Club President Nazia Soon opened the meeting with an introduction to Toastmasters and recalled the very first meeting she ever attended where the thought of getting up to speak filled her with anxiety. But through practice and the support of other members she quickly gained confidence and competence.

Femi Asaolu took over from Nazia in his role as the evening’s Toastmaster and introduced the theme for the evening – the London Olympics 2012. Inspired by the fact that it was the last day to apply for event tickets, Femi urged us to book our ticket with a quote – “Don’t put off to tomorrow what you could do today” but assured us he didn’t work for the Olympics committee!

Femi explained that he would be supported in his role by other members, and introduced the evening’s Timekeeper Elena Fanaberova who gave us a very thorough overview of her role.

Prepared Speeches

Femi then took us into the prepared speeches section of the meeting, introducing each speaker with their given answer to his question: “Which sport would you most like to attend during the Olympics?”, starting with Hari Kalymnios.

In his third speech – entitled “O₂” – Hari educated us in the importance of proper deep breathing for having maximum energy. Of the three things essential to life – food, water and oxygen – Hari reminded that it was oxygen we could survive without for the least time and gave us a specific strategy for improving our own breathing. He challenged us all to try it for two weeks and report back to him with the results!

In “The Invisible College”, Swarajit Das celebrated the achievements of three scientists – Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke – who formed an informal group called The Invisible College (which later became The Royal Society) that would meet to discuss new scientific ideas. His passion for the topic shined through and we all gained a fascinating insight into the impact of these great thinkers.

In a number 5 speech (which focusses on vocal variety), Anna Maloney told us about her experiences on jury service. In “Sitting In Judgement” we learned of Anna’s first period of jury service – on a high profile trial at the Old Bailey at the age of 18. Only a month ago we learned, Anna had sat in on two more trials. Should we receive our own “pink letter” – calling us for jury service – she urged us to get excited about the prospect but recommended taking lots of reading material – apparently there’s a lot of waiting involved!

Evaluations

After the break, Toastmaster Femi introduced the first of the speech evaluators – Nazia on Hari’s speech.

Nazia commended Hari on already having a broad set of public speaking skills despite being relatively new member of the club but recommended that he balance his (very thorough) research with other elements of the speech so as to not reduce the impact of his message.

The next evaluator was Dave Longley, discussing Swarajit’s speech. In his opening remarks he described “The Invisible College” as “very dense – but I mean that as a compliment!”. Dave also commended Swarajit on the sheer range of his speech – “covering science, history and even office politics” and recommended using a bigger prop when demonstrating Hooke’s Law (you had to be there!).

Finally Alex Goldsbrough evaluated Anna’s speech, commending her on her use of language to paint a vivid picture and recommending she make better use of pauses to improve the pacing.

Table Topics

The next part of the meeting was an (also Olympics-themed) table topics session run by Glen Long designed to give people a chance to practice their impromtu speaking skills. Guests and members alike stepped up to tackle Glen’s questions including:

• What are the qualities of a world-class athlete?
• Will the Olympics have a lasting impact on London?
• Should our schools encourage competition or cooperation?

After a timing report from Elena, Henry Playfoot took on the task of evaluating all the table topics speakers:

• He commended Nazia on her ability to draw us in and recommended a stronger ending.
• He commended guest Jenny on tackling her topic head-on and recommended she worked on using more pauses.
• He enjoyed watching guest Inge’s exploration of her topic and recommended a stronger beginning.
• He felt that first-time guest Bal really “owned the stage” and encouraged better use of eye contact.
• Mehnaz had a persuasive list of points and a strong conclusion and Henry recommend she brought more physicality to her speeches.
• And finally Henry was hugely impressed by Femi’s slick performance and felt he was “channelling Sebastian Coe”.

A very accomplished general evaluation was given by Freddie Daniels with commendations and recommendations for all those participants that had not yet received feedback.

At the end of the meeting, president Nazia gave out the awards – best topics speaker went jointly to Bal and Femi, best speaker was given to Swarajit, best evaluator to Henry and the President’s discretionary award went to Elena for her sterling performance as Timekeeper.

The next regular meeting is on Monday, 9th May 2011, upstairs at The Rugby Tavern.

In our backup venue of The Lamb pub, Club President Nazia Soon opened the meeting and gave an overview of the two Toastmaster ‘tracks’ – communication and leadership – for the benefit of guests and new members.

As the evening’s Toastmaster, Dave Longley got everyone warmed up via a rapid-fire introduction session – inviting each person present to introduce themselves and answer the questions “What is it you like most about Spring?”

