The winner of this year's International speech contest - tells his story

Lots of fun, lots of pause, and a strong conclusion.

Toastmasters Made Me Do It!

Ok, I admit it, I have always been a bit anti monarchy. In these modern times, I cannot see the point of its existence. Because of my opinions, I have never really bothered with the Queens Speech. That is until this year. My interest in the creation and delivery of Speeches (I blame Toastmasters for this) made me specifically turn on the box at 3pm yesterday to tune into the yellow-cladded senior sovereign wishing the nation a very Happy Christmas.

So how was it for me? Well given over 6 decades of practice, I wasn’t that impressed! That being said, there were some things I liked about the speech and in the spirit of Toastmasters, 'What was good', is what I shall focus on for the remainder of this post.

She started with a story

The Queen started with a story. Not a personal one, but one of a man in plaster cast. She managed to turn the man’s misfortune into a positive – i.e. he had time to reflect.

She drove home the underlying message

‘Reflection’ became the hook on which the speech hung. The Queen wanted us all as a nation to reflect. She empathised with us how difficult that is for us busy folk and made us see that reflection wasn’t just about looking back but also about looking forward to the future. This was her lead in to talking about the commonwealth, family ties and the lil baby Jesus. Oops, I mean baby George who did get quite a bit of airtime.
She let it flow

There was a strong beginning, a good painless middle where among other things, she acknowledged those in service, and fitting end which bought us right back to the man in the plaster cast. Actually I really appreciated how the message flowed. Kudos to Queen Lillbeths' speech writer!

In those 15 minutes of watching, I actually felt an incy bit sorry for her.  There were times where I’m pretty sure she wanted to unclasp her hands but she and her hands were bound by tradition.  To be honest, her whole delivery was a little antiquated, which I guess is the very essence of the monarchy and perhaps a reason why I don’t care for it much. The speech did however make me very grateful, for the fact that I can smile and be me when I deliver my speeches and how at Toastmasters, we learn how to deliver authentic messages from the heart.

So from my heart, I hope you are all having a fantastic festive season filled with food, fun and love.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Let Them Eat Cake!

The other day, a colleague of mine told me it was his birthday recently so, as you do, I said;

“oh Happy belated Birthday.”

He said replied;

“it’s not too late to wish me Happy Birthday. It’s still November! I’m celebrating for the rest of the month!”

It made me chuckle and wonder, how many people actually celebrate their Birthday for an entire month? Fellow Toastmasters, is this a common thing?  

All this month long celebration malarkey did make me feel slightly reprieved for the fact that our Club celebrated its 5^th Birthday this month and I did not tell the world! So, to rectify, here goes...

Our club was 5 on 19^th November (we celebrated on 6^th). We celebrated with 4 fabulous speakers each with a common thread of 'Responsibility' – responsible driving (me), responsibility to not judge a book by its cover (Jacqui Pennington), responsibility to developing the youth of today (Chris Howell), and the responsibility to start where you are with what you have (Stephen Edun of Meridian Club). What did we have on our Birthday night? Well, we had the pleasure of an address from our founder Chris Howell. Also joining us was the last 2 generations of club presidents Julie Kertesz, Katy Woolcott. As you can see, we also had cake!

Our Club founder and Presidents of past and present 

L-R Katy Woolcott, Julie Kertesz, Chris Howell, Manoj Sivaraman 

Happy Birthday for the rest of November, Lewisham Toastmasters!

A Champion In Our Midst,

No, this isn't Stephen!

On Wednesday 6^th November we will be treated to a guest appearance from Meridian Club member Stephen Edun, Divisional Contest Winner for the Toastmasters Humorous Contest! I have not had the pleasure of hearing Stephens' winning speech yet but talking to him outside of Toastmasters, he seems like the kind of guy who is just genuinely easy going but motivational by default. If you come to the club on Wednesday night, you can learn a bit more about him in our newsletter. Until then, I will share with you 3 tips Stephen has generously gifted to all you budding speech competition contestants out there. (The tips are useful for those of us who are not interested in competitions too!) J

1. Go and visit other clubs – Toastmasters members pretty much know the style and standard of their fellow club toastmasters. If you want to compete, you need to get a fresh perspective – hear and see other Toastmasters in action.
2. Seek feedback – This is what we do at Toastmasters, but as you know, the more you ask for the more you get. Ask people for honest, objective feedback. Again, if you can get this from seasoned Toastmasters, who don’t know you all that well – even better.
3. And finally in the words of the musical genius Prince… KISS Keep it simple (stupid!). Stephen points out; “if you look at all the speakers who have won Toastmasters International contests, their speeches always have a simple message with common principles”. If you can also connect with the audience and take them through an interesting story you are on to a winner baby!

