Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Glen Long)

Introduction

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who welcomed the new guests and gave an overview of Toastmasters, likening the ten speech communication programme to going to the gym – you need to keep “increasing the weights” to see progress.

The Toastmaster of this evening was a very experienced speaker and past president Nazia Soon, assisted by the Harkmaster Hari Kalymnios and the Timekeeper Elena Fanaberova, while Adam Horne led the Guest Introductions.

In fact Hari was particularly busy this evening playing three roles: Harkmaster, giving an educational speech about “Mentoring” prior to the prepared speeches and as the evaluator of one of the speakers – Neil Ward.

Prepared speeches

It is always a great pleasure for the club to have an Ice Breaker speech during a meeting and this evening, Jo Higham, who has been a member for only one month, gave hers. It’s an important step in the Toastmaster’s programme and in her very first speech entitled “Less Is More” she quoted “the things you own end up owning you” from the film Fight Club, which encapsulated her own personal philosophy.

The second speaker was Neil Ward, who delivered his No. 2 speech “A Winning Mindset”. In his very clear and memorable speech Neil gave us the mnemonic ABC for success: action, belief in yourself and commitment.

The last speaker was Joe Lake, who has really thrown himself into Toastmasters since joining and is already on his fourth speaking project with his speech “Manage It”. In this speech Joe described different types of managers and explained how to be a good manager by using three rules: “neighbourhood mentality”, “make it personal” and “learn from everyone and everything”.

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.

The first evaluator Nazia evaluated Jo’s impressive Ice Breaker speech. Nazia said that she heard a quote, a joke and a question all in the beginning of the speech which engaged the audience very effectively. Also Nazia observed that Jo was very relaxed and used very effective facial expressions. She gave only one recommendation regarding the Jo’s stance.

The next evaluator Hari evaluated Neil’s memorable speech. He commended Neil for using a question that hooked the audience in the opening and also his ABC approach that gave the speech a clear structure and made it more easily understandable. However, Hari would have liked to have heard smoother transitions between the three distinct sections.

The last evaluator Glen evaluated Joe’s speech. Glen commented that he heard good use of language and of rhetorical devices as required by the objectives of the speech. Also he very much liked Joe’s relaxed and affable style. The main recommendation from Glen was that he would like to have even more rhetorical devices to make the points more memorable, e.g. use of repetition.

Table Topics

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

The Topics Master of the evening was Swarajit Das, the Club Treasurer. Swarajit prepared a Table Topics session with a theme that is relevant for many people at the moment – job interviews. His questions were taken from real interviews and included:

• In an ideal world, what would be your dream job?
• What is your greatest achievement?
• Sell me this pen.
• Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
• What is your biggest personal strength?
• Describe the worst job you have ever had.

Six people tackled one of Swarajit’s questions – including several guests – and got some great experience of thinking on their feet.

Club secretary Kate Osborne was the Table Topics evaluator this evening and praised the choice of topics and gave the participants some encouraging recommendations.

Our General Evaluator was Philip Landergan, who is a member of Bromley Speakers club. Philip evaluated all the meeting participants who were left to be evaluated and gave a very useful outside perspective on our club with some very helpful recommendations.

Awards

Closing the meeting, Glen gave out the awards based on votes cast during the evening.

The Best Evaluator award went to Kate for her Table Topics evaluation, the Best Table Topics speaker award went to guest Brendan who successfully “sold” Swarajit his own pen and the “highly coveted” Best Speaker award went to Jo for her speech, who also got a certificate for successfully completing her Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster.

Finally the President’s discretional award went to the returning guest Richard for his humorous Table Topic.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 14th November at The Rugby Tavern.

And 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!

Hello and welcome to the October newsletter!

September was a busy month with a sold-out workshop (Andrew Brammer on Storytelling), two club contests (Humorous Speech and Table Topics) and a lively first meeting back in our home venue The Rugby Tavern.

It’s great to be back in the Tavern, which is looking very smart after the refurbishments, and hopefully there won’t be any more venue changes for the foreseeable future.

