Written by Elena (edited by Swarajit)

Introduction

As usual, 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 the club’s Sergeant at Arms Adam, 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 Jo and Timekeeper Wayne, who performed functionary support.

Prepared speeches

In this section speakers present speeches on whatever theme they want around a set of objectives for their chosen project. It is often easier to choose a topic that covers what you know, what you love and what your audience cares about.

Saija took the plunge and opened the session with her Ice Breaker speech entitled “The Journey”. She appeared in her running club T-shirt and told us its special role, how she got involved in running and how it had changed her life.

The second speaker was Janet, who presented her No. 3 speech entitled “How to Make a Face Cream”. In an innovatively delivered presentation, she revealed to the audience the secret of making a face cream to the accompaniment of Beethoven’s 5^th symphony. Janet stated: “All you need is to bring a lot of different people together and to make a beautiful piece of music” and demonstrated it as if she was a conductor of an orchestra.

The next speaker, Henry, gave his No. 9 speech entitled “The Purpose of Education”. He thoroughly described the original purpose of our existing education system (comparing it to a factory production line) and gave convincing arguments for why it needs to be changed now to respond to our current economic situation. Henry stated that the education system should be deeper and teach problem solving, creativity and innovation.

The last speaker this evening was Hari, who presented his No. 10 speech entitled “Why Stretch?”. Based on his own experience of never stopping learning and growing, Hari inspired the audience to expand their usual comfort zone and stretch themselves, for example by gaining experience through Toastmasters or finding a new job. He summarised his message with the quote: “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible”.

Speech evaluations

While evaluations are intended to provide an objective critique of a speech, it is important to always be positive, encouraging and inspire the speaker to improve.

Swarajit gave an evaluation of Saija’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 Saija had started with a rhetorical device –a great way to get the audience engaged in the speech – and then continued with a chronological story, ending with a call to action. Swarajit suggested that using a bit more body language in future could enhance the message of the speech. Overall he praised Saija’s great start to her Toastmasters career.

Paula evaluated Janet’s No. 3 speech. She acknowledged that Janet’s uniquely structured and highly creative speech was enhanced by her open body language, expressive voice, engaging humour and her constantly keeping the audience’s attention focused using the conductor’s baton. Paula noted how long it took Janet to practice maintaining the pace of her speech with the music and that using notes in this case could interfere with it.

Renars evaluated Henry’s No. 9 speech. He gave a very comprehensive analysis of the speech’s opening, body and conclusion, as well as the relevance of the topic in general. Renars commended Henry’s delivery, including his use of descriptive language but noted that it had been difficult to hear Henry’s voice at the back of the room and recommended that he speak louder.

The last evaluator, Jason, gave an evaluation of Hari’s No. 10 speech. He liked the relevance of the topic to the audience, the use of examples and quotes as well as drawing a diagram and tapping on the shoulder, all of which had been very powerful. However Jason would have liked to have heard a few more jokes during the speech.

Table Topics

This evening Nimit hosted a Table Topics session themed around sharing a rented room in London with various superheroes. He asked every participant: “Would you love or would you be uncomfortable if a particular superhero stayed with you?” The superhero roommates were: Batman, Kung fu Panda, Harry Potter, The Incredible Hulk, The Invisible Woman, Tarzan and lastly Iron Man.

All seven participants got challenging questions and were evaluated by the evening’s Table Topics evaluator Femi. He gave recommendations useful for all speakers: do not be afraid of using body language to emphasise what you are saying; try to build up a short speech with an introduction, body and conclusion; and expand your topic.

After Femi’s evaluation, Jo presented her 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 Alexandra, a guest from St. Paul’s Speakers, 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 Best Evaluator award went to Paula for her brilliant evaluationof Janet’s speech. The Best Table Topics Speaker award went to David for his great table topic about flat-sharing with Batman, and the Best Speaker award went to Janet for her highly creative speech. The President’s discretional award went to evening’s Toastmaster Adam who had performed this role for the first time with great success.

The certificate for successfully completing her Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster– went to Saija.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 11^th June 2012,upstairs at The Clerk and Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BX.

Hello and welcome to the May newsletter!

There’s just time to squeeze in a quick club update before we head into June and what promises to be a packed month for Bloomsbury Speakers.

