Introduction
Club President Femi opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and setting out the skills that Toastmasters could help participants build including confidence.
Femi handed the meeting over to the Toastmaster for the evening, Glen, who likened himself to a drummer in a band who’s in charge of the set list and keeping everyone else on time. He also introduced his theme for the evening – alternatives – asking speakers to say what sets them apart from others.
Timekeeper Damien explained the importance of keeping to time during the meeting and outlined how he would be timing participants.
Grammarian Elena explained her role as the person responsible for looking out for good and bad uses of language and promised chocolate to anyone who assisted in her report at the end of the meeting. She also introduced a Word of the Day – “flabbergasted” – and encouraged people to use it during their speeches.
Prepared Speeches
Recent member Gemma was the first speaker up to give her No 2 speech “Surviving a Meltdown”. She explained the concept of mindfulness – a method for helping us deal with stressful situations and even got the audience practicing as part of her speech.
The second speaker was Wayne. His No 4 speech entitled “Alexander the Great” questioned the greatness of Alexander and drew comparisons between him and Hitler in terms of motives and reputation.
Next up was Janet whose No 7 Research speech “Progress” debunked some of the popular beliefs about single parents. She argued that they are not a drain on society and do not produce delinquent children using data found from a variety of sources. She ended with a video clip of her daughter explaining what she wanted to do when she grew up.
The final prepared speech was an Advanced speech in which Paul was ‘interviewed’ by our Toastmaster Glen and spoke about his first feature film ‘Blood will Tell’ which was also the title of the speech.
Before the break Chris led the guest introductions, which gave visiting non-members the opportunity to say a few words about themselves to the rest of the room.
Evaluations
After the break the meeting moved to the evaluations section, where each of the speakers was given feedback by other members.
Ed gave us his evaluation of Gemma’s No 2 speech. He commended Gemma’s body language particularly use of her hands and eye contact. He recommended not using the lectern as it encourages the speaker to talk to it.
Ahmed evaluated Wayne’s No 4 speech. He described it as thought-provoking and noted the use of short sentences and pauses to enable the listener to digest the content. Ahmed would have liked Wayne to include more vocal variety to emphasise Alexander’s character.
Adam was the evaluator for Janet’s No. 7 speech. He commended the clear structure including the use of three main points and her body language as she moved around the stage. He recommended she avoid handclasping and suggested a stronger ending may have been possible.
The final evaluator was Swarajit who gave his assessment of Paul’s Advanced speech. He liked Paul’s vocal variety and highlighted that even when he dropped his voice to a whisper there was still good voice projection. Swarajit questioned if the speech should have been delivered primarily to the interviewer or the audience and also recommmended replacing filler words with pauses.
Table Topics
Joe was our Topicsmaster for the evening and the topics were all related to New Year’s resolutions with participants discussing their best and worst resolutions, why they were a waste of time and even trying to persuade Boris Johnson to make them mandatory for all.
Taking on the challenge of evaluating all of the topics speakers, Renars pulled no punches with his candid but valuable comments for the speakers. These included standing forward but not so far forward that the front row have to turn sideways, keeping a steady eye contact and keeping hands out of pockets while speaking.
Reporting as Grammarian, Elena commended the speech used throughout the evening and picked out some of her favourite moments. She then kept true to her word and offered a chocolate to everyone who commended someone else’s language.
General evaluator Ian commended the club for its warm welcome on a frosty evening singling out Femi’s smile and Glen’s great energy as Toastmaster.
Awards
Closing the meeting President Femi thanked Glen for his polished Toastmaster role before giving out the awards for the evening.
The President’s Award went to Gemma for her Kung Fu Panda quote “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift, and that is why it’s called the present.”
Based on audience votes, Femi gave out the remaining awards: best Table Topic went to Chris, best evaluator to Ahmed, and best speaker to Janet. Well done all!
Next meeting
Our next meeting is Monday 28th January, upstairs at The Clerk & Well, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU.
See you there!
Meeting report by Jo.
