Hello and welcome to the December newsletter from Bloomsbury Speakers!

There are just two days until Christmas, so I hope you’ve done all your shopping. If not – good luck fighting your way through the crowds.

It’s been a busy year so I’m personally looking forward to a little downtime before Bloomsbury ramps back up in 2012.

But before that, I wanted to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and give you a quick roundup of the latest club news and some details of a fun social event early in the New Year.

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Recent news

It’s been a hectic last few weeks of the year. Highlights since the last newsletter include:

• Two great meetings in November including one with so many guests it was standing room only!
• A well-attended Christmas-themed meeting where we got into the festive spirit with seasonal tunes, mince pies and even a cracker-assisted table topics session.
• A nice mention in popular London blog Londonist on its list of Things To Do In London On The Cheap

And of course, it’s always a highlight when someone new decides to join the club and so I’d like to welcome our newest member Paula! We look forward to helping Paula achieve her public speaking goals in 2012.

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Next meetings

Our next two meetings are:

• Monday 9th January 2012 – our very first meeting of 2012! We already have a packed speaking agenda but we still need a Timekeeper, a Topics Evaluator and more speech Evaluators
• Monday 23rd January 2012 – our very second meeting of 2012 😉 Again, we have a full speaking bill (though we could squeeze in an ice breaker), but we still need a Timekeeper, Harkmaster/Grammarian, Topicsmaster, Topics Evaluator and speech Evaluators

Please note that both meetings will be at our new venue (see below).

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New year – new venue

The Rugby Tavern has been our home venue since Bloomsbury Speakers first started meeting back in 2009. After the venue-hopping of the summer while the Tavern was being refurbished we’d hoped to settle back in for the rest of the winter but sadly it wasn’t to be.

The management has recently decided to more than double the cost of hiring the room and so both Bloomsbury and Holborn Speakers (who meet in the same venue on different evenings) have been busy looking at other venues.

We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve found a new venue we think will work great for us. It’s a private room downstairs at The Real Man Pizza Company – just a short walk from the Tavern.

It’s a nice room and big enough to allow us to expand. Also there’s a small bar in the room itself which the manager says he’ll open after each meeting. Oh, and also they serve some great food too!

Find out more about the new venue here:

https://www.bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk/meetings/

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Club Social – Monday 16th January – Bowling!

Our VPE (Vice President of Education) Femi Asaolu is organising another fun evening social – ten pin bowling at All Star Lanes in Bloomsbury – on Monday 16th January.

It will cost £8.75 per person per game plus whatever you spend on drinks. Based on similar events in the past it’s great fun and don’t worry if you’re not the world’s best bowler – you won’t be the only one!

Please email Femi at education@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk by Monday 9th January if you’d like to attend. Places are limited!

See you there. STRIKE!!!

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Tip of the Month – Make a Resolution!

It’s that time of year where we traditionally make resolutions for the new year.

Just think, people we haven’t met yet are right now resolving to improve their public speaking skills and will show up at a meeting early in the new year…

If you’re already a member, you’ve got a big head-start on this crowd, so why not make some specific resolutions about your Toastmasters activity in 2012? Here are some ideas:

• If you’re a new member and haven’t done your ice breaker yet, resolve to do so early in 2012 – in fact book yourself into ClubPlan right now!
• If you’ve got one or speeches under your belt already, resolve to complete a certain numbers of speech projects in 2012 – I would recommend at least four. (If you’ve only a few speeches left – resolve to complete the manual by a certain date)
• If you’ve done most of the functionary roles but have never been Toastmaster, resolve to tick that one off early in 2012. It’s great fun and great experience.
• If you’re a mentor, why not resolve to really “over-deliver” for your mentees in 2012? Check in with them on their goals for the new year and think of three ways you can help make them happen.

And finally, if you’re not a member yet, but keep resolving to join, why not take the plunge and sign up now. Then you can really relax this Christmas knowing that your public speaking skills will definitely improve in 2012!

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Well that it’s for this newsletter. Have a fantastic Christmas and a ridiculously fun New Year and I look forward to seeing you at a meeting early in 2012.

Best wishes,

Glen Long
President

president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

We had a good turnout for our very last meeting of the year, which was held in the London Welsh Centre on Gray’s Inn Road. Arrivals were greeted by Christmas music and some seasonal nibbles laid on by our “Chief Elf” Kate Osborne and her “little helper” Elena Fanaberova.

