It was to an almost full room, upstairs in the Windsor Castle pub that another night of speaking, oratory and fun began. Opened up by an anecdote by club president Florian Bay, on the big decisions made 75 years ago that impacted the wider world and how these were defended or countered by the power of public speaking. Toastmastering the evening was Niels coming from London Athenians. Assisted by Edwin as timekeeper, grammarian Terry unveiling ‘exceptional’ as word of the day and lastly by Alex as vote counter.
Two of our members speaking tonight began their first steps in their Toastmasters journey, with their icebreakers speeches. Opening the show was Thomas ‘The building blocks of my life’ speaking of the time he moved from then West Berlin to Vermont and how his passion for lego helpd him integrate in his new environment. Following on was Yvonne ‘Facebook’, speaking on her recent move from Taiwan to the United Kingdom. Moving on from her upbringing of always showing one best side to learning to show herself more as she learnt from British culture. Speaking next was Natalie ‘Inspirational Tables’ on Chef’s Tables, a program she recently discovered through Netflix. We were treated to the stories of three chefs from all over the world and how they overcame difficulties to pursue their cooking dreams. Closing off a great night of speaking was Daniela with ‘Networking – Cinderella style’ from the Entertaining Speaker advanced manual. A night of networking in Oxford between old friends was recounted to us, including the quest for reliving old pub crawls in the city, only to discover that some old haunts are now closed.
An essential component of Toastmasters are speech evaluations. For his first time as evaluator (well done!) Prateek evaluated Thomas’s speech. Posture is key in public speaking and Prateek’s recommendation focused on avoiding hand clasping and moving in a slower and calmer manner on stage. Magda’s evaluation of Yvonne also covered posture and the importance of vocal variety to spice up a speech. Florian’s then evaluated Natalie’s speech, recommending that the full length of seven minutes be sued for speaking, alongside using more vocal variety to complement’s Natalie great use of language. Hiram’s evaluation of Daniela’s focused on the possibilities offered by using the stage fully to accentuate parts of one’s speech.
As befitted the summer atmosphere, cocktails were the themed of the table topics impromptu speaking session headed by Eddie. Members and guests were invited to describe off the cuffs inventive cocktails such as a ‘Roaring Hercules’ from Greece, a ‘Red Star’ from Russia and the ‘Realpolitik Bismarck’ from Germany. The session was evaluated by club treasurer Ayokunle. Followed by Terry’s grammarian report and Warren’s general evaluation of the entire evening.
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