Club President Nazia Soon opened the meeting by recounting the history of Toastmasters and how it was founded. This was particularly of benefit for the guests for some of whom it was their first experience of a Toastmasters meeting.

Former Holborn President Ratan Lele was our very capable Toastmaster and he oversaw the evening with his unique brand of humor. His theme of dreams was used to introduce each speaker and gave us an insight into the speaker’s aspirations.

The first speaker Joyanta Raksmith delivered his number three speech from the Competent Communicator manual. Joyanta spoke about his frustration and anger with big corporations and how his favourite film helped him to deal with this. Joyanta’s favourite film The Shawshank Redemption taught him some important lessons about friendship and human interactions.

Our second speaker was Fabrizio Palmucci, giving his number 4 speech. Fabrizio gave an entertaining speech entitled Animal Talks. He cleverly wove metaphors, similes and sayings into his story about his day with unique and original use of the English language to illustrate his points in a fun and light-hearted speech.

Adam Horne then took to the stage with another number 4 speech. Adam’s speech about “tube education” used rhetoric effectively by giving us three ways of educating ourselves whilst traveling on the tube: business skills such as negotiating for a seat, sports skills such as pole dancing to keep fit and appreciation of art by enjoying “poems on the underground” and the colours of the advertisements!

Our last speaker was a guest speaker from Berkeley Square Speakers – Chris Dunn, delivering his number 5 speech. Chris gave an accomplished performance using body language to great effect in his speech about three significant milestones in his life, and it won Chris the Best Prepared Speech award.

After the break the speeches were evaluated by Kate Osborne, Nazia Soon, Femi Asaolu and Ratan Lele respectively. Femi won the Best Evaluator award for suggesting that Adam use more stage time and cut down on his material to develop his ideas – valuable feedback that will help Adam to improve.

The Table Topics session was run by Alex Goldsbrough, who had chosen Dreams as his theme. It was an imaginative theme that resulted in some rather eclectic impromptu speeches and some good humour. The session was ultimately won by Kate Osborne for her account of a lucid dream she had had the previous night and how her boyfriend’s snoring was in fact the noise in the dream!

The Table Topics speakers were then evaluated by Swarajit Das, who did a great job of evaluating the speakers and giving them valuable feedback on their performance, many of whom were guests and spoke in front of an audience for the first time – a valuable experience for them.

Alex Donald was the Harkmaster of the evening and he had chosen “enamoured” as the word of the day, an appropriate choice for Valentine’s Day! He promised us a reward for using the word most creatively and a box of chocolates was awarded to guest Brendan for his imaginative use of “enamoured”. Our listening skills were tested further with questions about the speeches of the evening and we were rewarded with more chocolates in a light-hearted and fun session.

The evening was brought to a close by General Evaluator Andrew Bennett from Berkeley Square Speakers, who encouraged all members to achieve their DTM (Distinguished Toast Master). He provided a thorough and helpful evaluation for the club in a supportive and encouraging evaluation in true Toastmasters spirit.

The Lamb pub in Lamb’s Conduit Street hosted the second meeting of the year with club founder Nazia Soon not only performing her normal presidential duties, but also taking on the role of the evening’s Toastmaster.

Timekeeper Kate Osborne gave a lively overview of the role and left us with the following time-related quote: “Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils”.

Harkmaster for the evening Alex Goldsbrough encouraged everyone to listen attentively during the meeting as he would be testing our memories later on.

Prepared speeches

The first speech (of five – it was a packed evening!) was a very impressive icebreaker by our newest member Babur Yusupov. Framing his speech with an ingenius Back To The Future theme, Babur gave us a fascinating insight into his early life in Uzbekistan and a life-changing decision later on to stay in London after his family had moved back home.

In a rousing and inspiring speech Alex Donald questioned whether society adequately recognised and rewarded hard work and innovation, inviting us all to channel the “superhero” within ourselves and reach our full potential as leaders.

Todd Wade used the staggering failure rate of New Year’s Resolutions (apparently only 1% are kept!) as a springboard for a frank and highly entertaining speech about his new strategy for making his own (alcohol-related!) resolutions stick.

In the fourth speech of the evening Glen Long introduced us to some of the “Dark Arts of Language” and explored three language patterns that might be used by the amateur conversational (or covert!) hypnotist to nudge someone’s unconscious mind in a certain direction.

And in a speech from the Advanced Communicator manual, Femi Asaolu told us about his love/hate (but mostly love) relationship with the London Underground. By the end of his warm and wonderfully conversational speech we had learned many new facts about the capital’s vital subterranean network and of Femi’s personal fondness for the Victoria line!

Next, Bloomsbury member Simon Abbott invited all the evening’s guests to briefly introduce themselves to the rest of the group.