But before we get into the detail, I want to say a big hello to five brand new members: Christopher, David, Ilze, Angela and Steven. Welcome to the Bloomsbury Speakers family.

We’re delighted to have you on board and I look forward to you all becoming familiar faces in club meetings!

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What’s happened since the last newsletter?

We had a great meeting at the end of April with Bloomsbury co-founder Craig Reid returning as our special guest Toastmaster and some great speeches from Paula, Hari, Renars and Femi. If you missed it check out the meeting report courtesy of Elena, our official ‘scribe’.

Our first meeting of May was another lively one, complete with special visitors from a Toastmasters club in the US and more stand-out speeches, this time from Marielle, Elena, Jo and Adam. For more details, again you can go and check out the report.

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What’s still to come this month?

Only a few days left in the month, but we still have this:

• Monday 28th May – TONIGHT! – is our last regular meeting of the month. At the time of writing all roles are booked so it should be a good one and well done to our VPE Femi for keeping the programme in such rude health. Expect an ice breaker from Saija as well as speeches from Janet, Hari and Henry.

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What’s planned for next month?

Due to popular demand (and lots of new members) we’ve added an extra meeting in June to help people who were finding it difficult to get a speaking slot. It will also help a couple of more experienced members complete their ten speeches before the end of the TM year.

So here’s the full meeting line-up:

• Monday 11th June – Regular Meeting – currently fully booked (apart from a reserve speaker slot – in case someone drops out). We should have an ice breaker from Mike, and speeches from Wayne, Elena and Jo.
• Monday 18th June – Regular Meeting – almost fully booked but there’s still a chance to book yourself in as Topics Evaluator. We’ll have an ice breaker from Christopher as well as speeches from David, Kate and, er, me!
• Monday 25th June – Regular Meeting – again, almost fully booked but there’s a reserve speaker slot and a couple of evaluator slots – get in there! Currently we are promised an ice breaker from Ilze, and speeches from Ahmed, Kate and Femi.

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What’s on the horizon?

At least twice a year we like to run workshops to help members learn from more experienced Toastmasters and develop specific skills.

I’m delighted to say that in July we’ll be holding a Table Topics workshop which will focus on that area of a normal meeting agenda alone. Our current VP of Membership & Mentoring Hari is taking charge of this and more information will be sent out in the near future, but here are the basic details:

• Table Topics Workshop – Monday 30th July 2012 – this workshop (free for members) will help you to hone your impromptu speaking skills by providing helpful tips and lots of opportunities to practice in a super-friendly environment. Places will be limited and we hope that everyone will get the chance to tackle three topics.

You can book your place at the workshop here:

http://tabletopics30july.eventbrite.co.uk/

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NEWS – Change to Table Topics 

Table Topics is a popular section of our regular meetings. One of the main purposes is to give members who are not on the programme an opportunity to speak. We do also like to give keen guests a chance to experience the buzz of speaking impromptu, but we aim to give priority to members.

To facilitate this we’ve decided to try an experiment – allowing up to four people to book table topics slots in advance via ClubPlan. We won’t push to fill the slots, but if you do bag one, we’ll do our best to make sure you get to speak.

It’s just a trial, but if it works out we’ll keep it going.

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INFO – What is the Distinguished Club Programme?

Some information from Nazia – our Past President and DCP Co-ordinator – about the Distinguished Club Programme.

As the end of Toastmasters year approaches I wanted to tell you a little bit about the DCP. How can we know if we are making progress or meeting our goals? Unless we have metrics in place we can’t know.

At Toastmasters the key milestones include the Competent Communicator (CC) programme, that you achieve by completing the first 10 speeches, and after this there are further communication milestones that measure your progress.

Also included is the Competent Leadership (CL) programme which acknowledges your successful progress through various leadership mini-projects, usually by taking on a supporting role in a meeting.

By completing either – or hopefully both – of these programmes members receive an award.

You may not realise that every member who achieves an award contributes to the success of the club as well.

Clubs too are measured by how well their members are doing through the Distiguished Club Programme. Successful clubs are recognised and can proudly display the award ribbons on their club banner. During our first full year of operation we achieved the President’s Distinguished Club award – that is the highest award that a club can get!

And this year we are poised to achieve the Select Distinguished award! The DCP ensures that members are reaching their goals and the club is a high performing club with quality educational meetings.