You do not want to miss Stephen deliver his winning speech ‘Start where you are’. So get yourself down to Lewisham Speakers Club on 6^th November. Remember to thank him for the tips!

Storytelling Workshop in London, by Julie Kertesz

Post by Julie Kertesz.

Can TV adverts tell us about Toastmasters?

Having been off work unwell last week, I succumbed to the clutches of mind numbing TV. I still refuse to watch daytime TV but evenings – yes I admit I’ve been weak and unable to fight the system. L

For those of you who do watch TV, have you seen the advert for the new Nexus 7 the Google tablet? It features a little boy with braces who is scared to death at the thought of giving a presentation to his class. He googles ‘Glossophobia’ (fear of public speaking), finds a great historical speech from Winston Churchill, tries to model Churchill’s style, then smashes it in the classroom to the point where he scores major brownie points with a cute girl in the front row of his class causing another dilemma – how does he ask her out?

The Nexus 7 advert

Does the advert make me want to go buy the Nexus 7? Well inadvertently yes as it made me 'go compare' android tablets. Congratulations to the advertising agency! More importantly, does it paint a true picture of how you overcome a very real fear of using your tongue? (this is the literal translation of Glossophobia). In a way, yes it does. It shows that we learn fastest when:

·         We have a reason to have to learn – the pressure of an important event for example

·         We find a great mentor and model them

·         We practice – repetition is the key to learning.

This is what Toastmasters is all about people! For every single member, there was a reason they joined and it wasn't because they just wanted to be good at a toastmasters club.

At Toastmasters there is access to so many great speakers, in your club, in your area, district etc. we are spoilt for choice in terms of mentors.

And finally we come to practice! Whether you give a speech or a time keeper report, you are dissipating that feeling of nausea, and panic that used to envelop you and render you powerless.

Don’t be a slave to Glossophobia. Get yourself down to Lewisham Toastmasters Club. Find the cure and break free of the chains. We can't guarantee you will find the cute girl or boy in the front row though!

Exuberance, Entertainment and Excitement - 16th October, 2013

In 19^th century, American Essayist, Poet and Lecturer Ralph W. Emerson said “All the great speakers were bad speakers at first." I don’t know if this was proved wrong or not by our first time guest Dean, Abim, Kirk, Dawn, Tewodaj and Elizabeth who has displayed brilliance on all occasion. For them the fear of public speaking was no way near.
 

The meeting took a steady start; Richard Green started the meeting with his evergreen style of humour and passion, keeping the energy flowing without any single drop. Three speakers Shernette, Asiimwe and Sholem did a wonderful job. Shernette doing her ICEBREAKER with confidence and what a great way to explain why she turned into a vegetarian. She led us through her daily occasion habits and I’m sure Lewisham club is going to witness another great story teller. Asiimwe rose to the occasion by giving a wonderful story and insight about whey he joined Toastmaster. He allowed us to have a quick glimpse of how Toastmaster has benefited him to become a better presenter and most importantly a better person. Sholem got a typical orthodox style of speaking skills blended witticism and compassion. We love it Sholem, keep coming and keep telling your magical story.

Evaluation role was chaired by Jacqui, Manoj and Lukas. All performed their task very effectively. Jacquie feedback not only explained the shiny things about Shernette speaking skills, but all give some valuable tips to improve future speeches. Lukas enticed the audiences with his punchy evaluation that sync with Sholem speech and I’m sure there are some great takeaways for everyone.

Our table topic master Katy understanding the value of time and audience members, she twisted the opportunity and invited each and everyone to hit the podium. What a speaking finale of 16 members  include some high quality speaking skills exhibited from our guest - Kirk with his New York story, Tewodaj with her best color green and black, Abim Jesus message on Xmas and lastly Dean and Dawn throwing their hats in the ring and shedding all the nervousness.

Timer - Serena, Grammarian - Jason and WarmUp Leader - Julie, all doing their bits and giving a meaningful contribution.

Our General Evaluator Flavia as gracious as she always, she unfolded the feedback session by giving everyone a valuable tips.

Finally there will be always a Winner in Toastmaster Evening - Asiimwe, Jacqui and Teodaj clichéd the evening awards for Best Speakers, Best Evaluator and Table topic award respectively.

Not only the night was ecstatic, but eventful. Three of our Guests - Tewodaj, Kirk and Dawn agreed to join the Club. Well Done.

I’m sure looking forward to see you all on 6^th November, 2013 same time, same place.

Manoj

President – Lewisham Speakers

Oh What a Week!

