Introductions
Club President Femi began by explaining the history of Toastmasters and the programme for the evening. He advised speakers to focus on the message they are giving and not the fact that they are the messenger.
Femi then handed over to the evening’s Toastmaster, Renars, who explained that it was his role to ensure the meeting ran on time. Renars’ theme for the meeting was to question what our participants would do if money were no object.
Joowon was the evening’s Timekeeper and explained why being on time was important and how she would be timing the meeting.
The grammarian for the meeting was James who gave a tip for reducing the number of umms and aahs before explaining that he would be listening for examples of interesting language used by speakers. James’ word of the day was ‘fortuitous’ and he encouraged participants to try and use it in their speeches.
Prepared Speeches
We were fortunate enough to have an icebreaker speech from new member Sinead. With her speech was entitled ‘My inability to make good speeches’, she explained what she had learned in her life about (fear of) public speaking and why she had been drawn to Toastmasters.
Next up was Chris whose No. 7 speech ‘It all started with talking about ants…’ was inspired by an evening watching TV at home with his dad. He discussed the study of ants – myrmecology – and concluded by asking ‘How long is it until ants take over the world?’
In an entertaining advanced speech entitled ‘French Felony Fiasco’ Hari related a tale from his travels. The story was set in the South of France where he had travelled to watch the Monaco Grand Prix and he explained how he almost missed the Grand Prix due to being…in jail!
The final speaker was Club President Femi who gave us another advanced speech entitled ‘First things first’. He explained about filling a jar with potatoes, grapes and rice. Just as filling a jar with rice leaves no room for potatoes, filling your life with small things leaves no room for more important things. The lesson was that we need to concentrate on the big things in life and fit the small things in around that.
Evaluations
After the break each of the speakers was given a spoken evaluation by a fellow club member.
Jo evaluated Sinead’s icebreaker speech and commended her structure and rich language. She recommended that she try to insert a few pauses next time and use index cards for notes so she doesn’t need to stay close to the lectern.
Gemma reviewed Chris’ speech and commended his way of linking two seemingly unrelated topics – his dad and myrmecology. She also liked the variety of language used.
Swarijit evaluated Hari’s speech. He enjoyed the opening and Hari’s relaxed manner. However he thought the delivery of the body and conclusion didn’t quite stand up to the strength of the opening and advised more preparation to combat this.
Nazia evaluated Femi’s speech and praised the lesson embedded in the speech although she would have liked it to have been more personalised to Femi to provide more inspiration.
Table Topics
The Table Topicsmaster, Eugenia, led a session based on unusual Scrabble words. Participants were asked to provide a definition for za, syzygy, aa, qanat and xi. The Table Topics were evaluated by Mike who commended speakers’ imagination and humour and warned against defensive body language which he said could sometimes impinge on thought processes.
Awards
Closing the meeting Femi handed out the awards based on votes from the audience:
- Best Table Topic was won by Samuel
- Best Evaluator award went to Jo
- Best Speaker was won by Chris
Sinead received an ice breaker ribbon to commemorate her first speech and the President’s discretionary award went to Mike for his Table Topics evaluation.
Next meeting
Our next meeting is our Speak-a-thon on Monday 22nd April upstairs at The Clerk & Well, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU. Doors open at 6.30pm for a prompt 6.45pm start.
