Category: Uncategorized

Thomas was toastmaster for the evening taking command of the stage and introducing each speaker with a visual of their ideal place to live. He had a team to assist him, Bruna was timekeeper, and Christophe was Sergeant at Arms. Cleo was Grammarian with Allure for the word of the day and Paul was Harkmaster. We had three speeches from the competent communication manual and a Best Man’s speech.

There were four speeches during the meeting. First on stage was founding Club President Florian, in his 50th speech he revisited the icebreaker, the first speech from the competent communication manual. In this speech Florian shared personal stories of his background and how he overcame adversity to realise his dreams.

Second on stage was Tatiana delivering speech 3 from the competent communication manual. Her speech provided the audience with potential solutions on how to stay awake, ranging from changing your environment, exercises, and the consumption of caffeinated beverages.

Eleanor H was on stage delivering speech 5 from the competent communication manual, opening her speech with the question “What stops you from taking risks?” Citing, fear, regret and grudges as three main elements of what stops people when dealing with fear, Eleanor encouraged the audience to “Let It Go”

Fourth on stage was Robert who took the opportunity to practice his best man’s speech, even having a prop of the future husband and wife. Many members initially join Toastmasters because of an upcoming speech in order to receive feedback and learn the critical skills of successful public speaking.

The four speakers were provided feedback by the respective evaluators Annabel, Hannah, Isabelle and Sophia.

The second half of the meeting involved impromptu speaking, Prateek the Table Topic Master selected the Brexit referendum for the topic for the impromptu speeches. Regardless of their opinion each speaker had 1-2 minutes to voice either why they want to stay in the EU or leave the EU. The table topic speakers were then evaluated by Nuala.

A successful meeting with lots of excellent speakers and entertaining table topics. Join us on Tuesday for our next meeting.

It has been suggested that the meeting time is put back by 15 minutes to try and prevent people arriving late. Please indicate your preference using the poll below:

[poll id="1"]

On Tuesday 14th of June Stephen was Toastmaster with a team to assist him, Romain was Timekeeper and Annabel was Sergeant at Arms. Tatiana was Grammarian, Ed was Harkmaster.

There were four speeches, three from the competent communication manual and one from an advanced manual.

Lawrence was first on stage with his icebreaker “Never Forget Where You Came From” which informed the audience about his childhood in Ealing and his Italian roots which influenced much of his upbringing.

Nuala was next delivering speech 6 from the manual “Vocal Variety”. Her speech detailed one of her first experiences living in London which involved a defrosting rat on the cooker, how she has a love-hate relationship with the city however, ultimately feels it is a great place to live.

Third on stage was Thomas who delivered a visual presentation educating the audience on why bullet trains were invented, how they work and detailed the countries that currently use them. Citing aerodynamics, and a continuous welded track as two of the main technologies that enable bullet trains to function, Thomas illustrated these elements through the use of visuals.

Fourth speaker was Prateek who delivered a speech from the Humorously Speaking manual. Entitled “Money See Monkey Do”, Prateek told tales of New Years Resolutions gone array, characterising different types of gym goers and relating them to monkeys through humour and body language.

The four speeches were evaluated by their respective evaluators; Eleanor B, Sophia, Florian and Isabelle. Each evaluator praised the speaker on positive aspects of their speech and also suggested improvements to make their technique in speech delivering even better.

The second half of the meeting involved impromptu table topics provided by Cleo which were then evaluated by Eleanor G.

Join us next week for more speeches, evaluations and impromptu speeches.

The sun shone brightly over Victoria ahead of our previous meeting. Owning the stage as Toastmaster of the evening was our VPPR Nuala who came up with a general theme for the evening based on luxuries. Her team of assistant was made up of Cleo to keep tab on time, Thomas as grammarian with “opulent” as word of the day and finally Hannah as harkmaster.

The first speaker to take the stage was Eleanor H with a speech mysteriously titled “Great PR or magic”. Eleanor told us the history of fairies from once scary and evil creatures such as changelings to the lovely and graceful flying creatures of today. No one knows what caused this momentous change but it is likely a bit of magic and a bit of PR. Second on stage was Eleanor G “Sleep tight”. Her objective of persuading us of the importance of sleep was met by a clever use of the stage and by telling us a story of when she experimented not sleeping for 3 days. This experiment didn’t end well and included hallucinations, losing balance and skin discoloration. Don’t underestimate the value of sleep folk! The third speaker on stage was Prateek “Me Inspire me”. Prateek inspired us by telling his own journey from an average teenager, to the person he is today that is able to travel at leisure and has a dream job. The secret was quite simple “act more, think less” and he urged everyone to follow a similar formula in order to be successful. Our final speaker on stage was Mahbub. Mahbub did an advanced speech from the Communicating on Video manual, simulating a press conference on the subject of sport and exercise.

The stage was then set for speech evaluations, with Terry, Robert, Fahad and John evaluating each of the evening’s speakers in turn. Each speaker was provided commendations and recommendations on areas like his/her use of the stage, vocal variety or speech structure.

After a short break our table topics master Stephen facilitated a fun impromptu speaking session with “is this a luxury or a necessity”. This being a washing machine or yearly holidays abroad. The session was then evaluated by George.

Functionaries Thomas and Hannah came back on stage to give their respective reports followed by our general evaluator of the evening Area Director Laurent Nicourt.