Speech evaluations

After a short break, Dave Longley provided an thorough and encouraging evaluation for Babur, particularly commending the even-handed way he had chosen episodes from his life for his speech (i.e. had not just cherry-picked the bits that would paint him in the very best light).

First-time evaluator Adam Horne gave a concise and focussed assessment of Alex’s speech, complimenting him on his “great energy” and inviting him to abandon the notes next time round.

In a detailed and thorough evaluation of Todd’s speech, Joyanta Raksmith highlighted not only the power of the simple statistics Todd used to make his point, but also the way in which he drew upon personal experience to really engage with the audience.

Henry Playfoot evaluated Glen’s speech and commended Glen on his voice projection and emphasis of key words in his speech to reinforce his points. He felt that potentially dry material was brought to life through well-chosen examples.

In the final evaluation, Nazia evaluated Femi’s advanced speech and commended him on the way his enthusiasm and passion for his subject brought real warmth and humour to a speech which appealed to the trainspotter in all of us.

Table Topics

Swarajit Das was in charge of the impromptu speaking section of the evening, inviting people to take on the role of a politician to answer some of the difficult questions based on situations from the recent news. There was no shortage of volunteers and the line-up included many guests and the general standard was very high indeed.

A general evaluation of the meeting as a whole and of all participants not evaluated thus far was given by Citi Criers member Tracy Kirlew – many thanks Tracy.

Awards

Alex G rewarded attentiveness with confection as he resumed his role as Harkmaster, and Nazia wrapped up proceeding by presented the awards for the night, as voted by all those present. Best impromptu speech went to guest Michael, best evaluator to Henry Playfoot, and best speaker to Glen Long. The president’s discretionary award went to Adam Horne for his sterling work in his first club evaluation.

The next club meeting – quite possibly with a romantic theme – is on Monday 14th February.

Everyone is also reminded of the forthcoming evaluation workshop, which promises to hone everyone’s critical and summarisation skills and will be led by some of London’s evaluation superstars. Cost is only £3 and you can book online here:

http://bloomspeakevaluationworkshop.eventbrite.com

In the first meeting of 2011 Bloomsbury Speakers returned to its regular venue at the Rugby Tavern with a very pleasing turnout of members and guests alike. It was great to see so many new faces – possibly inspired to attend by new year’s resolutions to improve their public speaking!

Club President Nazia Soon welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained the purpose of Toastmasters, reminding us all that 99% of getting better at something like public speaking is “just showing up”, i.e. taking every opportunity to practice in the right environment.

Following on neatly from Nazia’s theme, Toastmaster for the evening Todd Wade emphasised the value of effective communication in all areas of life and gave examples from his own professional world of how ability to communicate was a much more powerful force for success than, for instance, raw technical ability.

Timekeeper Alex Donald then explained the role with great charm and told us about behavioural research indicating that most people take only seven seconds to form an opinion of someone on first meeting them – a great reminder to every speaker to make those first few seconds really count.

Prepared speeches

Anna Maloney was the first of the prepared speakers for the evening with a No. 4 speech entitled: “In praise of B, N and L”. Over the course of the speech, B, N and L were revealed as standing for Birmingham, Newcastle and Leeds as Anna gave us all a personal tour of her three favourite cities in England. One particularly effective device was to personify each city with a character type, not for the inhabitants but the places themselves.

Anna was followed by Henry Playfoot who, in his speech “Pebble in a Pond” (also a No. 4), told a gripping personal story about an event in his teens whose repercussions rippled through the next 25 years of his life. In a really powerful speech Henry managed that rare thing of making each member of the audience feel he was talking only to them.

Finally, Raj Jain’s advanced humorous speech, which centred around a practical joke at work, was certainly risque by Toastmasters standards but undoubtedly entertaining. It also served as a great reminder that the club is the ideal environment to take a few risks and accelerate the learning process.

After Alex D’s timekeeper report of the three speeches, Nazia introduced the numerous guests who’d turned up for the meeting, helping us all put some names to the faces.

Evaluations

Following a break for refreshments and a quick post-Christmas catch-up we moved into the evaluations of the three speeches.

Alex Goldsbrough gave a brilliantly no-nonsense evaluation of Anna’s speech with some very useful tips on posture and use of notes.

Kate Osborne evaluated Henry’s speech picking up on the impact the content had had on her and the rest of the audience and giving some advice on overall structure.

Guy Smith gave a very engaging evaluation of Raj’s advanced speech tackling the issue of the choice of topic head on and giving some good advice on storytelling.

Table Topics

Next, Joyanta Raksmith introduced the impromptu speaking section of the evening as the Table Topics Master with the topic theme of “quotations”. There were a very healthy number of volunteers to speak including lots of guests.