Last week was a fantastic week. Not only did we represent in the Area 59 Humourous speech contest, (see previous blog for results), Darren La Croix, was in town and some of us went to see him at Citi Criers.
What a guy! He was funny, engaging and professional. All things you would expect from a World Class, Toastmasters International speech contest winner. What was less expected was the amount of value he gave. Most people in his shoes would give a teeny weeny bit of value and then go in for the kill selling their products and the whole event would end up being one big advertisement. This was different. As I listened,  I sat there thinking about the speech I had given the week before and could immediately apply his tips to that speech. If I were to perform it again I know it would be 100x better. So what did he tell us? I can't share it all as that would be a book not a blog post but if I were to pick and paraphrase one of the most helpful things he said, it would be this;

Don't just tell your audience your story, take them there.

If you can just get your audience to see, hear, feel and smell your story then your story is going to be much more powerful.

Try it!  Next time you write your speech - take your audience along for the ride. Let their senses run wild for those 5-7 minutes!

For more tips from the the legendary La Croix, go to http://darrenlacroix.com/

For more practice, obviously get yourself down to our club.

The people that made the event possible. 

The Citi Criers posse with our very own Julie Kertesz DTM (third from right) and Darren La Croix (centre)

AREA 59 HUMOROUS SPEECH AND TABLE TOPICS 2013

What an entertaining Humorous Speech and Table Topics Event we had last night!

It was great to see so many people from the different clubs in our Area 59 pulling together and supporting their contestants for the event, and even people attending from outside the area too. Together we made it a great evening. Especially thanks to David Marks, our contest chair of the evening (founding member of the Russian and English Speakers and currently Assistant Divisional Governor to Area B) who discharged his duties with charm, warmth and competence throughout the evening. We also thank the Citi Criers Executive Committee and Club members for hosting the event in their elegant, lofty tower.

Well done to all the supporting functionaries, and the contestants. The judges must have had a hard time with five top quality speeches to choose from, and excellent table topic responses in the room! They were all winners for the effort and excellent delivery.

Congratulations are due to Steve Edun of Meridian Speakers who came 1^st in the Humorous Speech competition. He had us all in stitches, if the laughter in the room is anything to go by, with memories of a truly unique childhood! He managed to deliver an inspirational message we can take away with us: “By effecting changes in our life today, pushing our boundaries (or should that be shopping trollies), we can be the person we want to be tomorrow.”

Congratulations are also due to James Jeans of Speakers Corner who really showed us the art of an excellent table topic response. Well structured, good content, responding well to the question, and closing with a punchy summary.

The final results of the contest are:

 

Humorous Speech Contest

 

1^st – Steve Edun

2^nd – Brett Downes

3^rd – William Hagerup

 

Table Topics Contest

1^st – James Jeans

2^nd – Brett Downes

3^rd – Matthew Clark

 

I am looking forward to seeing you all at the Division Contest next week, 16th October at London Trustmasters, where we can all support our Area winners Steve and James.

Pictured (l to r): Dave Longley, William Hagerup, Brett Downes, Matthew Clark, James Jeans, Steve Edun, Julie Kertesz, Flavia Gordon, Ruth Ellen Henry Ovid, Katy Woolcott.

(Photography care off Kayus Fernander, Citi Criers) Thanks to William Hagerup for editorial assistance.

Katy Woolcott
Area 59 Governor

A laugh a minute

Ha ha ha, ho ho ho, he he he!

How many more laughing sounds can you recognise?

If you have to think about that, then perhaps we can help jog your memory by inviting you to our humorous speech contest on Wednesday 18^th September.

We will have 6 speakers whose main purpose is to make you laugh whilst hopefully imparting a serious message to us.

We then have a table topics round where 4 participants are given a topic and the have to spontaneously respond to that topic – again in a way that make the audience cry with laughter.

There can only be one winner for each section and the winner laughs all the way to the next competition round competing against other clubs in the district.

Come and have a fabulous evening. Let Lewisham speakers take care of the entertainment – you bring the tissues!

Speech of the new Toastmasters International President in Cincinatti

Daoist paradox of letting go around the 5:30' in his speech, after he looses so much

when I let go what I am I can become what I may be
when I let go what I have I receive what I need
when I feel most destroyed I am about to grow

And then goes back from New York to Taiwan and has a blind date: with Toastmasters.

Grades from A-Z

This week we saw thousands jump for joy or hang their heads in disappointment as the nations 15 & 16 year olds, got their GCSE results.

I was in a session at work earlier this week where a guy kept expectantly checking his phone to get the news. When the news finally came through, he proudly proclaimed his son had amassed 8 A*s, 2 As and a B! Amazing results right? Amazing indeed.  Every year the theory of evolution is confirmed – generations just keep getting smarter!

Good grades can be the start of an incredible journey in life but grades do not speak for themselves. As us adults know, if you can’t open your mouth and show strangers just how amazing you are, then all your hard work will be for nothing.

This is where Toastmasters comes in. As a parent you’ll want to give your teenager the best help you possibly can. If the theory of evolution is to be believed then there is probably very little you can help your smart kids with in terms of A level homework. However, this post isn't about making you feel dumb! You can show your child just how smart you are by joining Toastmasters!

