It's a Leap Year!

‘What would you do if you had one free day?’ That was our warm up question, posed by Sharon. All at the meeting gave a short answer. Just about everyone said they’d do whatever they enjoyed doing when they relax – only one answered that he’d get some jobs done.

Paul is our Sergeant at Arms and opened the meeting on time. Flavia, our President welcomed our guests and explained how Toastmasters works. Anne was the Toastmaster for the first time and led us through the meeting with her wonderful team of members fulfilling the various roles.

Our first speaker was Pat, giving her Icebreaker speech.  John was her evaluator and noted how she gave us a fairly long introduction about how and why she joined Toastmasters, before she raised our attention level by saying ‘Hello’ and  launched into her subject of ‘Living Your Purpose’.  She was confident and spoke with an even pace, maintained good eye contact with her audience and only referred to her notes a few times.  She had a very strong message, explaining how she’d found her purpose of promoting health and how we all need to find our purpose in life. She made good use of humour and left us all eagerly awaiting her next speech.

Philip, a very experienced speaker, entertained us with his speech ‘A Proposal’. He chose to demonstrate vocal variety, as per speech 6 in the Competent Communication Manual. He told us a comic tale of when a female friend tried to take advantage of the 29^th February, leap year tradition of women initiating wedding proposals – and how it all went horribly wrong. He was very animated using a loud, then a quiet voice as he took us through the various reactions as the story unfolded and negotiations progressed. She was hoping to get a free pair of gloves, as is the tradition if a man refuses the woman’s proposal – but he confounded her by saying ‘yes’. Paul evaluated Philip and admitted that he found it hard to make recommendations for such an entertaining and experienced speaker.

James lead the Table Topics with a wonderful set of questions around it being a leap year: having an extra day; leaping; and even a bit of time travel. He explained each question with a metaphor, helping the speakers to compose their short, impromptu speeches.

Julie was our Grammarian and was particularly impressed with Vivian’s use of her word of the day ‘embrace’ – seven times during her Table Topics speech. Sharon was the Timekeeper, as well as Warm-up Leader, so she reported back all of the times for the evening.

Richard evaluated the Table Topics and Jason was our General Evaluator. Some of their comments included: the Toastmaster needs to always lead the applause; and recommendations given should be addressed to all of the audience, not just the person who has spoken. They praised Julie for not only noting that James used metaphors but she also explained what metaphors are for our greater understanding; Paul’s mimicking of some of Philips body movements when evaluating his speech helped us to recollect what we’d seen and how it enhanced his message.

It was John’s birthday, so we ended the evening with a chorus of Happy Birthday!!

Next meeting - the International Competition - 2 March. Get in touch if you want to speak or be a judge.

It was cold outside - and a bit nippy inside until we warmed it up

On 20^th January we experienced what happens when you have to organise a Toastmasters meeting at the last minute with many members absent due to other commitments or illness. Some members took on multiple roles, with little opportunity to prepare – and boy did they shine! We had a vibrant meeting with a number of return visitors who I think we’re going to keep seeing. Last minute preparation can really bring a team together and showed off the nurturing nature of our club.

Paul was the Toastmaster, as well as the Sergeant at Arms and evaluator of one of the speeches. It was his first time as Toastmaster and he lead us through the meeting like an old hand. Richard was our acting President for the evening as well as evaluator of one of the speeches. He enthused and entertained us with his energetic introduction. Mark took the role of Timekeeper and kept us all on track. Sharon stepped in as Grammarian, as well as evaluating one of the speeches, with only a few minutes to think up a word for the day, define the word and her role for us, then write and post it on the walls to remind us of the word we should try to use. John took the role of Topics Master as he arrived at the meeting, and used the Toastmasters Table Topics App to find random questions for us to answer for our short, impromptu speeches.

Our theme for the evening was ‘Winter’ and our word for the day was ‘Lacking’ – due to the lack of heat.

The first speaker was Anne, who talked about David Bowie and the impact he’s had on her life. This was speech number 4 in the Competent Communicator Manuel – ‘How you say it’ and the idea is to use clear, grammatically correct language with rhetorical questions. Sharon evaluated that that had been achieved and praised the use of ‘the power of three’ and the use of alliteration.

Ade spoke second, an Advanced speech ‘Speaking to inform – The abstract concept’. He explained about blood pressure. Without the use of any illustrations, he managed to paint pictures with words and hand movements to explain what high and low blood pressure are, what makes blood pressure high or low and why we need to keep our blood pressure healthy. I certainly came away with a greater understanding of the concept.

John’s task was to ‘Persuade with Power’ his 9^th speech from the Competent Communicator Manual. He informed us all about the proposed closures of Open University Regional Centres and certainly convinced me that I should sign the petition against the closures. His speech was structured clearly so that we all got to understand the current situation, the reasons why the closures were being considered and the potential impacts which meant he disagreed with the closures.

John then led the table topics, using the App on his phone. The performances were exceptional. Many guests took to the stage and gave us a couple of minutes of entertainment - and a guest was voted as the winner (soon to be member I believe!).

Resilience

Our theme was resilience on 2 December. Flavia was our Toastmaster so she welcomed our guests, explaining Toastmasters and Lewisham Speakers then moved on to leading the meeting. Our timekeeper was Tricia, taking on her first meeting role with aplomb, supported by Philip. Paul, as Grammarian, gave us the word ‘challenge’ to slip into our speeches.

Our first speaker was David giving his 4^th speech ‘How to say it’, titled ‘Lessons from Niger’. He delivered his speech with gravitas as he told us how he had felt disconnected with the fieldwork of the NGO he works for but was grateful when the opportunity arose for him to go to Niger. The experience lead him to reflect on his life in the UK and feel grateful for his life and opportunities.  Paul, our grammarian for the evening, noted some words which David used to help deliver his message, such as: passionate, disconnected, dilapidated and reflect.

Our second speaker was John ‘Getting comfortable with visual aids’, the 8^th speech in the Competent Communicator’s Manual. John told us about ‘El Niño’,  using a flip chart to show us maps and a few lines of text.  John told us about the weather phenomenon and showed as where it occurs on the maps. By the end of his speech we had learned what El Niño is, the impacts, how the damaging effects of El Niño are increasing and what we can do to alleviate the problems. Paul also noted some great words used by John: strategy, desertification, vulnerabilities and hazardous consequences.

We had a visit from Robert, our Area 59 Director who told us what he likes about our group and highlighted that the up and coming Officer Training is not only open to current officers of the club – but anyone who aspires to being an officer.  The next round of training will be in January or February in Canary Wharf.

Lucinda was our Topics Master and challenged us with a great set of questions around resilience – and being challenged! The questions involved dealing with crisis, emotional problems, dealing with tough situations, ambiguity and turning misfortune to good luck. Also, how to make things work, lessons from a negative experience and to give an example of a self-confident person. During the answers we learned that one of our members finds their son inspirational for his positive attitude, one of our guests ‘sings it out’ if they have a problem to deal with, another speaker learns from negative events to turn them into positive experiences. Philip evaluated the table topics and praised some good strategies, such as: repeating the question, relating a personal experience, using humour, the use of gestures to illustrate a point and pausing or using a quiet voice to draw in the audience’s attention.

Richard was the general evaluator for the evening and made a particular point of thanking Paul, our Sergeant at Arms who does a fine job of preparing the room for our meetings before anyone arrives.

The meeting closed on time with a reminder that on the 16^th our meeting will have a different format as we get festive for our last meeting before Christmas.