I’m also delighted to report that we gained four new members in September, so welcome aboard Marty, Saija, Maureen and Jo! I look forward to getting you all booked in for an Icebreaker soon.

Recent news

As this newsletter is coming out a little later in the month than usual (apologies) we’ve already got some October news…

Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest results

After winning humorous speech and table topics contests respectively at area level, Ola Aralepo and David Jones went on to repeat their success at the Division B final on Saturday. A brilliant result for both of them and a reminder that Bloomsbury Speakers belongs to one of the strongest areas in the whole division!

Ola and David will compete in their respective categories at the District 71 final at the Flourish Conference in Glasgow on 11th-13th November 2011.

New VPE (Vice President of Education)

I’m very pleased to announce that we have a new VPE – Femi Asaolu. Femi is an advanced speaker and will already be familiar to many who have enjoyed his charismatic (and often mischievous!) style in various roles at Bloomsbury Speakers.

Our previous VPE Dave Longley stepped down at the end of September due to other commitments and so it’s great to have someone with Femi’s experience and enthusiasm at the helm. Many thanks to Nazia Soon for taking on the VPE responsibilities during the transition.

(For those new to the club, who are wondering what on earth the VPE does, in a nutshell the role is concerned with making sure that our meetings are well-organised and fully booked with speakers and functionaries and also that the education goals of our members – and the club as a whole – are reached.)

I’m sure Femi will do a fantastic job – expect him to be in contact to encourage you to book your next role! You can reach him at: education@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

A note on membership fees

Due to unavoidable increases in our base costs (our room hire is increasing and so are the dues we pay to Toastmasters International on behalf of each member), we are increasing our six month and annual membership fees. In a nutshell, the six month fee is going up by £10 and the annual by £25

As a non-profit organisation we have to pass on any costs that we incur but we still think it’s great value for money: a one-day presentation skills or public speaking workshop in London could easily cost £200 – £300.

What’s happening this month?

Well, we’ve already had a club social and the first meeting of October, but here’s what’s on the horizon for the next few weeks.

Regular Meeting – Monday 24th October 2011

This coming Monday’s meeting is filling up very nicely but there are still a few roles and in particular we need some evaluators! If you’ve never evaluated a speech before now is a great opportunity – let Femi know you’re interested and he can give you some tips.

Regular Meeting – Monday 14th November 2011

This is almost four weeks away but we’ve already got three speakers booked so you’ll need to get in quick if you want to bag the remaining slot (although we’ll make a special effort to fit in an Ice Breaker).

Special Christmas meeting

Monday 12th December 2011

This is a special Christmas meeting where we’ll be following the normal agenda but everything will have a Yuletide twist!

Expect mince pies, seasonal table topics and perhaps even a bit of dressing up…

Club Secretary Kate Osborne is taking on the role of head elf to organize festivities so drop her a line with any ideas at: secretary@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

Tip of the Month

This month’s tip is a bit of wisdom from Scott Berkun, from his book Confessions of a Public Speaker, and it concerns something we all worry about – making mistakes.

Mistakes will happen – what matters more is how you frame your mistakes, and there are two ways to do this:

1. Avoid the mistake of trying to make no mistakes. You should work hard to know your material, but also know you won’t be perfect. This way, you won’t be devastated when small things go wrong.
2. Know that your response to a mistake defines the audience’s response. If I respond to spilling water on my pants as if it were the sinking of the Titanic, the audience will see it, and me, as a tragedy. But if I’m cool, or better yet, find it funny, the audience will do the same.

Okay, that’s all for now – hope you enjoyed this month’s newsletter. As usual, drop me a line with any ideas to help improve the club and anything you’d like to see in the next newsletter.

I look forward to seeing you at a meeting soon!

Best wishes,

Glen Long
President
Bloomsbury Speakers

By Elena Fanaberova. (Edited by Swarajit Das).

Introductions

The meeting was opened by the club’s Past President, and acting President for the evening, Nazia Soon. In her very welcoming introduction Nazia clearly explained, for the benefit of our guests, the organization of the worldwide Toastmasters family and how to become a competent speaker and leader by following the first two Toastmaster’s manuals.

