Hello and welcome to the September Newsletter!

August was an interesting month – particularly for those of us living in London! – but despite the rubbish weather and the unusual events at the start of the month it was a good one for Bloomsbury Speakers.

Recent news

We had two very well-attended meetings in August at our backup venue The Lamb. New members fearlessly took on challenging functionary roles (Neil and Karan as Topicsmasters and Joe as Topics Evaluator) without breaking stride and we were also treated to a couple of great Ice Breaker speeches from Ann and Terry.

Further afield, the Toastmasters World Convention took place in Las Vegas, and Australian Jock Elliot was crowned the World Champion of Public Speaking, while local boy and member of Croydon Speakers Malachi Talabi put in a sterling performance on behalf of the Brits, coming third in his semi-final heat. Also, the new Toastmasters brand was unveiled.

What’s happening this month?

There’s lots going on in September, but you’ll have to pay attention to catch it all because we’re moving around* a bit!

Andrew Brammer’s Storytelling Workshop – Monday 5th (SOLD OUT!)

Sadly there are no more places left on this but we’re aiming to do a write-up of the workshop for the website and if there’s enough demand we could certainly talk to Andrew about running it again in future.

The confirmed venue for this workshop is: Bertrand Russell Room, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL.

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest – Monday 12th September

There are still slots to enter one or both of these contests! You’ll be competing against familiar faces and you’ve still got time to prepare a speech. Don’t be the one kicking yourself you didn’t take part – it only comes round but once a year.

Even if you’re not competing please come along to support those who are – it should be a really fun evening.

The confirmed venue for the contests is: 1-3 Newton Street, London, WC2B 5EL. Please note this is very near Holborn station but it’s a new venue for us so make sure you check out the map.

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest – Area 34 Final – Wednesday 21st September

The winners from each of the club contests in Area 34 (City of London Toastmasters, Holborn Speakers, London Business School Speakers, Tube Talk and of course Bloomsbury Speakers) will compete to see who goes on to the Division B final.

We need some volunteers to be vote counters and a timekeeper at this contest. No previous experience required and it’s a great way to meet some new people outside the club. Get in contact!

Regular Meeting – Monday 26th September

This meeting is now available for booking in ClubPlan so make sure you book yourself in. There’s still plenty of time to prepare a speech, but if you don’t fancy that why not book in to do a role you haven’t done before?

*apologies for the “venue tennis” happening in August and September. Our regular venue the Rugby Tavern is closed for refurbishments and we’ve had to be a bit creative with alternative venues. Just make sure you check the website before leaving for a meeting!

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What do YOU want from the club?

The club is run for the benefit of all its members so please let me know what you’d like to see more (or less!) of at Bloomsbury Speakers.

Here are a few possibilities, but please suggest some of your own:

• Debating Meeting – a special meeting where the table topics section (or perhaps the whole meeting) is thrown open to a series of mini-debates, where two speakers argue opposite sides of an issue
• Table Topics Workshop – we’ve run these very successfully in the past: basically an extra meeting where attendees get to practice lots of table topics
• Evaluation Workshop – giving and receiving good evaluations is one of the cornerstones of the Competent Communicator programme so I’m looking into getting an experienced evaluator to run a workshop to give us all some tips

Just drop me a line at president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk telling which of the above you’re keen on and any other ideas you might have.

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Three Easy Ways To Support Bloomsbury Speakers

I’m passionate about establishing Bloomsbury as a fun and friendly club, not just in the real world through our twice-monthly meetings, but also in the virtual world through our various online presences.

Here are three quick and simple things you can do to help the club thrive online as well as offline:

• Join our Meetup group – you can get handy meeting reminders and also let us know when you’re attending meetings (and what you thought of them!)
• Like us on Facebook – you’ll see updates from Bloomsbury Speakers in your newsfeed and we’ll get to connect with you too
• Follow us on Twitter – if you’re on Twitter then follow us for occasional updates and we’ll follow you back. Win win!

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Tip of the Month – TED

Some of you will know about TED already, but for those of you who don’t, it’s an amazing resource featuring hundreds of free talks – between 5 and 20 minutes long – by some of the world’s best speakers.