5 reasons why joining Toastmasters (specifically Lewisham speakers club) can help your brainy teenager.

1.   By coming to the club and developing yourself, you grow more confident which has a positive ripple effect on your family.

2.   You learn how to give feedback to people who are telling you things you don’t really understand – AKA, you can comment on the delivery your teenager’s homework even if you know nothing about the subject.

3.   Through the tools you learn at Toastmasters, you can help your teenager prepare for any presentation they have to do as part of their coursework.

4.   Though partaking in Table topics,  you will learn how to be spontaneous in response to questions – the exact skill you need for acing interviews

5.   You can bring them along too! There’s no reason why your brainy teenager cannot join toastmasters too. It’s a much better bonding activity than sitting watching TV on a Wednesday evening. And Toastmasters boasts a number of programmes specifically for young people.

So if you don’t join for yourself, do the smart thing, join for your brainy teen!

Risky Business

Bet you can’t guess what jumping out of a plane, acknowledging why pencils have erasers and funny bones have in common?! They were the topics of the speeches we heard at our last toastmasters meeting. The other not so obvious commonality is that all three speeches were in their own way, encouraging us to take some sort of ‘risk’.

Our first speech was from Jacqui who in her 2^nd speech told us how she spent her university book money on skydiving lessons. The vivid imagery of her jump out of a plane as her life flashed before her, is not a risk I would personally want to take!

In our next speech (also his second speech) John, suggested a risk which was more much more palatable than skydiving- if you make a mistake, take the risk and own up. Thereafter, apologize, try to rectify and learn from your mistake.

Our Third speech made us think about the risk of standing in front of an audience, sharing something funny, but then no one laughing at your jokes. Our experienced Toastmaster Julie helped us to understand and demonstrated how life’s everyday happenings can be used as humorous material which becomes more effective i.e more funny, when you build on the content with more truth.  Julie’s educational speech won the speech of the night. 

Karolis won the best evaluation of the evening for his lively appraisal of Jacqui’s speech.

We had lots of guests this evening which added a different dimension to our meeting and was a pleasure for me popping my Toastmaster-of-the-evening cherry! Our guests, Angelo, Mounita, Nadine, Tanya and Tedodaj all took risks. Not only by stepping foot into our club, but by partaking in the Table Topics session. They did extremely well, all displaying the raw potential of becoming great speakers.

If our guests can take risks so can you! Don’t erase the thought of becoming a great public speaker. Take the plunge, come to Lewisham Speakers club. Be part of a growing international organisation. Joining toastmasters is a risk worth taking.

They should have gone to Toastmasters

Being a member of toastmasters Lewisham is becoming more than just a nice thing to do. Once you get into it, the philosophy and learnings start to seep through into other areas of your life. For example. Today my partner and I attended to a wedding. Its been a long time since I went to one and for the most part, it was a beautiful day full of love and enjoyment. There were however, parts where I cringed and unfortunately they were the public speaking parts.

The couple were wed by a Pastor. Apparently he had been a Pastor for 22 years, and in some aspects of his performance, this was obvious. For instance his vocal variety was excellent. You knew he was in charge and made people want to listen to him despite having an accent. However, there were 3 things he kept doing which would have sent me into a fit of rage had it been my special day.

1. He kept getting the couples name wrong – this might not have been so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that he kept referring to the Bride as ‘James’ –I’m sure you’ll agree it’s not a very feminine name!
2. The couple had been together for 2 decades, had already built a life together. You could argue why bother cementing the deal now but that’s a whole other blog! The point is that the Pastors sermon was totally inappropriate for this particular couple. Why would you talk about how to stay together when they had successfully managed this up until this point? Why would you talk about leaving the parental home when they were actually grandparents? It made no sense.
3. Finally, there were times when he mumbled whilst his head was down in his bible – not good. but when he wasn't doing this, his stage presence was awesome.

Moving on to the speeches. The only saving grace here was the fact we were fed first and it was a fantastically delectable buffet. I was quiet surprised at the fact that everyone in the bridal party who traditionally would prepare a speech, read their ‘speech’ from a crumpled, limp piece of paper pulled out from some sweaty crevice (it was a warm day to be fair).

These speeches were delivered with such brevity, they were over before you could get into them. They all lasted less than a table topic answer which begs the question, why bother with the crimpled paper? Others, who came up spontaneously, did much better.  But they were not great.  For example, all the speakers used way too many fillers -the ‘ums’ the ‘ahs’, the ‘you know what I’m sayings’ and the ‘you get mes’ actually eclipsed the content! Alas, I am a tough audience!