Nazia then handed the meeting over to the evening’s Toastmaster and club secretary Kate Osborne, who encouraged an energetic meeting. Kate briefly explained the agenda before introducing the theme for the meeting – favourite leaders – and explained that she would be introducing each speaker and functionary with the answer they’d given beforehand. Kate revealed that her own favourite leader is London mayor Boris Johnson.

Kate then introduced the evening’s Timekeeper, Elena Fanaberova (whose favourite leader is Peter the Great), and Harkmaster Joe Lake.

Prepared speeches

This evening there were four prepared speeches from across the whole range of Toastmasters projects: one Ice Breaker speech, two No. 5 speeches (Your Body Speaks) and one Advanced Speech.

The first speaker was AG with her fascinating and professionally-delivered Ice Breaker speech. She told us that her greatest passion is travelling which is closely linked with her other interests such as human history and World War II, as well as cooking and tasting new food.

The next speaker was Hari Kalymnios, whose favourite leader is Winston Churchill. In his No. 5 speech “Gimme A Break!” Hari told us, in a very expressive way, a personal story about a terrible event on holiday in Austria when he broke his shoulder and had to go through a lengthy and painful recovery, which taught him that with hard work, discipline and help from others, one can cope with any challenge.

The third speaker was Joyanta Raksmith, whose favourite leader is the late Steve Jobs. In his No. 5 speech entitled “Greatest Product on Earth” Joyanta discussed specific features of some very popular technology products such as the iPad and Facebook, and yet tried to prove the point that the greatest product on earth is Coca Cola.

The last prepared speaker was Jennifer Zou with her Advanced Speech entitled “Is packaging important to you?”. Jennifer told us a very emotive but wise story about a young man who not only missed a desired gift from his father because it was packaged in a way that he didn’t expect, but even broke up his relationship with his father because of it.

Speech evaluations

After a short break, Kate opened the evaluations part of the meeting. The first evaluator was Femi Asaolu, evaluating AG’s maiden speech.

Femi reminded us that the objective of the Ice Breaker speech is to discover speaking skills that the speaker already has. He said he had heard a very well presented story and that AG already had an outstanding storytelling ability which he likened to reading a novel.

The next evaluator, Henry Playfoot, whose favourite leaders are Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, evaluated Hari’s speech. Henry commented that Hari demonstrated body language and eye contact that were both entirely congruent with his speech and achieved the objectives of the No. 5 speech. There was only one recommendation for Hari: to use more facial expressions.

The third evaluator, Todd Wade, whose favourite leader is also Steve Jobs, evaluated Joyanta’s speech about Coca Cola. He praised the precise, clever and persuasive arguments Joyanta used to back up his point of view but noticed that the introduction was a little bit longer than necessary and suggested speaking without notes.

The last evaluator, Nazia Soon, whose favourite leader is Richard Branson, evaluated Jennifer’s advanced speech. She said that Jennifer’s story had been very emotional and had moved everyone in the audience and so the main objective of this speech was achieved very well. Nazia recommended that Jennifer project her voice a bit more to make it easier for everyone in the audience to hear.

Table Topics

The ad hoc speeches part of the meeting was opened by Kate introducing the evening’s Topics Master, Hari Kalymnios, who opened by describing his own experience of having to make an impromptu speech at a wedding.

The first Table Topic speaker, Henry Playfoot, was given a topic called “A leader of Greece” and was required to convince the population of the country that it is necessary to undertake unpopular measures to recover from the debt crisis.

The second speaker, Simon – one of the evening’s guests – received the topic “A leader of an island” and had to convince one of its inhabitants to jump into a volcano to save the rest of the population.

The third speaker was another guest, John, who was tasked with picking any three leaders to invite to dinner and explain his reasons.

The last speaker, Layla (yet another guest!), was asked to predict who out of two leaders including Nelson Mandela would win in a street fight and why!

The Table Topics evaluator Swarajit Das commented that speakers had been given very difficult topics but used humour, good structure and effective tactics in their answers. He also gave some general recommendations about eye contact and stage position which were useful for all.