In her first ever supporting role, Elena Fanaberova did a great job of explaining the Timekeeper function, taking us through the purpose and practicalities of the role.

As Harkmaster, Alex Goldsbrough adapted a well-known philosophical question asking “if a speaker delivers a great speech to an empty room does it make an impact?”. Stressing the importance of an attentive audience he encouraged us all to listen carefully to the evening’s speaker with the promise of rewards for the most attentive later on.

Prepared speeches

There were two prepared speeches this evening – both from experienced speakers.

The first speaker was Guy Smith and his speech entitled “The Race We Can All Win” was a significant one for Guy – his tenth and final one in the Competent Communicator programme.

Neatly, Guy focussed his speech on the culmination of his competent communicator manual, likening the completion of the ten speeches with running a 110m race. He identified three qualities useful for hurdling that were also valuable for Toastmasters – flexibility, strength and courage.

Ever been for a job interview even though you didn’t want the job? Bloomsbury member Raj Jain has. In “Three Ways to Fail Any Job Interview” Raj shared a range of killer tips covering: creative CV-writing, inappropriate clothing and some very helpful prospect-limiting comments to guarantee failure in any interview scenario.

Evaluations

Hari Kalymnios provided an evaluation of Guy’s No.10 speech, commending him on his ability to transport the audience into his speech, particularly via his description of his “seismic” shaking legs during his first effort speech.

Glen Long evaluated Raj’s speech – taken from an advanced manual on humorous speaking – and commended Raj on his strongly comic topic, multiple humorous examples and confident presentation, but felt the speech could have benefited from a slightly more logical progression.

Table Topics – impromptu speaking

Kate Osborne ran a very entertaining table topics session, inviting volunteer speakers to turn bad news into good news by putting a positive on some rather negative (albeit fictional) situations, including: a nuclear power plant being built in the back garden, London underground employees striking every Monday for a year and Guildford being demolished by Godzilla!

The speakers came up with some very entertaining responses to Kate’s topics and there were also impressive performances from a couple of visiting guests who gamely threw their hats in the ring too!

Afterwards, Swarajit Das gave short evaluations for each of the nine speakers, providing encouragement and recommendations in his relaxed yet authoritative style. He had his work cut out with nine separate speakers but still managed to cover all in the allotted time.

Adopting a “who said what” angle, Harkmaster Alex tested all present on their listening skills by challenging us to identify which speaker was responsible for which quote. Rewarding correct answers with sweets, Alex only managed to stump us once – good listening everyone!

Lynne Cantor was our general evaluator for the evening, fresh from her success at the London final of the annual evaluation contest over the weekend. She lent the same insightful and energetic style to the task of evaluating all the participants who had yet received an evaluation.

Wrapping up the meeting, Nazia gave out the awards for the evening. Guy picked up best Table Topics Speaker, Swarajit received best evaluator and Guy was invited back up to receive the president’s discretionary award for completing his tenth speech, marking his successful achievement of Competent Communicator status.

The next meeting is on Tuesday 26th April at our normal venue the Rugby Tavern. This replaces our Monday meeting since Monday 25th is a bank holiday.

Acting president Ratan Lele opened the meeting with a report of the club’s recent successes in the area contest, with Raj Jain winning best speaker and progressing to the all-London final on April 9th! On the same evening, club member Glen Long also narrowly missed first place in the speech evaluation contest so a good evening for Bloomsbury all round.

And it was Glen, in his role as the evening’s Toastmaster, who took over the reins from Ratan. Glen gave an overview of the evening’s agenda and explained the basic format of Toastmasters meetings for the benefit of any new visitors.

Swarajit Das introduced the role of Timekeeper by way of an impressively scientific definition of time itself and gave an overview of the green, amber and red “traffic light” system that would be used to keep all participants on schedule.

Prepared speeches

The first speaker was Hari Kalymnios who, despite being a member for just one month, was already delivering his second speech! In a relaxed and humorous speech entitled “British Summer Time”, Hari gave us his top three reasons for loving the onset of the warmer months signalled by the clocks going forward.

Next up was Alex Goldsbrough, giving his No. 5 speech. The fifth speech in the Toastmaster’s speech manual focusses on effective use of body language and hand gestures and in “The Annoyed Cyclist” Alex gave us – in a very funny and animated style – a glimpse into the frustrations of being a keen cyclist in London.