So Lucinda, what are you trying to say? I hear you ask Well several things really. It is the wedding season so if you have one coming up and especially if you are part of the bridal party, here are some useful tips:

• Preparation can help your confidence with public speaking and help avoid embarrassing moments
• It is important it is to pitch your content to your audience. Different audiences need and respond differently to your messages/ jokes etc.
• Too many fillers switch people off. Try and pause instead. A pause might feel like forever to you, but it doesn't to your audience.

Want to discover more? Get yourself down to a Toastmasters club -Lewisham Speakers would be preferable! Let us help your wedding speech rock!

Ambitions of a Lewisham Toastie

I don’t know about you but it feels a little strange not being at Toastmasters this week. So I thought I would relive the memory of lasts weeks meeting.

When I think about the meeting last week, the word ‘ambition’ springs to mind. Not just because this was the grammarians chosen word for the day or because of our Toastmasters Cryptic question that kept everyone guessing for the night but because it was actually ambition that linked all of the fabulous speeches.

Firstly we heard from Karolis, who gave us the ‘Recipe for success’. Spurred on by a school reunion, he wanted to find out what made some people successful while others were perhaps not so successful.

Jason gave us an addition to that recipe in our second speech where he showed us how we could realize our Toastmasters ambitions more easily by utilizing the D71 website.

Finally Richard, told us in his winning speech, a tragic story of how one mountaineers ambition to place his wife’s photo as near to heaven as possible ended up killing him!

Fortunately for us Toastmasters, our ambition of becoming great public speakers, need not kill us! Speaking in public really does get easier over time the more we do it- Fact! Our visiting Aussie  Toastmaster Tina, was testament to this as she walked away with the best table topic of the night, while Chris Douce, won best evaluator.

So a question to anyone reading this blog who isn't already a member or is new to the club– what is your ambition? Is it something that Lewisham Toastmasters can help you with? Talk to us, join the club, get yourself a mentor and start realizing your ambitions!

Lewisham Speakers New Executive Committee Meeting - 24th July, 2013

Lewisham Speakers new Executive Committee is meeting on 24^th July to discuss the plan and strategy for the year 2013-14. The meeting venue is The Talbot Pub, 2 Tyrwhitt Road, Brockley, London, SE41QG. The timing 7.30 pm to 9.00 pm.
 

Another first - congratulations is in order!

Hello all,

I had to let you know this hot off the press news! Julie our long standing and eldest member of Lewisham Toastmasters Julie Kertesz, has just been given a DTM. No it’s not an alcoholic cocktail, it is the Distinguished Toastmaster award. This is the first time Lewisham Toastmasters has had a DTM. Julie is also the first DTM to be recognized this Toastmaster year for the whole of District 71 so it’s extra special!

Personally, I think Julie deserves the award just for her enthusiasm, passion and willingness to give her time so generously to coach and mentor new Toastmasters and contest winners alike. Alas, I do not make the rules! So to put this into perspective for you, if you want to follow in Julie’s footsteps you have to complete the following:

•  Competent Communicator manual (most of us at Lewisham are here!)
•  Competent Leader manual (we can complete this along-side the above)
•  Advanced Leader Bronze
•  Advanced Communicator Bronze
•  Advanced Communicator Silver
•  Advanced Communicator Gold
•  Advanced Leader Silver- which involves a high performance leadership project. Julie chose to  implement an area wide story telling project which helped toastmasters like you and me learn to tell stories as part of their speeches. The result -8 people ended up telling stories to a fee paying audience at the back in March 2013

To us Toastmasters novices, that basically means A LOT of public speaking!

As if all of the above was not enough, to be eligible for this award, you also need to be a club Officer for a year and then serve your District as well. Julie has been president of our club, and was also Area Governor for District 71 for 2012/13.

I know some of us are not at Toastmasters for the awards, but I cannot stress how major this award actually is. It’s testament to Julie’s hard work and perseverance. Its evidence that her confidence, and speaking skills are at the highest level.  

It’s also proof that this Toastmasters stuff works! 

It’s hard to believe that it has only taken Julie 5 years to achieve this incredible accolade. 

What is even more inspiring is that Julie has done all this at an age where society says she should give up and ‘retire’. Luckily for us she decided not to follow age stereotypes and has gone on to become a commended keynote speaker and stand-up comedian. 

It just goes to show that if we persevere and keep coming to the club, keep giving our speeches, keep getting signed off for the roles we take on each club night and stay committed to our own development, there is no reason we cannot reach these heights too!

The only thing stopping us is us!

We are honoured to have such a humble experienced Toastmaster in our midst.

Please join me in congratulating Julie!

Well done Julie!

First of the year

For those of you who don’t know, the beginning of July represents the beginning of the Toastmasters year. The Chinese refer to 2013 as the year of the Snake. People born in the Year of the Snake are reputed to be thoughtful and wise, and the year itself is meant to signify ‘steady progress’. So what? I hear you ask.

