Last Night's Competition - The Humorous Speech

At last nights competition we had three humoirous speakers Chris D with "Randomness", Kirk with "Hats of the World" and Habibu with "First Flight" and Chris was a very worthy winner who will now represent Lewisham Speakers at the Area Competion on 2 October in Cannary Wharf and hopefully quite a few of us will be able to attend and support him.

The contestants in the Table Topics Competition answering "What was your Most Disastrous Shopping Experince" were Chris, Habibu and Richard, and our worthy winner was Chris again so he will also represent the Club on 2 October at the Area Contest as above.

On behalf of all Lewisham Speakers thanks are due to Lucinda who was Contest Chair and Katy as Cheif Judge along with the other judges, counters and timers etc of Richard, Judith, Steve, Shernett, Sholem, Jason, Zhanna, Lukas, Chris H and Ajit our Area Governor, without this team the competition would not have been possible, so again THANK YOU.

As Jason said last night, you have got to be in the Competition to Win it, and the only way to become develop the Leadership Skills we all have is to volunteer for roles you possibly haven't performed yet. Myself, Jason or your mentor will give you all the support you need and it is a great feeling having been say Toastmaster for the first time, so volunteer or be volunteered, but rest assured within the Club you are always supported by your freinds and fellow members so we can all expand our comfort zones in safety.

Philip Labdergan

VPE - Lewisham Toastmasters

A Brilliant Evening – Wed 3rd Sept

Based on the comments from our guests and our OFFSTED Inspector, Richard, AKA General Evaluator this appears to be true, but sadly, this is unofficial as Richard is also part of this Outstanding Club.

Inspector Green, recommends that a Greeter is appointed and any applications welcome, otherwise various members will be allocated this role along with the other ones, please let me know and this will be a great way to get to know all guests and members.

Highlights were

Jason our President/Chair of Governors and Toastmaster/ President lifting the energy level

Chris as Grammarian encouraging to exercise and spotting such gems as “learning English by osmosis”

Shernett our Timekeeper taking on the role at very short notice, being strict but fair, thank you. 

Flavia as Warm Up Leader confirming that living world leaders don’t inspire us all.

Our Speakers all had a common theme of contrasting ideas to great effect.

Habibu on The Evils of Mobile Phones great for recording picture and guiding us but should parents have to switch of the home Wi-Fi at night to prevent teenagers gaming and the effect on writing?

Jenny, To Eat Meat or not to Meat, expounding the healthy virtues of not eating meat but also the real costs and dangers of the chemicals in processed meat, possibly as damaging as smoking!

Katy, Be Careful What you Wish For, telling how she grew to like a PA who could talk her way into just about any job, having more front than Gibraltar, but when the wheels came of her life changed.

The evaluators, Kirk, (again standing in at the last minute), Lucinda and Zhanna all encouraged our speaker commenting on using props and gestures to good effect and exaggerating gestures along with how pausing can enhance a speech.

I then lead the Stand and Tell session or Table Topics and 9 members and guests who all enthralled, enlightened and entertained us evaluated by Flavia who noted the power of using personal stories and encouraging us to fully use our time, space is limited so highlights were

Steve Thought Schools was only a morning so on first day walked home at the break!

Alex On School meals would eat up unwanted food before being educated about really good food

Sholem Embarrassed at secondary school being taken by his parents, so only escorted his son twice

Michael About Careers advice took his time and is now doing well despite the advice he was given.

Thank you to everyone who took part it was a privilege to hear about your experiences that were shared so well and openly.

All that remains is to announce our winners, Best Topic Steve, Speaker Jenny and Evaluator Lucinda.

We as a Club are aiming to educate, and engage with all the members and I think we achieved this Going Back to School and most importantly I trust we all left feeling energised.

Many thanks to all members Guests as together we are all Outstanding.

Philip

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