Not only are many of them fascinating in their own right, but you can of course learn lessons for your own speeches from watching other speakers.

Here are three of my favourites:

• The Genius Puppetry Behind War Horse (visually amazing)
• How I fell in love with a fish (serious talk with very funny moments)
• Seth Godin on the tribes we lead (interesting and inspiring)

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That’s it for this month’s newsletter. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to include in the next newsletter and hope to see you at a meeting soon.

Best wishes,

Glen Long
President
Bloomsbury Speakers

Written by Elena Fanaberova (edited by Glen Long)

Introduction

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long. In his introduction he referred to the new design rebranding of Toastmasters International and invited members to “rebrand” their relationship with Toastmasters as being “in training to be an excellent communicator”.

Then Glen handed the meeting over to the past Club President and a very experienced Toastmaster, Nazia Soon. She explained how each part of the agenda worked and how each section supports the Toastmaster’s Communication and Leadership educational programs. After this she introduced the theme for the meeting – Leadership – and explained that she would be introducing each speaker with the answer they had given to her question: “Which Leadership skills do you value the most?”

Nazia then explained that she would be supported in her role by other club members and introduced the evening’s Timekeeper Elena Fanaberova, followed by Harkmaster Terry Freedman.

Prepared speeches

The Prepared Speeches were started with new member Ann Connolly’s Ice Breaker speech entitled “One Small Step For Ann”. In her captivating speech Ann told us about her great childhood memories which were closely associated with her mother and grandmother (who taught her to cook – and smoke!). She also told us about her life in her twenties when she worked in various countries and learnt a lot about how to start from scratch.

Finishing with a quote from Goethe, she reminded us that the moment we commit ourselves to something we get rid of any hesitation and get empowered to achieve what we want.

Next was a No. 8 speech (whose aim is to “Get Comfortable With Visual Aids”) entitled “Art”. Todd Wade focused on the subjective valuation of art and why some art may be considered excellent when some other art might be perceived as just rubbish. While handing out pictures of some of the “works” of Damien Hirst such as Stuffed Shark, Butterfly Exhibition and Medicine Exhibition, he questioned their true value and concluded that collectors are not buying a piece of art, but a brand.

The final speech – also a No. 8 – was “Moon Shine” by club secretary Kate Osborne. She illustrated the four main moon phases, how their changing is believed by some people to affect our lives and how to best behave during each phase to get most benefit from the “waxing” and “waning”.

After a quick Timekeeper’s report and an opportunity for the guests to briefly introduce themselves to the room – led by our newest member AG – there was a short break.

Speech evaluations

After the break, Nazia opened the evaluations portion of the evening by introducing the first evaluator – Adam Horne. Adam said it was his great pleasure to evaluate Ann’s wonderful ice breaker speech. He felt that all objectives had been met: good structure of the speech, confident voice and engagement with the audience. Adam gave only one small recommendation for Ann – to grab the stage and stand forward.

The next evaluator, Fabrizio Palmucci, evaluated Todd’s striking speech. He commented on Todd’s great stage presence, his good speech delivery using visual materials and the deeply researched topic, but would have liked to have seen the purpose more clearly in his conclusion. He added that he felt the speech structure was impeccable.

The last evaluator of the meeting, Alex Goldsbrough, evaluated Kate’s moon speech. He commented that this time Kate seemed a lot more relaxed and in control than in some previous speeches. Alex reminded Kate that the fundamental objective for speech No. 8 is to use visual aids and suggested Kate to be more creative with hers (a useful tip for all speakers) as well as to use more hand gestures.

Table Topics

Karan Daswani stepped up as Topics Master to lead the impromptu speaking section of the evening. He chose the simple but powerful theme of the people’s most memorable experiences.