Well I think this is rather apt because for each and every toastmaster- no matter what your level, each week we come to Toastmasters, we make steady progress. Even if we only take part in the warm up and don’t utter a single word publicly for the rest of the night, we are talking small steps to becoming world class public speakers. I stress this point because I really believe it. Case in point, on Wednesday 3^rd July, one of our guests-Larissa made massive progress. She did her first table topic telling us confidently how Lewisham toastmasters feels like ‘her family’ She even lasted the full 2 minutes which was amazing!

We were honoured to host several guests on Wednesday night who also gave many other ‘First’ anecdotes. Including the first day at school (Didier), the first time on holiday (Afam), and the first time in the sea (Royston of Bromley Toastmasters). Karlios, who took on the table topic evaluator role for the first time, managed to give positive feedback to every single table topic speaker. I look forward to witnessing their steady progress in the weeks to come.

There were lots of other noteworthy ‘first’ times. For example, Wednesday night was the first time Manoj attended a meeting as our club President and had a speech prepared. The first time Jason took on the Toastmaster role which he did extremely well. The first time our newest member Jacqui gave her speech to us – her new family which was about her family. We all hope to meet your sister one day!

We had a wonderful speech from Zhanna, who gave us a plotted history of Tea and even showed us how to make it! It’s the first time, I’ve seen tea drunk as part of a toastmasters speech and definitely the first time anyone has ever told me to pour tea into milk, not milk into tea. Clearly I’ve been going wrong all these years!

The 3^rd prepared speech of the evening came from me, where I lamented on the quality of our decisions. That speech that won speech of the night, with Richard providing the winning evaluation for evaluating Jacqui’s speech. The table topic award went to our lovely American Toastmasters veteran guest- BiBi. In her week-long stay in the UK, Toastmasters Lewisham was the first club she attended. Her 16 years of progress was obvious as she skilfully avoided the ‘Kiss-and-tell’ question and instead told us to:

 “Never evaluate yourself as others will do it for you”  

We all need to take these wise and thoughtful words on board – for if we don’t, we will only stifle our own steady progress. Umm… I wonder if our new American friend was born in the year of the snake!

Should you choose to make the wise decision to continue your steady progress, I will see you Wednesday 17^th July. In the meantime,

Happy New (Toastmasters) Year!

Tall Tale Contest! a Fun evening

For those of you who couldn’t make the Tall tales contest evening on Wednesday 26^th June, you missed a treat. Our visitors described the evening as a ‘pleasant’, ‘enjoyable’, ‘interesting ‘, ‘theatre-like’ experience and boy was it exactly that!

Our very own multi-talented Flavia chaired the contest which took us on a journey around the world. We stopped in Paris and heard an empowering story from Julie of a 3 year old child having the power to transform an old lady’s view on life. Enabling this fearful vision of wisdom to grow in confidence and take risks.

The ‘risk taking’ message spread to Manoj, who urged us to take risks and open our spam emails, for we never know how rich it could make us. He is now rich enough to drive a Mercedes and take us all on holiday!

Obviously Chris has already been opening his spam email and reaping the rewards as he can afford to travel to many places including Korea where he managed to create a ‘domino effect of chaos’. Don’t worry, he assured us that no real animals were hurt in the process of him trying to catch his flight. But where was he trying to catch a flight to?

Chris is lucky he didn’t get stopped in customs carrying ‘Sterium’, which Peter passionately informed us was a powerful, expensive substance that everybody wants and that can take the form of anything. It was so potent it killed Peter in the end (well, only for a split second). I wonder if Sterium could Kill Serena's horrid ‘Jamaican Mosquitoes’? In fact, thinking logically, it might have been Sterium that was in her ‘Mus kill’ formula. It’s a pity the formula wasn’t discovered in time to exterminate  the massive mosquito that flew from Jamaica to London, Northolt to be exact  and  ended up in Gordon 'lamsey’s’ aka Richards, Champagne! It was his 25^th wedding anniversary and him and the wife had a chauffeur driven Hummer at their disposal. Stands to reason they probably wolfed down so much Champagne at Mr. Lee’s restaurant that neither of them would have even noticed swallowing the deadly mosquito! Between you and me, I think maybe the mosquito was the real reason the Chinese and champers were free because anyone with sense could never mistake Richard for Gordon Ramsey after all Gordon has way massive feet! Anyway, in my mind Richard should have done something more personal for his wife like bake her a cake because according to our winning speaker Kieran Porter from Corinthians toastmasters club, a good Cake can help repair relationships. Ones that are 25 years old, even ones tainted by world wars and politics! In essence, cakes can save the world! We voted with our stomachs in favour of this notion!