The various speakers wrestled with numerous wide and wonderfully obscure quotations including:

• “A pun is the lowest form of humour, unless you thought of it yourself.” (Doug Larson)
• “I do not blame you, King, for hitting an innocent man. For, cruelty comes quick to the powerful.” (The Book of Virata)
• “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” (Tom Clancy)

After nine impressive responses to Joyanta’s quotations, evaluator Glen Long had his work cut out providing assessments of each within the allotted time. He started by commending all the guests who chose to participate – a brave act indeed for any new visitor to a public speaking club – and rattled through at breakneck speed to give constructive feedback to each participant, though still fell foul of the timekeeper’s gavel!

Club regular Dave Longley gave a charismatic and thorough general evaluation of all functionaries who’d not been evaluated elsewhere and of the club as a whole.

The awards

Wrapping up the evening with awards based on votes cast during the session, Nazia awarded guest Charlie the prize for best Table Topics speaker, Glen was awarded best evaluator and Henry picked up the best speaker prize. The president’s discretionary award went to Todd for his role as Toastmaster, for conducting proceedings like an old hand despite this being his very first time.

Next meeting

The next meeting is on Monday, 24 January, switching temporarily to a nearby alternative venue – The Lamb pub in Lamb’s Conduit Street.

There was a change of venue for the last meeting of the year from Bloomsbury’s regular haunt – The Rugby Tavern – to Conway Hall, home of the Ethical Society.

Club President Nazia Soon kicked the meeting off by welcoming the guests and giving a short history of the building, including its association with intellectual luminaries such as Bertrand Russell.

The toastmaster for the evening Femi Asaolu warmed up the audience with a highly inventive storytelling game during which the unlikely tale of a lost mobile phone emerged courtesy of additions from everyone in the room.

First-time timekeeper Terry Freedman gave a great overview the role and Raj Jain explained his own role as grammarian and challenged all those present to integrate the theme of goal-setting into any speaking opportunity they might have that evening.

The first of the evening’s speeches was a fascinating summary by Swarajit Das of the basic theory behind Richard Dawkin’s book The Blind Watchmaker. Swarajit presented a strong argument for the evolution of complexity without an intelligent, guiding creator and did a fantastic job of making difficult content accessible to all.

Continuing the somewhat existential theme, Alex Donald gave us his No. 2 speech: The ABC of Religion. Asking us in a strong opening “What does religion mean to you?” Alex went on to discuss his own personal experiences with religion throughout his life and concluded that while religion can be a source of great conflict it can also be a power for great good.

For her No. 10 speech Rekha Wadhwani choose to share some “magic moments” from her life and urged us all to savour the magic moments in our own lives. This was a highly inspirational speech which provided Rekha with a brand new magic moment – officially becoming a Competent Communicator. Well done Rekha!

Terry provided a quick report of the times of the various speeches and then Anna Maloney invited the evening’s guests to introduce themselves to the room and say what they were most looking forward about Christmas. Food and family were popular answers!

After a short break for a quick chat and some refreshments, Femi brought the meeting back to order and introduced the first speech evaluator for the evening – Issata Kpakiwa, who provided a thorough and insightful assessment of Swarajit’s opening speech. Issata was followed by Glen Long, who evaluated Alex’s speech, congratulating him on his performance and giving three specific recommendations for next time round. Finally Ratan Lele gave an energetic and charismatic evaluation of Rekha’s persuasive speech.

Next up, Adam Horne introduced the table topics session – an opportunity for people to practice impromptu speaking for 1 or 2 minutes based on a subject of Adam’s choosing. Adam introduced a Christmas theme by inviting each speaker to choose an item from his bag of Christmas gifts and then try to ‘sell’ that item to the rest of the room. Items on offer included a felt snowman decoration, some “snow in a can”, a Christmas card (allegedly drawn by Leonardo da Vinci!) and some Christmas-themed “deely boppers”.

Following this, Henry Playfoot gave a measured but very humorous assessment of the impromptu speakers in his evaluation, with his description of Adam’s bag of presents as an “incredible selection of tat” raising a particularly big laugh.

After a report from Raj Jain in his role of Grammarian, Linda White from Trojan Speakers gave a very professional and detailed general evaluation of the club, during which all elements of the meeting not already evaluated by another member were assessed. We’re very grateful to Linda for taking the time to visit us and help out in such a useful and positive way.

Finally, the awards for the evening were announced by president Nazia Soon. Best speaker went to Rekha, best evaluator to Henry, best table topic speaker to first-time guest Emily (well done Emily!) and the president’s discretionary award went to Terry for his sterling work with the stopwatch.

After the close of the meeting, members and guests stayed to chat over refreshments and snacks, kindly provided and cooked (if not actually made!) by our esteemed president.

Our next meeting is on Monday, 10 January 2011, back in our usual venue – upstairs at the Rugby Tavern.

Have a Happy Christmas and see you in the New Year!