Introductions

Club President Glen Long opened the meeting by welcoming everyone in the room and likening the venue to a stable which had given the club shelter for the evening at this busy time of year. Glen gave an overview of Toastmasters for the benefit of guests and explained how practicing your public speaking in a safe and friendly environment can help reduce anxiety levels and allow natural communication skills to emerge.

He then handed over to the evening’s Toastmaster, Henry Playfoot, who described the evening’s agenda as a “Christmas feast” and took us though the various elements of the programme. He also introduced his theme for the meeting – favourite Christmas songs – and invited the evening’s Timekeeper Neil Ward up to speak, whose own favourite turned out to be Silent Night.

Neil gave us an overview of his role – to help meeting participants keep to time – and explained the green, amber and red “traffic light” system used to set time limits for each part of the agenda.

After Neil has finished his section, new member Richard (favourite song “Don’t Let The Bells End” by The Darkness) stood up and explained his role as the meeting’s Grammarian – to “encourage and commend the good use of English language” by the various speakers, but also to pick up on poor grammar and filler words such as and “ums and ahs”. He revealed the word of the day – “festive” – and encouraged all members to incorporate it into their speeches and introductions.

Prepared Speeches

Henry then introduced our first speaker, AG (favourite song “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues and Kirsty McColl) who was giving her No. 2 speech entitled “The Lazy Consumer”. In a very well-structured and informative speech she explored the question of why consumers often don’t make choices that seem to be plainly in their best interests – is it simply because they are lazy? In fact, she concluded, there are a number of good reasons, including what price they put on their own time.

The second speaker was Hari, whose favourite Christmas song is “Happy Christmas War Is Over” by John Lennon. In his seventh speech “Beliefs and Stockings” Hari used a childhood story about trying to catch his parents in the act of filling his Christmas stocking (and thus proving the non-existence of Father Christmas once and for all) as the entry point to a speech about beliefs and how these affect our behaviour and ultimately our success and happiness. He likened the “references” that support our beliefs to the legs of a table that support the table top and invited us all to think what new beliefs we could adopt.

The third speaker was club president Glen Long (favourite song “Let It Snow!”), with a No. 9 speech entitled “Warning: May Contain Nuts”. In his tongue-in-cheek festive speech, Glen attempted to persuade us that there were compelling reasons to abandon the traditional Christmas turkey in favour of a meat that was more ethical, more sustainable and even free – the humble squirrel! Say ‘no’ to turkey and ‘yes to Tufty he urged.

Visiting from Northern Lights Speakers in Camden, our final speaker Doug Williams, delivered an advanced informative speech entitled: “Causes of Ill-Health”. In a thought-provoking speech Doug asked us to question the true intentions of pharmaceutical companies and invited us all to take responsibility for our own health by looking closely at the lifestyle decisions we make every day.

Evaluations

After a short break to recharge our glasses and feast on a few festive nibbles, Henry reconvened the meeting and introduced the next section – evaluations of the four speakers.

Regular visitor to Bloomsbury Speakers Jennifer Zou evalauted AG’s speech “The Lazy Consumer”. She commended AG on her structure – satisfying one of the main objectives of the No. 2 speech – and the way she signposted key points. She also commended good use of hand gestures and eye contact but recommended more variety of pace.

Hari’s speech was evaluated by Joe Lake who noted that the content had been drawn from various sources and commended his “excellent posture” and the way Hari had projected his voice to the very back of the room. His recommendations were to vary the vocal variety to be more impactful and also to simplify the content – Joe felt Hari was trying to achieve too many things in one speech.

Glen’s speech was evaluated by Ratan Lele. Ratan commended Glen on a firm stance and good eye contact and said he found himself being convinced by the speech despite feeling “nauseous” at the prospect of eating squirrel instead of turkey! Ratan felt that Glen could have spent more time in his speech looking at other alternatives to turkey before settling on his controversial choice, but promised to consider eating squirrel on Christmas Day, albeit with a pinch of salt!

Femi Asaolu was tasked with evaluating Doug’s advanced speech. Opening with a quote, Femi noted it was clear that Doug cared about his topic passionately and this served to make us seriously think about the points he raised. Femi recommended that Doug might have signposted some of his points more clearly and should perhaps have gone to greater lengths to substantiate his main arguments.