After Swarajit’s evaluations, Harkmaster Joe Lake tested the attendees’ listening skills by posing questions relating to what they had heard throughout the evening. As usual correct answers were rewarded with sweets!

Awards

After an insightful general evaluation by experienced speaker (and member of TubeTalk) Ola Aralepo, Nazia brought the meeting to a close by giving out the awards based on votes cast during the evening.

The Best Evaluator award went to Femi, the Best Table Topic speaker award went to guest Simon and the highly-coveted Best Speaker award to Jennifer. AG also received a certificate for successfully completing her Ice Breaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster.

Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday 24th October 2011 at The Rugby Tavern.

The London Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest Finals (including four great educational workshops) are happening this Saturday 15th October.

Find out more and book tickets at:

divisionb.eventbrite.com

Introductions

Monday’s meeting saw Bloomsbury Speakers safely back in its regular venue of the Rugby Tavern after a couple of months of venue-hopping while the Tavern was being refurbished.

Club president Glen Long opened the meeting by saying how pleased he was to be back ‘home’ and commented on how great the pub looked after all the work. He welcomed members and guests, thanking everyone for choosing to spend their Monday night with Toastmasters rather than in front of the television and he even gave us a quick breakdown of exactly what we were missing on TV!

He went on to apologise for a “perfect storm” of last minute absences which meant that a few members would be covering more than one role in the agenda but promised to make the evening as fun and enjoyable as possible.

After an overview of the club for the benefit of the new visitors he handed over proceedings to regular member and advanced speaker Femi Asaolu, the Toastmaster for the evening.

Femi started by introducing his chosen theme – the answer to the question: What have you never done that you’ve always wanted to do? – and invited audience members to give a brief answer. Many wished for trips to far-flung travel destinations but there were also some would-be adrenaline junkies who wanted to sky-dive and bungee jump!

Femi then introduced Kate Osborne as the evening’s Timekeeper, who first reminded us of the importance of being able to express ideas within a limited amount of time and then took us through the “traffic light” system used to alert speakers of elapsed time within their allocated speaking slots.

Prepared speeches

The first speaker was relatively new member Joe Lake who is already on his third prepared speech! In “Making Progress” Joe asked why do we strive for success? It’s hard work – and we often suffer setbacks and frustrations – so why do we bother? Well, he argued, we strive for lots of reasons, including trying to make life better for others.

In an inspiring and practical speech, Joe gave us three tips for improving our chances of success: 1) Keep it simple, 2) Keep faith in yourself and 3) Keep learning.

The second speech was by advanced speaker and past president Nazia Soon who told us about her High Performance Leadership project which had been focussed on setting up Bloomsbury Speakers at the end of 2009 and building the team necessary to grow it into a stable and thriving Toastmasters club.

The project required her to assess her abilities as a leader in six different areas by answering the following questions:

1. What are the vision, mission and values for the project?
2. How supportive are you as a leader?
3. How well do you develop your team?
4. How well do you show appreciation to your team?
5. How well do you direct your team?
6. How persuasive are you?

After Nazia’s speech – and since we were a speaker short on the agenda – Femi invited Glen up to the front to deliver his humorous speech from last week’s area contest “Save Our Zoo!” which raised a few smiles and took us nicely into the break.

After grabbing some refreshments from the bar everyone returned for the second half, which started with the evaluations of the prepared speeches.

Speech evaluations

Returning member Babur Yusupov stepped in at short notice (thanks Babur!) to evaluate Joe’s No. 3 speech. He started by reminding us of the speech objectives and then commended Joe on a very strong message, a great use of quotes (from luminaries such as Bernard Shaw and Churchill) and on a very effective “tripartite structure”. He also commended Joe’s good use of imagery and hand gestures but recommended that he slowed his pace occassionally to help emphasise key points.