• Swarajit shared with us his memorable experience of visiting Brighton beach and how his dreams about the perfect beach were shattered when he found that it was pebbles not sand;
• AG’s most memorable experience of traveling abroad was her first ever holiday in Italy with her parents – particularly how she enjoyed the pizza in the Luciano Pavarotti cafe;
• Guest Anne spoke about a memorable experience of traveling two months ago in a Hummer to Las Vegas and how a trip through the National Park took much longer than expected;
• Adam told us about his most memorable experience with friends on holiday when he was in Sweden and nobody spoke English – so his friend ended up ordering food ‘blind’ and was presented with a dish of herring with five shots of spirit;
• Dave’s most memorable experience of an entertainment event was attending a storytelling workshop with a top speaker;
• Alex told us the story of his memorable BBQ in the middle of winter in US where he was served a burger made from roadkilled Elk!
• Terry spoke about a memorable experience of a book, falling back on fond memories of A.A. Milne and Winnie The Pooh;
• Glen spoke about his experience of doing nothing, just staring into a roaring fire after an exhausting day grape-picking in France

Table Topics Evaluator Joe Lake – in his first ever evaluation role! – did a great job of providing commendations and recommendations for all eight table topics speakers – and finishing within time.

In conclusion of this section of the meeting Terry’s final Harkmaster’s Report tested our listening and memory by asking “who said what?” and rewarded correct answers with chocolates (only 30 calories each we were assured!)

Evaluating all those who had not yet been evaluated, our General Evaluator (and Area Governor) Ken Adjei had some great pointers for the club and was much impressed by the inclusion of the Harkmaster role.

Awards

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

The Best Evaluator award went to Joe, the Best Table Topics speaker award to Terry and the “highly coveted” Best Speaker award to Ann, who also received a certificate for successfully completing her Icebreaker speech – an important landmark for any Toastmaster.

The President’s discretionary award went to AG for her role as guest introducer.

Wrapping up, Glen announced the upcoming competitions and the workshops.

Next meeting

The next event is Monday 5th September 2011 – Andrew Brammer’s Storytelling Workshop, arrive from 6.30pm for a 6.45pm start. Tickets going fast so book here.

The next meeting is the Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests on 12th September. There’s still time to enter – just book your slot on ClubPlan.

By Elena Fanaberova

Introduction

The meeting was opened by Club President Glen Long who explained, for the benefit of guests, that Bloomsbury Speakers is part of a huge Toastmaster’s family which has 250,000 members across the world, emphasizing that it is a “learning by doing” environment because practice is absolutely the best way to get better.

Then he told us the personal story of having his mood lifted one rainy morning by seeing a grown man racing down a big hill on his bicycle shouting “wheeeee!”. He then invited everyone in the room to stand and ride their own imaginary bike down a hill with the same enthusiasm. The aim of regular practice of public speaking, he suggested, was to turn self-consciousness and nervousness into the fun and exhilaration of freewheeling down a big hill. Allowing everyone to sit back down, Glen then handed the meeting over to the evening’s Toastmaster Alex Goldsbrough.

Alex announced changes in the agenda and outlined the structure of the meeting. After that he introduced his helpers for the evening, the Timekeeper Adam Horne and the Grammarian Stella Meadows, who gave us the Word of the Day – “girdle” – and invited as many people to use it as possible.

Prepared Speeches

Well known to the club for his entertaining Table Topics speeches, Terry Freedman kicked off the prepared speeches by giving his ice breaker speech entitled “How Did We Get There?”. Terry shared with us his experience of a train trip to Venice, where he smelt the Mediterranean herbs as the sea and land glided past at 60 miles per hour. He observed that people these days tend to try to get somewhere as quickly as possible and often miss many special moments of travelling.

In his No.2 speech “Social Networking” Joe Lake tackled the topic of social networking from different points of view and asked if it was taking over our lives. In his conclusion, Joe decided that it is a force for good when used to build positive relationships as long as people also get to talk face to face on a regular basis!

In another No. 2 speech entitled “Social Proof – Revealing Truths” Karan Daswani discovered through his research that we tend to be influenced a lot more by what people around us say or do than by any facts. Karan also told a personal story about his brother who would not swim without his “Mr Duck” inflatable toy until he saw another boy do it, despite his parents attempts to convince for 3 months without success.