Table Topics

After the evaluations, Kate led a lively table topics sessions with a Christmas twist! Volunteers were invited to put on a Christmas hat, take a shot of cherry brandy, and then pull a cracker – hidden inside each cracker was a special topic to tackle.

In fact, each was asked to give an impromptu “Elf Report” from a particular location or event, resulting in:

• Paula reporting from the family lunch on Christmas Day
• John reporting from the office Christmas party
• Jem reporting from Westfield Shopping Centre on Christmas Eve
• Bithika reporting from the school nativity play
• Sandra reporting from Santa’s Grotto
• Doug reporting on a local Christmas Eve party

After the final cracker had been pulled, Todd Wade stepped up as table topics evaluator with the challenge of giving feedback to all six impromptu speakers. He commended all of them for a “fantastic” session where they all “hit their beats” and went on to give specific praise and recommendations to each in turn.

Reports and awards

As Grammarian, Richard gave his report, citing numerous examples of good uses of language, such as Henry’s description of the agenda as being full of “titbits and tasty morsels”. He also commended Doug for his good use of repetition in his speech.

Finally, highly experienced Toastmaster Liz Hobbs gave a general evaluation of the evening and the club as a whole, with a number of useful recommendations for the club and those participants who’d not yet received feedback.

Closing the meeting, Glen announced the awards based on votes from the audience. Best table topics speaker went to Doug for his report on a local party and best evaluator to Joe for his evaluation of Hari’s speech. Glen’s squirrel speech got the most votes in the prepared speech ballot, but he chose not present himself with an award on the basis that it would be embarrassing! The president’s discretionary award went to guest Sandra for her sterling table topics performance.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting is also the first meeting of the New Year – on Monday 9th January.

This meeting will also be the first in our new venue – downstairs in The Real Man Pizza Company on Clerkenwell Road. It’s only five minutes walk from the Rugby Tavern and we’ve got a great room with an integral bar that the manager has promised to open at the end of the meeting.

It’s an exciting new chapter for Bloomsbury Speakers and we look forward to seeing you there.

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!

Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Swarajit Das)

Introduction

This was a particularly educational meeting with an extended prepared speeches section. We had a special guest from Holborn Speakers, Freddie Daniels, who treated us to an Educational Speech on evaluation tips as well as playing the General Evaluator’s role.

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who welcomed new guests, returning guests, regular members and the club committee. He encouraged new members and guests to be brave and to take the plunge and “just do it”, which over time would help them to lose some of their nervousness.

The Toastmaster of the evening, who guided us through the slightly different speech agenda to a typical meeting, was VP of Membership and Mentoring Hari Kalymnios. Hari was assisted by the Timekeeper Jo Higham, who did this role for the first time, and the club’s Past President Nazia Soon who succinctly explained her role as Harkmaster for the evening.

Prepared speeches

During this part of the meeting several members usually present their speeches based on the Competent Communication (CC) Manual, but this evening in addition to two such speeches we had an extended Impromptu Speech and an Educational Speech as well.

The first speaker this evening was Neil Ward with his entertaining No. 3 speech from the CC Manual entitled “Where I Go to Relax”. Neil told us that he likes to relax in St. James Park in London where you can meet many different and sometimes unexpected animals including squirrels, various kinds of geese, swans and so on. We were even involved in a social experiment that Neil had built in to his speech.

The second speaker was Joe Lake, who presented his No. 5 speech from the CC Manual entitled “The Bark Is Often Worse than the Bite”. We heard Joe’s wise and personal story about his fear of a dog and how he coped with it when he was a paper boy. Joe argued that things look bigger and scarier in our minds than they are in reality, believing that irrational fear comes through stereotypes developed by media and people we spend time with. In the conclusion of his speech Joe encouraged people to be careful and selective about who they spend time with as well as what they read and watch.

The next speaker was club VP of Education Femi Asaolu with an impromptu seven-minute speech on a topic chosen by the audience – “Space”. He started with a humorous quote suggesting that dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space programme! Femi proposed that to survive we need to change continuously and look for expansion into space, for example to Mars.

The last speaker was Freddie Daniels with his Educational Speech entitled “Tips on Evaluating”. The main three tips for evaluating were: to provide motivation, encouragement and confidence to speaker; to bring the evaluation in on time; and to make a point on structure, content and delivery. An extra bonus tip from Freddie – evaluate everyone in a meeting even if you’re not the assigned evaluator – because this is the best way to improve.

