Toastmasters International is 90!

Lots of guests joined us again for our Wednesday meeting on the 21^st October, the second for this month. Paul, our Sargent at Arms opened the meeting on time and Flavia, our President welcomed the guests and told them a bit about Toastmasters, introducing us to our theme – Toastmasters International is 90 years old!

Philip was our Toastmaster for the evening and lead us through with his usual flare and enthusiasm. He was also the warm up leader, asking us how we responded to being challenged. Mostly, we face up to challenges head on!

James was the timekeeper for this meeting. He explained the importance of the role as we always need to be able to keep our speeches within the time allotted to us. He explained how the green, amber and red lights work to communicate to speakers how much of their time they have used up. We had a couple of overruns during the evening but our Toastmaster was able to bring us back on track to finish on time. Sharon was our grammarian and gave us the word ‘Longevity’ to use whenever we could during the meeting and to fit with the longevity theme of our meeting – 90 years of Toastmasters. She explained her role and the meaning of her chosen work well and a few remembered to fit it into their talks.

Robert was our first speaker and did a wonderful job with his 4^th speech in the Competent Communication Manual – How to Say it – telling us of his love for the ‘Sport of Kings’ – tennis. He told us of the sports stars who had influenced his admiration and how he had to persevere to develop his own skills.

Paul stepped in at the last minute due to a postponed speech and told us of ‘My Journey Since Toastmasters’.  It was his 5^th speech – Your Body Speaks. He took us through the three stages of his journey: how he used to be – lacking in confidence when required to speak up; how he changed – evolving and changing; and how he is now - grown in confidence, having acquiring new skills. He used gestures and facial expressions to illustrate his points and moved across the stage to show the different time phases of his speech.

Jason, our outgoing President, then christened our brand new projector, showing us slides to support his speech about the statistics around membership retention at Toastmasters. ‘Thirty is the Magic Number’ he told us as part of his ‘Speaking to Inform – A Fact Finding Report’. He explained that the statistics show, a club of around about thirty members seemed to be just right for keeping going. Membership gains and losses seem to tick over nicely with the magic membership size of thirty – and that’s reassuring for Lewisham Speakers as that’s our norm from year to year.

Jason was also our Table Topics Master and used old issues of the Toastmaster magazine to generate his questions. We learned from our guests and some members that: Rueben is the boss in his kitchen, a new guest Temitayo has aspirations to be our Lewisham Speakers President and that Ade thinks he should be paid much more than £5,000 as his speaker fee!

Our evaluators of speeches and the table topics were Flavia, Anne, Lukas and Richard, who praised the good practices of the speakers and offered a few tips for what could be done better. Our general evaluator, Peter, visiting us from west London, highlighted what he had enjoyed about our Lewisham Speakers style.

All in all, an enjoyable meeting with progress made by all participants. The meeting came together nicely, thanks to the efforts of Philip, as unavoidable postponement of a couple of the planned speeches meant last minute changes. And thanks go to Paul and Jason for stepping in at the last minute.

Freedom! - Lewisham Speakers meeting on 7th October 2015

The meeting started right on time with an introduction from Paul, our Sergeant at Arms.

Flavia, our President, welcomed us all, including a number of new guests, with an overview of what Toastmasters is all about. She told us about Ralph Smedley and how he started Toastmasters 90 years ago, about the Competent Communicator pathway and Competent Leadership and she highlighted the value of feedback.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was our outgoing President and a natural leader and speaker, Jason. He chose the theme of ‘Freedom’ in honour of Black History Month and reminded us of some great orators: Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King.

Sharon lead the warm up, asking us how we escape from the stresses of modern life.  Some of us were pretty predictable with our long baths, lying in bed, walking, running, playing sport. Some less so with eating a Kit-Kat – or not trying to escape at all.

David was our timekeeper and explained why the role is important and how the light system works. Lukas was out grammarian and gave us the word ‘convoluted’ to try to include in our speeches.

And then there were the three speeches ...

John took us to Bermuda for his 7^th speech in the Competent Communicator Manual. He had to go there for work and became interested in the Bermuda Triangle stories of ship and aircraft disappearances, so he did his research.  He discovered that the area is prone to hurricanes and many of the suspicious disappearances weren’t actually in the area. He also found out that a book written in the 70s about 5 aircraft disappearing perpetuated the myth, even though in later years the real reason for the disappearances was discovered and it was navigation equipment failure. He concluded that extraordinary conclusions need extraordinary explanations.

“Twelve Miles” was Sharon’s Icebreaker Speech. Where she grew up was about 12 miles from anything useful, apart from 2 pubs and a library van - although living in a close knit community had its benefits. When she broke her wrists and spent around 3 hour in Accident & Emergency, there were 28 get well cards waiting for her when she got home. She didn’t want a quiet life so she left to go to university and work in the music industry, which isn’t as glamorous as we might think. But, even though London was lonely to start with, she’s found a new close knit community here.

Verna told us about her big Jamaican family and how, so often, she’d meet someone new and be told ‘that’s your cousin’. She took us with her on her first trip to Jamaica, painting a picture in words and gestures of the heat, the sounds and smells, the trees blowing in the breeze and we relaxed with her drinking rum punch by the sea with Bob Marley playing in the background. She went to visit the area where Bob Marley comes from, having been a big fan all of her life. She discovered that the family hosting the visitors were related to her and heard that phrase again when talking about Bob Marley – ‘that’s your cousin!’

The evaluators where Philip, Jenny and Julie. Philip praised John for his good research and the evidence he cited - and that he set the scene for us before launching into talking about the Bermuda Triangle, letting us know how his interest was first provoked. Jenny said what we were all thinking about Sharon’s speech – what a great first speech. She noted the use of threes for impact and clarity and great rhythm of Sharon’s story. Julie started by asking us a question about whether or not we would remember Verna’s trip to Jamaica. Of course we all will because she made is so picturesque for us. Julie praised Verna for not talking too fast, her vocal variety and not using notes.

The award for best speaker of the evening went to Verna for taking us to Jamaica.

Julie, spoke to us as an Ambassador for Toastmaster and highlighted the changes both past and future relating to the manuals and awards system. She showed us the original, small manual used 90 years ago and highlighted how so many of us are moving to reading and recording everything on our smart phones or computers.

Anne lead the Table Topics and our guests, along with a few experienced members, spoke about freedoms they appreciate, freedoms they would miss if they lost them and what they would do if they had the freedom of money being no object.

Flavia was the general evaluator and encouraged us all with her positive feedback. She reminded us that an evaluation should contain more positive comments than criticism, if criticism is felt to be necessary, and that they should always aim to finish with a positive comment.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday, 21st October where we'll be celebrating 90 years of Toastmasters.