In his No.4 speech “The Best Years Of Your Life” Swarajit Das used great humour to tell stories from his school days, likening his experiences to a campaign of war! We heard how he had confronted a girl who terrorized him about his weight with some verbal terror of his own, and later how he had bought a top-of-the-range mobile phone to impress fellow pupils – only to discover there was no reception at the school!

Before the break, new member Ann Connolly did a fantastically warm job of leading the guest introductions, inviting new visitors to explain what had brought them to the meeting.

Evaluations

After the break Toastmaster Alex welcomed us back for the second part of the meeting and introduced the first evaluator, Femi Asaolu, who evaluated Terry’s ice breaker speech.

First of all Femi noted that the main objective of the ice breaker is simply to speak in front of the audience and Terry had met this soon after joining the club over a year ago with his numerous Table Topics! The second objective is to discover skills that a speaker already has and Femi commented that Terry already has a very good style of delivery and on the content side his language is very descriptive.

The next evaluator, Guy Smith, evaluated Joe Lake’s speech about social networking. Guy said that the structure of the speech was very good with a clear introduction, making his arguments in the middle, and finishing with an effective conclusion. He commended the use of rhetorical questions and effective use of statistics. Guy’s only recommendation was to put positive and negative arguments into separate chunks to reduce frequent changes between positives and negatives, which is more difficult to follow.

The third evaluator was Dave Longley. Evaluating Karan’s speech, Dave commented that fundamental objective of the speech No.2 is to organise one’s speech and Karen had certainly achieved that with his good structure. Dave also noted that Karen’s speech was well delivered and researched. Dave simply suggested expanding the eye contact to include the edges of the audience – not just the centre of it.

The last evaluator, Glen Long, evaluated Swarajit’s speech. Glen commended the great comic premise in Swarajit’s speech, his effective structure, and his good use of tone and hand gestures. Among his recommendations were suggestions to use a slightly more upbeat tone to offset some of the darker elements for comic effect, change the tone and pace to signpost the jokes and have a stronger conclusion that returned to the main theme.

Table Topics

Standing in at short notice as Topicsmaster, new member Neil Ward introduced the theme of job interviews and invited volunteer impromptu speakers to tell us why they were the best person to fill a number of interesting vacancies:

• Adam said he would be ideal as the Head of European Space Agency because: he likes space, is the right build for an astronaut’s suit, and will get on well with all Europeans as he’s Australian!
• Will made a strong case as a future Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police: he has always been interested in law and order (though not necessarily sticking to it!), has a short enough criminal record to get the job and would bring a lot of passion as he really likes London.
• Ray, interviewing for the British Embassador to Iceland emphasised the value of having just six months experience in his current role (just enough apparently!), told us he knows more about finance than most Icelanders and has even been to Iceland recently!
• Terry staked his claim on the job of Lady Gaga’s Business Manager saying he will ensure that everyone loves this singer as much as he does!
• Karan, applying for job of Pelican Master General in Hyde Park explain how he admires these birds and how they fly, likes animals (he has had dogs, rabbits and other animals at home) and is good at organising things so the animals are well fed and taken care of.
• Guy, trying to get the job of Royal Advisor to the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge, told us they were the perfect couple, that he had been the first person in the queue the day they got married, and also revealed that he has walls at home dedicated to them individually and as a couple!
• Marty as a potential new CEO of Tesco said he had the right experience, having been CEO of Sainsburys for 3 years, would single-handedly revolutionize what people think about wine and would get employees who were happier and more ready to serve people.

Table Topics Evaluator Hari Kalymnios presented his evaluation of all seven impromptu speakers, doing a great job of pinpointing the strong sides of their speeches as well as indicating things that could have been better.

Grammarian Stella gave her report on the use of language in the meeting: the Word of the Day “girdle” was used in an appropriate context eight times, and she noted there were some great use of humour and colourful expressions, but she recommended that people watch their crutch words and phrases, such as “you know”, “ok”, and “erm”.

General Evaluator Jennifer Zou gave an evaluation for all those participants who had not yet been evaluated and this was followed by Glen as President bringing the meeting to a close with awards and announcements.