Second and third prize went to our resident, non-swearing Gordon Ramsey look alike  (Richard) and Sterium fanatic Peter respectively but all of our speakers did tremendously well and even our guests stood up in front of the big soft cuddly audience which is Lewisham Toastmasters. Were they corralled? No! Did they need Umbrellas? No! They just felt comfortable and supported. That,  as the youngsters say is ‘how we do’ here at Lewisham Toastmasters. So why don’t you allow us to help you perfect how you do – starting next week! If you are already perfect, just come along to hear for yourself what the hell I’m talking about!

Hope to see you on the 1^st Wednesday of the month.

Speak soon!

Lucinda Gray

Vice President - Public Relations

A new executive committee from 1 July

At  our last "normal" meeting for the year 2012-13. Our outgoing President Katy Woolcott handed over the baton to newly appointed President Manoj Sivaraman. New committee was installed for the year 2013-2014. The Lewisham Executive Committee for year 2013-2014 constituted of:

President – Manoj Sivaraman

Vice President Education Jason Thomson

Vice President Membership Uta Wassmuth

Vice President Public Relation Lucinda Gray

Secretary Asiimee Balinda

Sergeant At Arms - Serena Nelson

Second meeting June 2013

The meeting was terrific with brilliant speeches. All of them where of high standards and it’s first time in Lewisham Cub all the three speakers have achieved the distinction on Competent Communicator awards on a single night

Serena – Great story line, judicious mix of emotion and passion to inspire us with a sublime message as when life knocks you down, try to land on your back. Because if you can look up, you can get up. Very well done Serena.

Lukas – He emerged so fast as a great story teller, that his willingness to stuck to guns, make him a fully evolved speaker. He inspired us all with his message that doesn’t let someone else's opinion become your reality.

Uta – Great delivery, awestruck with her exuberance display of passion and enthusiasm. Her attention to details and was utterly blunt in sharing her views. Great stage presence and made a good use of invisible props.

photo by Julie70 on Flickr.

Well done, wonderful trajectory of Lucas, Serena and Uta, who finished their 10th project yesterday from the Competent Communicator manual and become from now on "Competent Communicators."

Julie – Her evaluation encapsulated her charismatic talent and wealth of experiences that she can toy with her evaluation capabilities at any depth. She gave a valuable and very succinct evaluation to Serena, I’m sure it will be very useful tip.

Manoj – Very structured and precise feedback to Lukas

Flavia – Stocky, punchy and clinical evaluation for Uta with her spreading smile. Her passion and willingness to give so much was clearly rose above her personality.

Sholem – Our warm-up leader got interesting one liner topic to wet our vocal cord. His topic weaved story from South Africa to Japan to Kenya and finally landed in New Zealand.  Good piece of work

John – Our Timer did a splendid job, he took the role at the 11^th hours and performed the role diligently. He has given a good account of time and ensured that meeting end in time.

Grammarian – Philip Landergen, very precise and gave us a concise explanation of role and cheery picked some good language from every speakers. The word of the night JOVIAL was well used throughout the meeting.

Asiime – Calm, composed and well crafted topic. He is another upcoming speaker who is consistently hitting the centre stage with his great vibe and vigour.  

Richard – Great personality and always perform his role with his signature 3E style. Electrifying, Enthusiast and Educational. His evaluation feedback was very quirky and he has given everyone a constructive feedback.

Finally Vivienne gave a very brief and solid evaluation of the night and appreciated all the speakers with fair and informative feedback.

The Winner for 21^st Night

Speaker – Lukas

Table Topic – Jason

Evaluation - Julie

Very well done All. Manoj.

New member's joy

photo by Julie70 on Flickr.

Lewisham Speakers gains it's 27 member!
The joy of joining and beginning the journey.

Lewisham speakers 2013 june

Lewisham speakers 2013 june, a set on Flickr.

There is a set of photos, of our last meeting. It shows so much of joy of the new member, of those finishing the competent communicator manual. Also of those, new members in our new committee from 1st of July, already bubbling with ideas.

It shows how much we learn to speak and also to listen, it shows how much we can also develop in leadership roles in our toastmasters clubs.

LEWISHAM SPEAKERS JUNE 2013 UPDATE AND WHATS IN THE DIARY

Hello all   

So as we come towards the end of the toastmaster year due to expire on the 30^th June this year, it’s perhaps an opportune time to take a look back to see how our year has gone. 

It’s gone so quick! But we had some exhilarating times.  Our membership is a comfortable 26 members.  Vivienne our President of Membership has kept a watchful eye on our membership throughout the year, diligently maintaining our visitor book, and processing membership applications, and not missing any opportunities.   I am pleased to say we have had in excess of a dozen new members throughout the year!  Well done to Vivienne.

