Commit, Communicate and Connect

On 6^th January, Flavia was our Toastmaster, as well as being our President, so she introduced the meeting, welcomed our guests and explained how Toastmasters works. Then she moved on to leading us through the meeting. She reminded us of the theme for her presidency - Commit, Communicate and Connect.

Pat was our warm up leader and asked us what we wish for in 2016. Everyone had the opportunity to express their aspirations for the coming year in a few words. David then explained his role as the Timekeeper, along with David and James who were the Ah counter and Grammarian for the evening. James gave us the word ‘loath’ to try to slip into our speaking during the evening. He explained the definition and gave examples of the different ways that it can be used.

Mark completed his Icebreaker Speech

Mark was our first speaker, giving his first ‘Ice Breaker’ speech, titled ‘The Underdog’. He started with an anecdote from his childhood about his football team being the underdogs then took us through some experiences in his life and career with the message of ‘overcoming adversity’. It was a well-structured speech, spoken clearly and with minimal use of notes. He left us with the encouraging words ‘Nothing is impossible’.

Our second speaker was Sharon, who spoke about the Art of Stopping. She suggested we ask ourselves the question ‘When did I last stop?’ She started with an anecdote from her own life, where she realised that she’d had a period of great adventures – but couldn’t remember many of the details because she had not stopped. She gave us a memorable acronym and some memorable phrases: FOMO (Fear of missing out); and ‘Focus on what matters, take time to just stop.’ Verna, her evaluator, praised her for her us of ‘the power of three’ and how she emphasised the word ‘stop’ with the way she used her hands.

Our third speaker was Paul, who stepped up to the lectern, having accepted the challenge to speak only at the beginning of the meeting. He told us about ‘Finding a Property’. Paul’s opening was exceptional. He built intrigue by slowly giving us a list, one word at a time before each pause, of all the online platforms we could possibly use and all of the different methods we could use for searching for a new property. He took us through the process and the emotions and stress of the process. Richard was his evaluator and praised him for putting his speech together at such short notice. A recommendation was that he could have used rhetorical questions to get additional engagement from the audience, to get them connecting with their own experiences.

Richard lead the table topics using a list of random words and asking speakers to choose a number to decide which word they were given. There were around ten speakers who all gave great answers but a couple of highlights were: Philip, who managed to intrigue and confuse us, and finally make everything clear with an entire story which showed us the association between the number 42 and bangers and mash; Eva also told us an entire story too, about her love for a particular umbrella – when she got it, where she got it, why she loved it and finally how she lost it and how she still misses it, decades later. Her delivery of this sentimental story had us loving the umbrella too; finally David was asked about ‘fashion’ and he used self-deprecating humour to entertain us with his speech about his attitude towards fashion.

Philip was our General Evaluator. One thing that he highlighted was that evaluations need to be primarily about how a speaker says what they say and the skills they show, rather than about the story they’ve told, emphasising that evaluations are to encourage us and to help speakers to grow their speaking skills.

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.

All things Paris

With respect for those who had suffered in the tragedies in Paris the previous Friday, our theme for November 18^th was ‘All things Paris’. Lucinda, our Toastmaster for the evening, encouraged us to think about what we love about Paris.

We had a great meeting – relaxed, fun, warm and friendly. Our guests commented on how comfortable they felt and appreciate that everyone gets a chance to speak.

Joanne was presented with her Ice Breaker sash

Our first speaker was Joanne, doing her Ice Breaker speech ‘Neeow’. She told us about her trip to the Belgian Grand Prix and how she had never wanted to go but got persuaded – and ended up having a great time. We were there with her as she heard the cars before she saw them, made her way through the crowds and found her seat on a grassy bank to watch the action. In Chris’s evaluation he noted the wonderful, vivid pictures Joanne painted with her words.

                                                     

Lukas spoke about ‘Simplicity’ and that in our complex world we need to get back to basics. He highlighted that it is the speeches with a simple message that get remembered. He quoted Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill and others whose words we all remember. His three tips were that, when composing a speech, we need to: plan it well; get to the point; and use visual aids to get the message across, after all when you’re cooking a meal, the first thing you need is all of the ingredients. Paul was the evaluator, finding that Lukas did inform us, as was his speech purpose, and left us with some useful tips.

Jenny started with ‘I’m going to be Prime Minister one day!’ quoting herself at 10 years old. She isn’t and she stopped wanting to be as she became an adult. ‘Three decades’ was the title of her speech and she took us through the Prime Ministers and their impacts in the last thirty years and how she feels about them. She ended with ‘I want to be the change that I want to see’. Flavia noted Jenny’s use of pauses and body language to give emphasis and noted her final message - that it’s important to use our votes.

Philip was our final speaker, inspiring us with his speech ‘I Never Dreamt’. We heard how Philip learned so much at Toastmasters in Bromley and came to be one of the founding members and the first President of our Lewisham Speakers Toastmasters. He gave us a few gems, like the acronym TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More; and ‘Ask not what Toastmaster can do for you but what you can do for Toastmasters’. On leadership and being asked to be the President for a second year, he highlighted how, to be a good leader you have to have a team that motivates you, encouraging us to think about supporting any bosses. As evaluator, Lucinda noted how Philip used a quiet voice for emphasis at times and how he tricked us to start with, implying that he was talking about something saucy to get our attention and interest.

Julie lead the Table Topics session using her photos of Paris, asking the speakers what each picture inspired in them? A variety of techniques were used during the answers: Flavia made up a story using vocal variety to create intrigue; Stephanie gave us a great opening line with ‘I see my future’; Chris used humour to give himself thinking time; Mohammed and Andy both told personal stories, relating the pictures to their own experience; Paul and Naufah both turned the subject around to something they wanted to share and were comfortable talking about; Jenny confidently delivered a short speech with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end.

Ade was our general evaluator, appreciating how welcoming Lewisham Speakers is to guests and made some useful recommendations.