Awards and Announcements

Best Table Topics speech was awarded to Guy for his Royal Advisor application. Best Evaluator went to Dave for his evaluation of Karan’s speech. Best Speaker went to Karan for his speech about Social Proof. And the President’s discretionary award went to Neil for his first-time role as Topicsmaster.

Glen reminded attendees of the special Story Workshop being held on 5th September, and the club’s Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest on the 12th September.

The next meeting is Monday 22 August 2011 at The Lamb, 94 Lambs Conduit Street, London.

Hello and welcome to the August Newsletter!

This is the first in a regular monthly series highlighting news and events from Bloomsbury Speakers.

If you have news or events or suggestions for future newsletters, please send them to newsletter@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk.

Hope to see you at a meeting soon!

Best wishes,

Glen Long
President
president@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

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Recent news 

July was the first month of the new Toastmasters year and what a great way to start! We had two well-attended meetings with lots of new guests.

We’ve also had three brand new members sign-up (in addition to two in June) and saw three great ice breaker speeches.

Other highlights from July:

• Our new committee took over the club reins – many thanks to the outgoing team for all their hard work and in particular to past president Nazia “Elle Presidente” Soon! Check out the new committee on our website (more photos coming soon!)
• Our brand new VP of Mentoring Hari Kalymnios has been busy revamping our mentoring programme and has produced new guidelines for club mentors – contact him at mentoring@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk
• We received notification that we had achieved Select Distinguished Club status based on points gained during the previous Toastmasters year!

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What’s happening this month?

August promises to be another exciting month with a lots of speeches already booked and new members keen to flex their communication and leadership muscles.

Regular Meeting – Monday 8th August

We’ve already got a packed speech agenda with four speeches plus an ice breaker. But there are still quite a few evaluator slots so room for experienced evaluators and first-timers alike!

Regular Meeting – Monday 22nd August

Again, a packed speech agenda but plenty of evaluator slots and also a chance to be Harkmaster (or Grammarian). Or even Toastmaster!

Book yourself in via ClubPlan, or contact Dave Longley, our VP Education, to discuss your future speeches & meeting roles. Email Dave at education@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk

We’re looking at running another evaluation workshop in the future, but if you’ve never done an evaluation before and have two or three speeches under your belt, why not book yourself in to evaluate an ice breaker?

Please note: both of our meetings in August will be held at The Lamb, not The Rugby Tavern (due to refurbishments at the Rugby Tavern):

The Lamb, 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, WC1N 3LZ. (map)

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More dates for your diary

Andrew Brammer’s Storytelling Workshop – Monday 5th September

A great workshop from a Distinguished Toastmaster and past-winner of the UK & Ireland Humorous Speech contest (see below for details of this year’s contest!)

You can find out more about Andrew at his website:

http://www.speakingwords.co.uk/

Places will be limited and there will be a small charge to cover room hire and Andrew’s expenses. Members will be given priority but the workshop is open to all.

Please contact Dave Longley (email address above) if you are interested!

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest – Monday 12th September

These are the club-level contests for humorous speaking and table topics competing against other members.

Members can enter either or both contests – the only requirement is that you are a fully paid up member (so make sure you’re up to date with your dues!)

Contests are suitable for speakers of all levels and it’s a great way to get some extra speaking experience. Members who enjoy Table Topics during a regular meeting should definitely consider entering this contest.

If you’re not a member of the club (yet!) then why not come along to watch? It’s a great atmosphere and promises to be a very entertaining evening.

Autumn Conference – “Flourish” – 11th – 13th November 2011

You’ll hear lots more about this in the weeks to come, but this is the conference being held up in Glasgow, featuring workshops, speech contest finals, and lots of food, drink and general merriment.

Whet your appetite here:

http://flourish2011.co.uk/

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Tip of the Month – Calendars

If you use the calendar function on your computer or smartphone, you can automatically add Bloomsbury Speakers meetings by clicking on the link below (or pasting into your browser or calendar):

webcal://www.meetup.com/Bloomsbury-Speakers/events/ical/Bloomsbury+Speakers+Meetings/

If you prefer to receive meeting reminders by email, join our group on Meetup.com.

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That’s all folks!

That’s everything for this newsletter. Hope you’ve found it an interesting read and see you soon!