Introductions
Club President Femi opened the meeting by thanking all the guests for coming and stressing the importance of giving each speaker a warm welcome. He invited each of us to try to be the first to start clapping and the last to stop!
Swarajit, the Toastmaster for the evening, introduced the meeting’s theme of love and relationships and told an unlikely tale about his first kiss.
Timekeeper Michael explained the timing lights that help the speakers keep to time and ended with a time-related quote from T.S. Eliot.
Next, Hari introduced his role as the evening’s Harkmaster – encouraging us to listen and not drift off into our own thoughts (such as thinking about what we were having for dinner!) but instead keep our focus on each speaker. He promised chocolate-based rewards towards the end of the meeting for those who demonstrated good listening skills.
Prepared speeches
The first prepared speech was an icebreaker from brand-new member Samuel. In “About Me” he told us about moving to Africa when he was just six months old and living in various different countries including Botswana, which has one third of the world’s elephant population!
The second speaker was Damien with a No. 2 speech entitled “Optimism Overrated”. Inspired by a speech by Barbara Ehrenreich (from The School of Life) which rallied against “all pervasive positive thinking” he echoed her call for a “recommitment to realism”.
In her No. 10 speech entitled “Flowers, Coffee and Kindness” Jo told the story of Emily, an American living in Belgium, who left small bouquets of flowers for strangers as an “unexpected pleasant surprise”. Jo inspired us all to take similar small steps to put a smile on a stranger’s face and even provided us with a practical handout at the end of her speech to help us do so.
The final prepared speech was an advanced public relations speech by Renars entitled “Should alcohol be banned?”. Renar’s made a strong case for eliminating alcohol completely from our diets and then took questions from the audience challenging his ideas.
Evaluations
After a short break it was time to hear evaluations for each of the speakers.
Henry commended Samuel’s confident ice breaker speech saying that most of us approached our very first speech like “a wobbly-legged foal” but not Samuel! Henry also commended Samuel’s solid stance, vocal variety and use of repetition.
Glen evaluated Jo’s No. 10 speech. He praised her strong storytelling and her effective switching from personal information to background information but felt she could have provided more evidence for her own efforts to produce unexpected pleasant surprises. He loved her handouts however and felt it was a very strong “call to action”, something missing from many speeches.
Carrie evaluated Damien’s No. 2 speech about optimism. She commended him for a strong opening and a clear structure, which he laid out for us at the top of the speech. She recommended that repositioning his notes would have made for better audience engagement and also felt that more use of the stage would have helped bring his speech to life.
Nazia then gave her evaluation of Renars’ advanced speech. She felt he had a great voice and got his message across very effectively. Generally she found his use of humour to be great, but occasionally felt it detracted from his points. She encouraged him to use more emotion in his speech and a clearer structure.
Table Topics
Ratan was in charge of the Table Topics session – an opportunity for members to practice their impromptu speaking skills. “Why do we do it?” he asked rhetorically. “To terrify you, to embarrass you” he joked before explaining the value of being able to think on your feet.
His Valentine’s-inspired questions for brave volunteers included:
- Where would you take someone on a first date?
- How do you prepare for a romantic date?
- What happens when your favourite restaurant cancels your Valentine’s booking?
- How do you tackle first-date nerves?
Afterwards, table topics evaluator Paul provided insightful feedback for each of the table topics speakers, with commendations and recommendations for each.
In his Harkmasters report, Hari tested us all with a number of questions relating to what we had heard that evening and rewarded people who provided correct answers with chocolates from his box of Celebrations.
The general evaluator Irina, in her first time in that role, commended the club for its general atmosphere and provided detailed feedback for those participants not evaluated elsewhere.
Closing the meeting, club president Femi handed out the awards:
- Samuel received a certificate to mark the completion of his ice breaker. (Well done Samuel!)
- The President’s discretionary award was shared between Hari and Ratan.
- Best table topics speaker went to brand-new member Ben.
- Best evaluator went to Paul for his skilled critique of the table topics speakers.
- Best speaker award went to Jo for her speech about trying to make the world a better place with small, selfless gestures.
Next meeting
Our next meeting is Monday 18th February, upstairs at The Clerk & Well, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU. Doors open at 6.30pm for a prompt 6.45pm start.
See you there!