Success speaks for itself and I’m sure you’ll agree that we are a successful and thriving club thanks to the contributions of our members.

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Tip of the Month – Tell A Story, Make A Point

I’ve heard this said a number of times while I’ve been a member of Toastmasters – that the difference between good and great speakers is that great speakers “tell a story then make a point”. (Sometimes it’s the other way round – make a point, tell a story).

I saw it in very effective action last week when I was fortunate enough to attend an event in NYC with Seth Godin – the best-selling author and speaker.

(If you’re at all interested in marketing, the digital economy, or even just where the world of business is heading, I recommend that you follow Seth’s blog).

His opening speech – lasting around 45 minutes – consisted essentially of around half a dozen stories, each illustrating a specific point he wanted to make. Some were personal stories, some were in the public domain. They were often funny, sometimes inspiring, but they were all there for a specific purpose. To further cement his point.

What I particularly liked was that he was always very direct about his point. After telling a story, he would often say “and here’s what I want you to take from this…” or “and what this means for me is…”

He was perfectly happy to sacrifice a more subtle style – where the messages were left for the attentive listener to infer – at the altar of getting his point across. It seemed to me that was his primary purpose.

So try telling a story and making a point. And don’t be afraid of telling exactly what your point is.

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I think that’s everything for this month. Next month will be my last as president (it hardly seems possible a year is almost up) so I’m keen to go out with a big bang – but that shouldn’t be hard with three busy meetings.

Our new committee is almost in place. The current team will be doing a handover next month so that the new ‘administration’ can hit the ground running from the start of July.

There are always ways that you can get involved in the running of the club and help it to keep on growing and getting better. So if you’re interested in lending a hand, even if it’s just an hour or two a month, let me know!

All the best,

Glen Long
President
president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

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Key facts – just the stuff you really need to know

• Our next meeting is tonight – Monday 28th May – upstairs at The Clerk & Well, 156 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DU
• We have three – yes three! – meetings in June, on the 11th, 18th and 25th.
• We’re holding a special Table Topics Workshop on Monday 30th July – details here

Written by Elena (edited by Swarajit)

Introduction

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen who welcomed new and returning guests as well as regular ones and encouraged the audience to improve their competence and confidence at Toastmasters meetings.

The Toastmaster of the meeting was VP of Membership and Mentoring Hari who capably guided the audience through the agenda. He was assisted by the Grammarian Paula and Timekeeper Janet, who described their roles very clearly and thoroughly, and carefully supervised the meeting.

Prepared speeches

Tonight’s first speaker was Marielle with her Ice Breaker speech entitled “The Big 3-0”. She felt that turning thirty is a key milestone in life for everyone. She summarised previous goals in her life from the age of eighteen such as getting married and having children, which then had to be revised into new ones when they did not quite work out the way she had planned and she had found herself “on the shelf”. Marielle suggested everybody approaching their thirtieth birthday should just live as they like and be safe!

The second speaker was Elena, who presented her No. 4 speech entitled “The Death of Trust” in which she shared with us her thoughts about nuclear energy. At school Elena faced nuclear energy issues for the first time when being trained in safety precautions following the disaster at Chernobyl and also while studying energy resources at secondary school. However, after the more recent nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Elena was not sure that it is as safe as she was taught.

The next speaker, Jo, gave her No. 4 speech entitled “Rising to the Challenge”. She revealed her passion for cooking a soufflé (even though she’d never eaten one!) and how long it took her to prepare it. Eventually Jo enjoyed the process and the taste of the soufflé so much that she decided to treat her friends. In the end she stated that the cooking of a soufflé is a challenge everyone should rise to!

The fourth speaker this evening was Adam, who presented his speech No. 6 speech entitled “Awake”. He stated that one day we would sleep forever so why do we need to sleep eight hours a day when we could enjoy three benefits from sleeping less: to be healthier, to be more social and stay young for longer.

Speech evaluations

The second part of the meeting started with evaluations of the prepared speeches. Studying other speakers is a critical skill for public speaking because the ability to analyse a speech will accelerate the growth of any speaker.

