Written by Svetlana
Introduction
The meeting began with an impressive opening from President Jo who briefed the audience on some key statistics, which were also milestones of 90 years of Toastmasters global movement. We were all made feel part of a great community of some 14,000 clubs worldwide. All clubs take their members through competent communicator and other public speaking manuals and help master the art of positive evaluation, offering a highly participatory structure and supportive atmosphere. She encouraged guests to visit various clubs before finding the one which appealed to them most.
After her introduction, Jo handed the meeting over to the Toastmaster of the evening Bronia, who infused her sunny and witty charisma into the proceedings throughout the meeting, be it the communication of house rules, the theme of the night, speaker introductions or smooth transitions between various parts of the agenda. Bronia’s theme of the night was each speaker’s biggest success or challenge they had managed to overcome. “It’s daunting but it’s doable, and when it’s done it’s done forever!” – was a quote from Bronia to be remembered.
Bronia introduced functionaries of the day: Michelle the Timekeeper (whose Icebreaker speech was a step to her new self and, therefore, so far her biggest success), and Joe the Grammarian with the word of the day “ecstatic” defined quite simply as “super-happy” and whose example of being ecstatic was himself being the Grammarian of the meeting!
Prepared Speeches
There were four prepared speeches on the agenda. The first speaker Axel’s Icebreaker speech “All or Nothing” was a personal story filled with sincerity. Axel stood up as someone who gives his all to projects he starts, be it a physical work-out, intellectual studies or achieving his best in the sales profession. He took us on a journey of self-reflection, which resulted in goal-setting to achieve a balance between the introverted and extroverted sides of himself.
Svetlana (whose biggest success was to realise that no matter how authoritative somebody else’s advice may be at the end of the day it is us who make decisions and take responsibility for them) delivered her No. 6 speech with a focus on vocal variety. It was an interpretive recitation of her translation of “The Ballad of Love” by Vladimir Vysotsky, a Russian 20th century iconic singer-songwriter. She started off on a humorous note on how to connect everyday thoughts and activities with values, such as friendship, love, happiness, and freedom; how these were also mainstream aspirations for many people. Vysotsky was a singer of personal freedom, who connected with his audience through a brave and original manner of singing. This explained his enormous popularity in the former Soviet Union.
Kate (whose biggest success was to deliver a speech before an audience of a hundred speakers!) delivered an Advanced Storytelling speech entitled “Hen-Do Scrooge”, taking us on a journey back in time where, thanks to her vivid storytelling, we shared her bizarre experience of driving in an unfamiliar area, meeting unusual characters and participating in a costume party, all of which she managed to relate in detail filled with great humour.
Sergey (whose biggest success was leaving a company where he had been a chairman of the board for twenty years to become a completely accredited NLP consultant and trainer), was invited as a guest speaker to deliver a speech “Controlling Your Fear”. Sergey demonstrated a few effective techniques of how to overcome fear when doing things, which take us beyond our comfort zone, e.g. public speaking! His slot reminded all of us why Toastmasters is such a remarkable emotional and intellectual opportunity.
We had warm guest introductions led by Sarah and precious thoughtful brilliant evaluations provided by Damien, Peter F, Hari, and Henry!
Table Topics
The table topics session conducted by Egor continued the theme of the night about success in a humorous way, posing questions with dilemmas to the table topics speakers. The question “Success is a point of time or a period of time; would you rather have a brief period of intense success than moderate success for your entire life?” went to Glen. His choice was with long-term moderate success when he can enjoy it and relax into it. He was grateful for the choice, which he would love to have for real!
“What would you prefer given a choice: money, women, or fame?” went to Swarajit. Luckily, he already had all of that! He would like to be remembered for being a genius of the calibre of Newton, Einstein, or Mozart with the right combination of genes and brain cells to be remembered for centuries.
Would you agree with the dilemma suggested by Nietzsche, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” went to David, who disagreed with the philosopher. David thought that what doesn’t kill us doesn’t make us stronger, it scars us for the rest of our lives, and it was one firework of a performance!
Success brings good and not so good things with it such as envy. “If family and friends were jealous of your success, how would you deal with it?” went to Hari, who had a humorous take on the question, and said he could use social media to create a new support group for himself if he had to!
When John Lennon answered his teacher’s question “Who would you like to be?” with “I want to be happy”, his teacher said he didn’t understand the question, to which Lennon said that the teacher did not understand life. Thus, the question “What is the relationship between success and happiness for you?” went to Yu Ling who related a personal story of organising a skiing trip for 170 people at her school. Her schoolmates came to her and said how they appreciated a great job that she did, and it made her happy. Thus, happiness lies in the result of one’s success, which can be making other people happy.
Henry provided a thorough evaluation of Table Topics speakers whose overall performance he defined as master classes from titans; nevertheless he managed to point out areas for improvement for each speaker. His speech was also quite artistic and a model evaluation in itself.
Grammarian Joe’s thorough report on the beautiful, rich, and original use of language during the meeting made us all feel that each Toastmasters session is a unique creative occasion not to be missed! It was followed by General Evaluation from David Jones from Holborn Speakers. David (who, before becoming an 11 times national Toastmasters contest finalist and 5 times winner, had to overcome a major stammer), in addition to providing a thorough and very relevant evaluation and advice, did not disappoint us in that his speech was also the most enjoyable performance with his language, thoughts, ideas, vocal variety, drama, humour and command of the stage!
Awards
Amidst ecstatic applause, a special Icebreaker ribbon was handed to Axel; the best speaker award was granted to Kate; the best evaluator award went to Henry; and the best table topic (impromptu speech) award went to Glen.
Next meeting
Our next regular meeting will be held on Monday, 24th November upstairs at The Clerk & Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DU as usual. Doors open at 6:30pm.