Manoj our Vice President of Education has been diligently working behind the scenes making sure our agendas are well prepared, and making sure that our members have every opportunity to progress with their educational awards. Having undertaken this position on a previous year, I know exactly how demanding this role can be!  I’ve been lucky this year in having such a safe pair of hands that I have been able to rely on.  Thank you Manoj, you will make a super President, and I know I am handing the  the club into a  safe pair of hands. 

This year we have seen Zhanna secure her Advanced Communicator Silver, Manoj, and I secure our Competant Leadership.  Outa, Lukas, and Serena are nearly fully fledged Competant Communicators (nearly at the top of their mountains!)  and Phillip has finished his  Competant Communicator Gold.  Well done to all of them, who have kept their nose to the grind stone and come so far!  There’s no two ways about it, it takes hard work, discipline, commitment, and dedication to secure these awards, but the good news is, we can all do it if we want to! And I hope every member will strive to meet their own educational toastmaster goals next year.

Our Treasurer Steve, has been a silent steed in the background making sure that all the club finances have been kept in order, and I must say he runs a tight ship!  Since Steve’s arrival at the helm, at the beginning of our Toastmaster year, the club finances have turned around, and whilst we are a not for profit club, we are certainly safe and secure on the financial front. He has been there making sure all the membership fees come in on time, both renewals and new members. He made sure all the outgoings are paid on time, together with his sound and prudent financial house keeping.

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Lukas our Secretary, who has attended all our Committee Meetings that take place, and made sure we have accurate meeting minutes.  It has all taken, commitment time and energy.

Flavia who has been our Vice President of PR, and assisted on securing some useful advertising via Lewisham Council.

Richard, who arrives early for our meetings, opens and makes sure all the meeting room is set up correctly for the start of each and every meeting, and the pure energy and spark that he brings with him to every meeting.

Together all our members of Lewisham Speakers we are on target to  achieve 9 out of 10 points from the Distinguished Club programme.  This is the KPI system by which Toastmasters International encourage clubs to measure themselves against.  This means we will achieve Presidents Distinguished grade, which is the top performance grade a club can attain, and is a reflection of the performance of all its members, so well done to all our members we’re doing well!

But like the seasons, they come to an end, through good team work by both committee members, and all our members the year has yielded an exceptional harvest. But as the sun goes down on the current toastmaster year, the new toastmaster year is only just beginning. Life begins again, new committee members, and with it, come new learning opportunities for our members and that is what Toastmasters is all about, teamwork, leadership communication, and personal development.  Good , luck to our new Committee members who come into effect on the 1^st July. I hope they get as much personal development growth out of their committee roles as much as I have had.  New committee members for next year then are:-

Manoj: - Our President

Jason: - Vice President of Education

Outa: - Vice President of Membership

Steve: - Treasurer

Lucinda: - Vice President of PR

Asimmwe: - Secretary

Richard and Serena:-Seargeant at Arms

I hope each and every member will come to our handing over ceremony on the 19^th June this month to welcome our new committee members in.

So what’s in the diary ahead?

Freddie Danials Evaluation work shop

On 4^th June 2013, Freddie Daniells will bring his highly interactive workshop, Exceptional Evaluations, to Citi Criers. Citi Criers workshop will take place from 18:30 at their venue 25 Canada Square, E14 5LB.

This workshop has been well received by over 1300  people

Toastmasters throughout Great Britain and Ireland. This will be a unique opportunity to hear it at our club.

Freddie will share his own experience starting out, and his journey of evaluations since. He will share the tips and secrets that he has learned first-hand from some of the best evaluators including past District Champions. Most importantly, he will share with you the process that he has learned to make sure that you will deliver the best evaluation every time.

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

1. Pick the best content to include in your evaluations

2. Structure your evaluations more effectively

3. Make your points so that both the speaker and the audience get maximum benefit

No matter your level, this workshop is for you.

In addition the Work Shop will also be held again at Meridian Speakers on Tuesday 11^th June.  Reception 6.45pm for a 7.00pm start, so a choice of 2 venues, no excuses then!

 Wednesday 12^th June 2012 Committee Meeting

This is a meeting for both the current and future incoming committee members, and our past president: - Start time 7.30pm.  Location: - The Talbot Pub, Tyrwhitt Road, Brockley SE4 1QG. T.0208692 2665.  We will be in the upper floor section.

Further information:-

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/52/1495337/restaurant/London/The-Talbot-Lewisham

Wednesday 19^th June: - Committee Handover

Handover of the current committee to the new incoming committee.

Wednesday 26th June 7.30 pm to 9.30pm Lewisham Methodist Church: - An Evening of Tall Tales

An additional meeting to the scheduled meetings.   Come and tell your tall tales, yes an evening of extreme fun and laughter I ‘m sure.

That’s all folk

Your President

Katy