Speech evaluations

After the break, Hari moved on to the evaluations part of the meeting, where other members of the club took to the stage and gave their own thoughts on one of the preceding speeches in order to highlight good practice and make recommendations on how the speakers might improve in future.

The first evaluator and relatively new member Ann Connolly evaluated Neil’s No. 3 speech. She reminded everyone that the aim was to create a speech that had a general and specific purpose and organise it so that the audience can follow the speech and be engaged with it. Ann commented that Neil did very well in these respects and was very warm and sincere. The main recommendation she made was to link the speech title with the beginning of the speech for a more effective opening.

The second evaluator was Joyanta Raksmith, who evaluated Joe’s No. 5 speech. Joyanta emphasised Joe’s excellent speech structure and brilliant wrapping up. The recommendation was to be more energetic at certain points in the content.

The last evaluator, club Secretary Kate Osborne, evaluated Femi’s fantastic off-the-cuff speech. Kate commented that she liked Femi’s delivery style: confidence, effective hand gestures and a big smile! She also pointed out strong areas in the structure of the speech: the use of the quote and humour in the beginning, the development of his argument in the middle part and the conclusion – all had kept the audience engaged throughout. Kate’s main recommendation was for Femi to stick to his chosen points and to not allow the speech to deviate too much from them.

Table Topics

It is our aim during the meeting that everyone has a chance to speak and the Table Topics section is one part which ensures this. Participating in Table Topics is great practice for both new and experienced members as well as brave guest volunteers.

The Topics Master of the evening was AG who took on the role for the first time. She prepared a theme for the session entitled “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

She asked the speakers to imagine themselves as children again and to tell why they wanted to have a certain career when they “grew up”. Careers included:

• a chef
• a football player
• a banker
• an archaeologist
• a doctor
• an accountant

Six people including some guests tackled AG’s questions on the spot and got some great experience of impromptu speaking.

The Table Topics evaluator this evening was Babur Yusupov, who evaluated each participant. He noted that the speakers used a lot of humour, applied the recommended 1-2-3 structure of a speech, gave personal stories and showed a deep knowledge of a subject they had just been given.

To round off the meeting, Harkmaster Nazia tested the audience’s listening skills with a set of quick-fire questions based on what they’d heard during the meeting and rewarded correct answers with sweets.

As the General Evaluator Freddie gave feedback to all the meeting participants who were yet to be evaluated. Some common and useful recommendations were: using examples and keeping no more than four to five points which can help the audience to better understand a speech evaluation and trying to exclude ‘filler’ words and phrases like “you know”. A useful recommendation for evaluators was to talk about a speech or a speaker and not directly to a speaker, to help the rest of the audience feel included.

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 Kate for her very detailed evaluation of Femi’s impromptu speech, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to Adam Horne for his well structured topic about wanting to be a chef and the highly coveted Best Speaker award went to Joe for his excellent prepared speech. The President’s discretional award went to a guest Johnnie for his very impressive Table Topic about ‘wanting’ to be an accountant.

Finally Glen announced that our club had been officially recognised with a DCP award – Distinguished Club Program – for club achievements in education and membership.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 12th December – it’s our Christmas-themed meeting and we’ve already got lots of fun ideas for seasonal speaking!

IMPORTANT There has been a change of venue – this meeting will now be held at Lower Hall, London Welsh Centre, 157-163 Gray’s Inn Road, WC1X 8UE.

Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Swarajit Das)

Introduction

This meeting was a must-see! There was a full house made up of club members, regular guests and many new faces. There was also general theme of humour and comedy, which meant that the meeting was loaded with jokes from start to finish!

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who welcomed the new guests and gave an overview of Toastmasters’ learning-by-doing ethos.

The Toastmaster of the evening who guided us through the agenda was Club Treasurer Swarajit Das. He encouraged the audience to tell jokes during the meeting and introduced every speaker to the stage with their favourite joke, which made atmosphere relaxed and stimulated for speaking. Swarajit was assisted by the Timekeeper Joe Lake and the Grammarian Stella Meadows, a guest from the Northern Lights Speakers club in Camden, who introduced word of the day – tandem – while the club’s Sergeant at Arms Adam Horne led the guest introductions.