The third and final speech of the evening – also a No. 5 and also bike-themed – was from club secretary Kate Osborne who told, in surprisingly good-humoured fashion, the saga of her long-running struggle to keep her bike (well, a series of bikes) out of the hands of London’s bicycle thieves. Her secret weapon? A tin of pink paint!

Speech evaluations

After the break, each of the three speakers received an evaluation from a Bloomsbury member.

Joyanta Raksmith gave a studied and well-considered evaluation of Hari’s No. 2 speech.

Todd Wade gave a robust evaluation of Alex’s No. 5 speech in his familiar confident and forthright style, challenging Alex to make sure the content of his speech did not play second fiddle to the physicality of the delivery.

And Fabrizio Palmucci gave a distinctive and glowing evaluation of Kate’s No. 5, using a recap of her objectives to demonstrate how well she’d fulfilled the goals of her speech.

Table topics – impromptu speaking

After the prepared speech evaluations, Henry Playfoot took over proceedings and introduced the table topics session, an opportunity for willing volunteers to practice the art of impromptu speaking.

Setting the bar high from the very beginning, Henry took his inspiration from Shakespeare and invited participants to speak for 1 – 2 minutes on classic quotes including:

• “The course of true love never did run smooth”
• “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”
• “Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once”

By the end of the session, eight people – members and guests alike – had taken part and all dealt impressively with Henry’s Bard-themed challenge.

Alex Donald then took on the role of table topics evaluator – no mean feat given the number of participants – and delivered a pithy mini-evaluation for each of the speakers, with many words of encouragement.

Finally, Douglas Williams – of Northern Lights Speakers in Camden – gave a detailed and insightful assessment of everyone that had not yet been evaluated, in his role as general evaluator. He commended the club on its “chilled out” and friendly atmosphere, but also provided specific and helpful recommendations for those who had taken on a role.

Wrapping up the meeting, Ratan Lele presented the awards for the evening – all based on votes from the audience. Best table topics speaker was given to James Hallinan – one of our newest members; best evaluator went to Fabrizio; and best speaker went to Kate. The president’s discretionary award went jointly to Ken, Simon, Imtiaz and Kunwar – the four guests who’d so bravely taken on Henry’s table topics challenge.

The next regular meeting is on Monday 11 April, but before then why not book yourself a place at the Division B International Speech and Evaluation Finals on Saturday 9th April to support Raj Jain?

On Monday evening Bloomsbury Speakers held its very first international speech and evaluation contest, not bad going for a club that chartered less than a year ago!

Five club members battled it out for the best speaker title and eight contestants locked horns for the best evaluator award. The visiting judges – many of whom had come from far and wide – had their work cut out from the start and several remarked that the standard was exceptionally high for such a young club.

It was a great evening that really showcased Bloomsbury’s members, with Glen Long kicking off the contest with a thought provoking speech about receiving a hypothetical balance sheet of our good and bad deeds in life.

Next Raj Jain delivered a masterful performance in a speech about overcoming his stammer and his shyness in his youth.

Raj was followed by Ratan Lele who told us an emotional story about the influence his grandmother had on his life as a young boy.

Giving the fourth speech of the night, Femi Asaolu in his own uniquely engaging style brought his love of the Victoria Line to life with words, singing and even poetry!

Finally, Guy Smith – a very game last minute entrant to the contest – gave an amusing and ironic speech on the art of phone conversation, telling us why all of us – but particularly men! – need to reconnect with friends by cultivating the skills for quick and engaging phone calls.

After the break it was time for the evaluation contest and the mystery speaker (that all contestants would be required to assess) was revealed as Atul Patel.

Atul treated us to a masterful display of story telling skills with a speech entitled Manifesting My Dream. The was a wide range of experience levels amongst the eight evaluators – including one who was evaluating for the very first time – so very well done to all of them for stepping up to the challenge!
When all the judges’ votes had been counted, the results were announced.

Best speech went to Raj Jain, with second and third places going to Ratan Lele and Glen Long respectively. In the evaluation category, Glen came first, followed by Henry Playfoot and then Femi Asaolu.

Raj and Glen will go on to represent the club in the Area Finals on Thursday 24th March at London Business School.

Many thanks to the functionaries without whom we could not have run such a successful contest: contest chair Liz Hobbs and chief judge Ewan Wong (both from Tube Talk); the judges: Kedar Godbole of Trojan Speakers, Andreas Voniatis and Petra Jakubekova of Riverside Speakers, James Goddard and Graeme Conn (from Holborn Speakers) and Mike Young of Berkeley Square Speakers; our timekeepers Terry Freedman and Adam Horne; and finally our official counters Swarajit Das and Dave Longley.