Swarajit gave an evaluation of Marielle’s Ice Breaker speech. He praised the fact that the speech had very effective opening with a rhetorical question which at once drew the attention of the audience. Marielle looked very confident on the stage and her eye contact was great. As an improvement Swarajit recommended using more pauses.

Ahmed evaluated Elena’s No. 4 speech. He commented that Elena had chosen a very technical subject but had then taken the audience through the personal journey of her learning about it. Ahmed commended Elena’s use of visual aids in a well-structured speech and recommended that she work on voice projection in the future.

New member Wayne evaluated Jo’s No. 4 speech. He really liked the fabulously precise language, strong opening and conclusion of the speech with powerful, short sentences. A recommendation that Wayne made was regarding Jo’s use of notes.

Carrie gave an evaluation of Adam’s No. 6 speech. She liked that he had started by inviting the audience to participate and continued with humour later on which was very engaging. In Carrie’s opinion there was a bit too much movement by Adam on the stage that slightly hindered good voice projection.

Table Topics

The Table Topics part of the meeting was opened by Topics Master of the evening Renars who performed this role for the first time. He invited us to think about a very pleasant time – holidays – and encouraged participants to use improvisation while they answered his questions: “What you would like to do on your dream holiday?”; “Do you need more or fewer holidays or is it just right?”; “What would you do if all your Christmas gifts were stolen on Christmas Eve?”; “What was the funniest or craziest thing that had happened to you on holiday”; and “If you were an Avatar, where would you go on holiday?”

All the participants coped very well with the challenging questions and were evaluated by the evening’s Table Topics evaluator, Jason. He praised the fact that all participants were smiling, warm and engaging with the audience and used a great freestyle technique which gave them extra time for thinking on their feet. The common recommendation was to pay attention to hand gestures.

After the Table Topics section, Paula provided the Grammarian’s report where she appreciated Carrie’s solitary use of the word of the day, “Fastidious”, and evaluated the use of language, metaphors, rhetorical devices and unnecessary ‘filler’ words by participants during the meeting and reminded the audience of the most felicitous expressions used during the meeting.

The General Evaluator for this evening was Jakub, who recently took second place at the UK and Ireland round of Toastmasters’ International Speech Contest which was held in Wexford. He evaluated all the meeting participants that were yet to be evaluated. Jakub gave a comprehensive evaluation of the club, the meeting, evaluators and functionaries without using any notes at all!

Awards

Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on the votes cast during the evening and one President’s discretional award.

The Best Evaluator award went to Jason for his fantastic Table Topics evaluation. The Best Table Topics speaker award went to Henry for his great “Superman’s Holiday” table topic, and the highly coveted Best Speaker award went to Jo for her brilliant “Soufflé” speech. The President’s discretional award went to guest Dot, visiting from a US Toastmasters club.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 28^th May 2012, upstairs at The Clerk and Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BX.

Written by Elena (edited by Swarajit)

Introduction

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen who welcomed new and returning guests as well as regular ones and introduced new club members who joined us since the last meeting: Marco, Mike, Jason, Chris, Angela and Renars.

The Toastmaster of the meeting was returning member of the club Craig who guided the audience through the agenda. He was assisted by the Grammarian Carrie and Timekeeper Nimit who were performing their roles for the first time.

Prepared speeches

The Prepared Speeches section helps you practise your delivery, body language, vocal variety and use of rhetorical devices in the frame of Toastmasters’ comprehensive programme of speech projects on any theme you would like.

The first speaker was Paula with her speech No. 2 (the main purpose of which is to organise your speech) entitled “Lights, Camera, Action”. She shared with us her experience of how she had to make a video ‘infomercial’, how she prepared for this and how the actual filming turned out to be extremely different compared to her expectations. At the end of the speech Paula encouraged the audience to think long, think hard and always prepare when asked to perform.

The second speaker was Hari, who presented his No. 9 speech entitled “Climeat Change”. The aim of the No. 9 speech is to persuade with power and Hari argued that the biggest contribution to climate change is from industrialised farming and agriculture for animal-based products. Hari attempted to persuade the audience to avoid eating as much meat as we do, at least one day a week.

Relatively new member Renars gave his advanced speech No. 1 (focused on persuading people to buy something) entitled “Hello, My Name is Renars“. He tried to sell himself to the audience as a product and gave six tips on what it takes to be a salesperson: become genuinely interested in a person’s argument, smile, know the person’s name, be a good listener, target personal interests and let the other person feel important.