Prepared speeches

It is always a great pleasure for the club to have an Ice Breaker speech during a meeting and this evening Swarajit introduced brand new member of the club, Richard Gibbs, to give his. It’s an important step in the Toastmaster’s programme and in his very humorous first speech entitled “Favourite Holidays” Richard compared and contrasted his regular holidays in Devon, where he enjoys countryside walks, sitting by the bonfire and listening to the sound of rain, with a holiday in Sri Lanka with his wife where he was shocked by driving without rules, was hit by an elephant and even tried out jet skiing.

The second speaker was Elena Fanaberova, who delivered her No. 2 speech “I like shopping here”. Elena compared her shopping experience in Russia where you can risk freezing your hands while shopping at outdoor markets in the winter, with shopping in the UK where sellers seem to care much more about their customers and offer great deals such as “Buy 1, Get 1 Free” – something that would be unheard of in a Russian market.

The next speaker was VP of Membership and Mentoring Hari Kalymnios, who appeared to have many fans at the meeting, with his speech No. 6 entitled “I can make you”. In this entertaining speech Hari spoke about his experience of being put into a trance by a CD and book called “Instant Confidence”, using vocal variety to represent different subjects.

The last speaker was Jennifer Zou, a visiting member from London Corinthians club, with her advanced speech entitled “A Red Flower”. Jennifer told us a very sensitive story about a small girl who asked her mum “Why do people wear poppies?”

Speech evaluations

Evaluation is a crucial part of our meetings for speakers because they are able to receive recommendations for further improvements. It is also a good opportunity for evaluators to enhance their critical and communication skills and for the rest of the audience to learn about both of these areas.

The first evaluator Femi Asaolu evaluated Richard’s very engaging Ice Breaker speech. He reminded us that the objective of the Ice Breaker speech is to discover speaking skills that the speaker already has and areas where improvements could be made. Femi commented that the speech was honest and personal, which is what the first speech should be like, and that Richard already has a great joke-telling skill. Femi also suggested focusing more on body language in the future.

The next evaluator was relatively new member Ann Connolly and she evaluated Elena’s No. 2 speech. She commented that the speech had been well prepared with smooth transitions. Ann recommended that Elena should speak a little bit louder.

The third evaluator Henry Playfoot evaluated Hari’s exceptional No. 6 speech, the aim of which was to apply vocal variety. He commented that Hari had had a very powerful stage presence and his message was congruent with its delivery. Henry pointed out an area for improvement – making more use of pauses.

The last evaluator was Todd Wade who evaluated Jennifer’s advanced speech. The goal of her touching story was to invoke emotions. Todd commented that the goal had been met and emphasised Jennifer’s exceptional story-telling and vocal variety, for example when the child spoke to her mother. He made one suggestion: to walk around the stage more.

Table Topics

Participating in Table Topics (impromptu speaking) is great practice for both new and experienced members as well as brave guest volunteers.

The Topics Master of the evening was club Secretary Kate Osborne. She prepared humorous Table Topics for the evening, which was in a friendly “tandem” with the general theme of the meeting chosen by Swarajit. Her questions for the speakers were:

• If you were prime minister for the day, what would you implement in order to give people in London a laugh?
• Tell us about something funny that happened to you or your friend whilst you on holiday.
• Tell us about something funny that happened when you were growing up.
• Mixing alcohol and text messaging should be banned – your comments.
• Tell us about a funny film or book that you have seen or read recently.
• Have you ever made a fool of yourself or embarrassed yourself in public?

Six people including a few guests tackled one of Kate’s questions and got some great experience of thinking on their feet.

The Table Topics evaluator this evening was Ratan Lele who incorporated a lot of humour in his evaluation and commented on each participant. His recommendations, common for all speakers, were to stand a little bit closer to the audience, smile and try to answer the question asked.

Our General Evaluator was Trang Le, who is a member of four other clubs! Trang gave a very constructive evaluation of all the meeting participants who were yet to be evaluated and expressed her positive experience of visiting our club.

Awards

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

The Best Evaluator award went to Ratan for his very humorous Table Topics evaluation, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to Todd for his brilliant topic about banning alcohol-induced text messages and the highly-coveted Best Speaker award went to Hari for his exceptional speech about confidence.

Richard was presented with a certificate for successfully completing his Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster.

Finally the President’s discretional award went to Ann for her first and very successful evaluation.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 28th November at The Rugby Tavern.

Make sure you put Monday 12th December in your diary as well – it’s our Christmas-themed meeting and we’ve already got lots of fun ideas for seasonal speaking!