Memorable Mentors - Wednesday 20th August

What a memorable meeting!

While there are many milestones on our Toastmasters Journey,   for me there are three that stand out:  The first meeting role,  the first speech, and the first time you act as the Toastmaster of a meeting. 

With half the members away enjoying their holidays,  and with last minute changes our agenda was left with a few gaps.   In her first meeting out clubs newest member Judith, stepped up to the task and took on the role of Grammarian,  added a dash of ah-counter and performed marvellously in the role.  

Our club Treasurer, John grasped the "hot potato" that is the role of the Toastmaster for the first time, taking us smoothly through the odd pothole in the Agenda, with calm assurance.    Toastmaster is one of those roles that I avoided like the plague,  but after doing it 3 or 4 times, it really helped to boost my confidence as a speaker.  I'm sure John will be back in the role again shortly. 

While we had no icebreaker speeches,  we had 4 excellent guests who made their first speeches in the club during Table Topics.  Our Topic Master Manoj, lined up some great questions and our guests grabbed the opportunity, and gave us enthusiastic and eloquent responses. 

We had Ajit Kulkarni (Citi Criers) and Chris Sarfo (Stratford Toastmasters),  helping us to evaluate Table Topics and GE,  and providing the insight which comes from seeing the club with "fresh eyes".  One of the many benefits of Toastmasters is the opportunity to visit other clubs in the area, and meet other people who are on the same journey as ourselves, and I would encourage everyone to take advantage of this. 

The highlight of the evening, apart from my excellent speech on saving money with Linux,  was seeing Philip jump off the stage during his speech encouraging us to use Toastmasterclub.org (the club admin system previously know as D71).   He had obviously been inspired by the new celebrity gymnastics show on BBC1, and has set the bar in terms of what we can expect in showmanship during our meetings.    Can't wait to see cartwheels and somersaults from Richard Green in the next meeting.

See you on September 3rd!

Jason

Table Topics Workshop

Dear All,

There are limited spaces to a table topics wokshop kindly ask your members to sign-up to the workshop at the earliest possible?

No later than 8^th September 2014 to make sure that security are notified of guest names.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/table-topic-workshop-with-brett-downes-tickets-12428057655

Time:
6:00pm for 6:15pm start

Venue:
London Trustmasters Club
Northern Trust Company
50 Bank Street
Canary Wharf
London E14 5NT

Nneka's Icebreaker - Wonderful

“Is this the same England” was an Icebreaker given by Nneka from Meridian as she explained how England has become her home despite all its faults including a bland diet and cold weather all without notes.

Engage, Educate, Energise - 6th August 2014

Report by Philip Landergan

Engage Educate and Energise, this is the theme for Lewisham Speakers Club that was introduced last week, but what does this mean? My introduction on behalf of Jason wasn’t needed on Wednesday as the meeting explained it!

Richard opened proceedings by welcoming everyone including our guests, Ikenna, Judith, Annie and Elaine and then after announcing our theme Katy as Toastmaster took ran the rest of the meeting as she kept us on track and supported everyone without dominating the meeting.

Our Birthday Boy, Chris lead the warm up by finding out how we like to celebrate our Birthdays and Manoj as timekeeper performed his task by ringing the bell of shame on me twice and Vivienne our Grammarian ensured we had a joyful meeting.

“Is this the same England” was an Icebreaker given by Nneka from Meridian as she explained how England has become her home despite all its faults including a bland diet and cold weather all without notes.

Next was Sholem with “Family Responsibilities” recounted some advice he had heard that “in the house the wife is always correct” as he explored the issues of family dynamics and the effects of being selfish in order to support a partner.
Then Julie told us a story of how “A Club Rose from the Ashes”  through support from the wider Toastmasters Family including Lewisham Speakers Chris H, Flavia and Katy.

Then our evaluators continued the feast as the Birthday Boy affirmed Nneka, Manoj complimented Shalom on retaining our interest and Richard encouraged Julie to add more power to the story by speaking from within rather than about the rebuilding process. More examples of Engage Educate and Energize.

After the break Lucinda lead the impromptu part of the evening, Table Topics as the speakers drew inspirational cards to obtain their topics, including our guests Ikenna on “If everything happens for a Reason” and his answer was no it’s all chance, Judith on “Waiting Patiently” as he told us about getting her driving licence and Annie who told us about “Fulfilling a Desire” joining the school debating society a year early and our congratulations to them for rising to the challenge, Richard responding to “When he last felt Panic” explained how it was during his evaluation of Julie but that Panic can be used as a positive resource. Yet more examples of Engage Educate and Energize.

The virtual awards for the evening went to Nneka for and Richard was best evaluator and topics speaker and were presented by Jason who also got feedback from our very welcome guests.

Thank you to Katy and everyone who helped have such a great evening and I am looking forward our next meeting on August 20, can you afford to miss it?