The fourth speaker this evening was Femi, who presented his advanced speech No. 5 (from the Speaking to Inform manual) entitled “Negative Campaigning Gone Too Far”. An election-related article from “Evening Standard” inspired Femi’s speech about the negative personal campaigning between the two main candidates for Mayor of London. Femi explained that this type of campaigning was counter-productive as it diverted attention away from listening to the real issues and could even discouraged some from getting involved in the voting process.

Speech evaluations

The second part of the meeting started with evaluations of the prepared speeches. Speech evaluation skills are not limited to the Toastmasters programme –you can evaluate a co-worker’s presentation, give feedback to the leader of the volunteer group in your neighbourhood or provide critique to a client you are coaching – however practising at Bloomsbury Speakers is one way of improving these skills in a safe and friendly environment.

Swarajit gave an evaluation of Paula’s speech. He commended Paula’s very well delivered speech, her enthusiasm and engaging smile, vocal variety and the use of natural body language as well as good structuring of the content. Swarajit gave only one small recommendation regarding Paula’s hand gestures, which were slightly repetitive.

Jason evaluated Hari’s No. 9 speech. He commended Hari for the sincerity of his speech and said that he had totally believed in Hari’s idea, so the objectives of the speech had definitely been met. Jason felt that Hari was very credible with his voice, poise and stance; they all were in congruence. Hari supported his speech using well prepared pictures and facts, but in Jason’s opinion there was a little too much information that was difficult to remember.

Henry evaluated Renars’s advanced speech. He commended Renars’s very warm, relaxed and engaging style that every salesperson needs. He also noted how Renars had very confidently told us about sales techniques using references to demonstrate that he knew what he was talking about. Henry would have liked to have heard a bit more about Renars’s personal feelings in the speech.

Adam gave an evaluation of Femi’s advanced speech. Adam commented that Femi had started with a strong quote and carried on with passion. In terms of structure, the speech was very powerful and well set up and Femi’s voice and body language were very effective but sometimes distracted from the main message.

Table Topics

The Table Topics part of the meeting was opened by Topics Master of the evening, Janet, who performed this role for the first time. She suggested the theme: If you meet a stranger what do you want to know? The questions were about different areas of life:

The first question – If you could teach your child in one lesson what lesson would that be? – was given to recent member Saija.

Another new member Marco answered the succinct question “Mac or PC?”

The question “If you could attend your own funeral what you would like to hear your best friend say about you?” was given to a returning guest Jonathan.

The fourth question, given to another returning guest David, was “If you could be seven years old again, what would you like to be when you grow up?”

Finally, new member Chris tackled the question “What is the worst question I could possibly ask you?”

All participants coped very well with the challenging questions and were evaluated by the evening’s Table Topics evaluator Ratan. He encouraged speakers to use maximum available timeslot of 2 minutes for speaking and commended the technique of repeating the question (which gives the speaker a chance to think a bit more), using humour and expanding the answer.

Next our first-time Grammarian Carrie stepped up to give her report on the effective use of language (or otherwise!) during the meeting. She was very pleased with the number of people who had managed to include the word of the day – “discombobulated” – in their speeches and evaluations, and pointed out effective use of rhetorical devices such as anaphora.

The General Evaluator for this evening was Alan, a frequent guest from our sister-club Holborn Speakers, who evaluated all the meeting participants that were yet to be evaluated. He provided very detailed evaluation and the most useful recommendation for evaluators was to try using small notes and to not turn more than ninety degrees away from the audience when using the lectern.

Awards

Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on the votes cast during the evening and one President’s discretional award.

Henry acquired another Best Evaluator award – his second in consecutive meetings – for his fantastic evaluation of Renars’s advanced speech. The Best Table Topics speaker award went to returning guest David for his great Child’s Dream table topic, and the highly coveted Best Speaker award went to VP of Education Femi for his brilliantly delivered speech. The President’s discretional award went to Carrie for successfully performing the Grammarian role.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 14^th May 2012, upstairs at The Clerk and Well Pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BX.

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P.S. What do you think of the images in this meeting report? They were made using Wordle, a tool for generating “word clouds” based on text – in our case sections from the report. Let us know what you think!