London Victorians Toastmasters Club

Every year, Toastmasters clubs worldwide run speech and evaluation contest. Winners of the international speech after competing in the club, area, division and district levels will then take part in the world championship of public speaking due to take place in Las Vegas this august. On Tuesday it was London Victorians turn to enter the Toastmaster contest season, with our VP Membership Terry Pullin chairing over both the speech and evaluation contests.

New member Natalie was the first to take part in the speech contest. With a speech ‘Music in the digital age’ covering changes brought to the music industry by the advent of platforms such as Spotify or YouTube were artists can express themselves for free. She was followed by one of our advanced members, Alan with ‘It’s a racket’ on the impact high noises can have on human wellbeing and health. Third to join the fray was Hiram ‘The voices in my head’ on how to overcome fear of failure. Closing off the competition was Sergey and his story ‘The drum’.

The mystery speaker for our evaluation contest was our very own Magda ‘AI creating god’. Using the staircase analogy whereby humans can now look down on worms as an inferior species. The challenges of AI surpassing humans were highlighted, or “what happens when we are the worms”. Ross, Sergey and Eddie took turns evaluating Magda’s speech. A testament to the high level of the competition was that none of the three participants in the evaluation contest used notes!

A short interview of some participants preceded the announcement of the results by chief judge Brian Skelton. The winner of London Victorians 2015 International speech contest was Hiram followed by Alan for in second place. Congratulations go to Ross for winning the evaluation contest.

Many thanks to the judges for your help in making this contest a success. Thanks too to vote counters Eleanor and Lindsay and for our timer of the evening club president Florian Bay.

One of the most interesting about Toastmasters is that subjects are up for members to choose, allowing a unique insights into the personality of our members. Our last meeting was no different! Toastmastering us was the glamorous Jane Houghton, assisted by timekeeper Magda, first time grammarian Rosie (well done Rosie!) and Vote Counter Prateek.

Starting off a diverse series of speech that night was Ross with “Aiming High” on the extraordinary life of aviator Douglas Bader. Who in spite of losing both legs in an airplane accident, went back up to the skies to fight for the RAF in WW2! Our VP Membership Terry followed with “A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood”. Using the power of the AIDA sales techniques as a backdrop, we embarked on a fairy tale journey through a deep dark forest alongside a cunning mouse beating off monsters including gruffaloes with its sharp tongue and quick wit. Club President Florian guided us through a fact-finding report on the reasons for British industrial decline. Afterwards answering a flurry of questions from the audience on why it matters. Sergey closed off a very diverse evening of speeches with “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this” from the Interpersonal Communication manual.

Evaluations were taken up by Sergey, Fahad, Daniela and Andy. Covering points such as the importance of eye contact and of vocal variety to build a strong connection with the audience.

Movies were the theme of a very energising table topics session chaired by Secretary Ayokunle and evaluated by VP PR Marina. The entire evening was finally evaluated by Warren Sheng.

It is always a very special time when something is done for the very first time. In our last meeting we had the pleasure of having not one, not two but three icebreakers and a first advanced speech to boot. The show was opened by legendary debater and toastmaster of the evening Paul Carroll, ably assisted by Lindsey doing his very first role as timekeeper. Closing the functionary team were grammarian Marina and vote counter and sergeant at arms, Edwin.

Rosie started off the speeches with her Icebreaker ‘Influential People’ on who influenced her life so far, including her brother due to take up the Arch to Arc triathlon this year. Eddie followed her with ‘A Fortunate Life’ tracing his journey from Ghana, to France and eventually to ten years initially unexpected years in London. Prateek closed off with a punchy speech ‘Why live an ordinary life?’ and his desire to stay true to his dreams and ambitions. Daniela then did her firsts speech from the Speeches by Management manual, where she role-played taking over the management of an IT Service team and tacked a Q&A session from us posing as her employees.

Rising up to the challenge of evaluating these four speeches, were Terry, Fahad, Sergey and Marina.

Club sponsor Warren Sheng launched a table topic session themed on China, but also incorporating other very open ended questions such as “where will you do in two years”. Evaluating the entire evening was district 91 PR officer Dorothea Stuart.