic presentation on what he would do if trapped in a locked cage with a lion.
Next meeting
Our next meeting is on Monday 18th June 2012 (yes, next week – this is a ‘bonus’ meeting in addition to our usual 2nd and 4th Mondays!), upstairs at The Clerk and Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BX.