Femi took on the role of evaluator for Nazia’s advanced speech. He started by saying that he thought of her as a very eloquent speaker and commended her use of emphatic hand gestures. In terms of recommendations, Femi said he felt the speech could benefit from a tighter structure to really set the context for the speech and also tie the theme of the importance of leadership more closely into the main topic of the speech. Overall he found it engaging and encouraged her to take on his recommendations!

Table Topics

After her evaluation by Femi, Nazia stepped back up in as the evening’s Topicsmaster to introduce her chosen theme for the table topics section. “The career paradigm has completely changed” she told us. “People are doing all sorts of jobs”. And this was the starting point for a lively session centred around job interviews.

She invited volunteers up one by one to give a short impromptu speech of 1 – 2 minutes telling us why they were the right candidate for a range of quite unusual jobs:

• Joe was invited to explain why he’d make a good tattoo artist and body piercer. He admitted it wasn’t a childhood dream of his to become a tattooist and on reflection concluded that he wasn’t suitable as he didn’t really like inflicting pain on people.
• Guest Lila was asked to pitch herself in the role of aroma tester – a job which involving sniffing people’s armpits to determine the effectiveness of their deodorants! We learned from her that the trick to applying deodorant is to create a balance between the artificial scent and one’s own natural scent. Who knew?
• Guest Stuart was invited to take over product development at Apple. He openly admitted that he wasn’t personally a user of Apple products but would quite like to work for a competitor. He even suggested a new product range: the uPod, the uPhone and the uPad (patents pending…)
• Babur was invited to lead an Indian-style laughing club for office workers. By way of some very creative corporate jargon he persuaded us that he was the ideal candidate, although his strategy for boosting morale seem to involve taking everyone out for a drink and not returning to work afterwards!
• Guest Jo was up for the position of pet therapist and felt that her lack of pet allergies was a definite strength. However, she wasn’t keen on emptying cat litter trays or capable of anything other than very basic dog grooming so quickly decided it wasn’t the job for her and withdrew her application!
• Finally guest John was invited to apply for the job of voice analyst, helping the police solve serious crimes. He impressed us with his language from the very start saying that he was interested in the “nuances of human interaction” and concluded strongly by saying that although he had no actual qualifications for the job he could offer double enthusiasm!

After the last of the topics speakers, Glen stepped up as topics evaluator, providing commendations and recommendations for all speakers:

• He congratulated Joe on his good humour and confident body language but would have like to see him “playing the part” more to persuade us he really wanted the job as tattooist.
• He commended Lila’s strong and varied hand gestures and for really tackling the topic head on, but recommended a slightly clearer structure.
• He was impressed by Stuart’s use of vocabulary and generally good eye contact but warned against looking up at the ceiling too much while thinking.
• He enjoyed Babur’s comic use of jargon and his easy manner but would have liked a longer speech and recommended him to “just go for it”.
• He liked Jo’s confident manner and honest tackling of the topics, but gave some tips on sharing eye contact around the room and adopting a more solid posture.
• He commended John’s use of language and his infectious enthusiasm and was particularly impressed by his strong finish – his only recommendation was a clearer progression in the middle of the speech.

General evaluation

Our general evaluator Michaela Talbot (from Holborn Speakers) then gave her evaluation of the club as a whole and of all those participants who had not yet received a formal assessment.

She admitted that she had had high expectations of the club due to Bloomsbury’s historical links to Holborn Speakers and (fortunately!) said she had not been disappointed. She commented on the very friendly welcome she had received from committee members but noted that the meeting had started late and recommended in future that more be done to adapt the agenda be to allow time for latecomers to arrive.

Awards and announcements

Wrapping up the meeting, Glen awarded the prize for best table topic to first-time guest Lila, based on votes cast by the audience. Well done Lila!

The next meeting is on Monday 10th October again at The Rugby Tavern.

Members should book roles and speeches on ClubPlan as usual.

Club social!

Our club treasurer Swarajit Das is organising a club social on Monday 3rd October for members and guest. Exact details are still to be confirmed but we’ll be meeting at about 7pm in the Holborn area and going for some drinks and probably also some food!

Please drop him a line at treasurer@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk if you’re thinking of coming along. The more the merrier!