Stories are fundamental parts of our lives, we relate to them, learn from them and live by them.
Our standing in president was Mohammed, he took us back 40 years ago to grade 1 primary school, where his teacher Madeeha (Praiser in Arabic) praised his performance in tests by saying “Mohammed I gave you 10 out of 10, if I could give you more I would give you 11 out of 10” This is how positive words build us and we remember them for a long time. Same in Toastmasters, we build each other and encourage each other to keep improving. We all have inside each one of us a story, a message a song that is wanting to come out to the world.
Isabelle, Toastmaster talked about the power of story and how her interest in the refugee crises has given her the opportunity to visit camps in Turkey. Stories convince us and many times motivate us into action. Watch the clip here.
Sara, Time Keeper talking about her role and the use of coloured cards to control the flow of the whole meeting, green you are ok to continue your speech, amber it is good to start wrapping up, red you have run out of time and the bell after 30 seconds of red would mean that you are having too much fun.
Anna Bevan, Grammarian introduced the word of the day with a smile “Cantankerous” which apparently means bad-tempered, she watched beautiful uses of the language and interesting descriptive ones not forgetting counting all these filler words that we all are trying to avoid using like Ems, O I just used it, that must’ve made you cantankerous Anna.
Joe spring up to be the Hark master waving the box of chocolate if we listened carefully and answered his inquisitions at the end of the evening, he emphasised the importance of listened for public speakers and how he would be listening to those salient words and phrases.
Andrew Steavenson the first speaker flexed his muscles as he danced his way into displaying what Salsa is all about, how it all started and how it developed over the centuries starting from Nigeria, via Cube and the rest of the world, as it passed by countries, the people added their own flavour, now stop that dancing Andrew you are infecting us with fun. Salsa; a visual guide was the title and it was really.
Florian had a workshop up his sleeve entitled The SAVE Method to convey complex topics simply. The audience enjoyed picking up a number of skills on how to get your point across quickly. Florian suitably injected entertainment and group exercise that showed effective teaching methods. I am sure many of us will use those thoughts in many years to come in our journeys. Here are the clips part 1 and part 2.
Oriana evaluated Andrews speech and she stepped in with obvious confidence commenting on the effectiveness of using visual aids in the speech shedding light on the use of music and Andrew’s passion on the subject.
Pascale evaluated Florian’s workshop dishing out what she found great as well as points to consider to make it even greater. She liked the interactions with the audience, the use of group exercise being engaging. She reminded us of the need to use clear to see displays so that people at the back can see them well.
Ten minutes break gave all the chance to stretch, refresh and hand over those tiny strips of paper with commendations and recommendations to the two speakers.
We chatted to our guests and encouraged them to sign to talk on the night by heading to our Table Topics Master Yumi who swiftly came up with three boxes to choose from to base our speeches on; A subject box, an object box and a location, boy we had fun. The line up included Edwin, Azeem, Amy, Andrew, Claudia and Oriana.
Edwin talked about Aladdin and how he wanted to marry the girl of his dreams, however let’s not forget that Aladdin was a thief.
Azeem described the scene in a tiny cottage with 7 dwarfs cosy compared to the outside world of thunder in the forest.
Amy pulled us into Maleficent drawing comparisons with witches from similar stories like Snow White and how innocent she was as a character.
Andrew went with Cinderella and emphasised that at times you would find yourself working under oppressive work conditions and yes Cinderella did have her slippers made of glass, perhaps a matching glass dress would be good.
Claudia walked us with Shrek and a magic wand that might be more useful in bringing some food to the table instead of just converting a toad to a prince.
Oriana had to select Ario and a poisoned apple juggling both into a story woven around some vocal variety and her melodic voice. Our Grammarian Anna reported 5 uses of the word “Cantankerous” and 17 Em’s. Florian’s descriptive languages “The web is getting denser and denser and denser”, his SAVE acronym.
What a wonderful night packed with high energy, learning, speeches, evaluations and proper time keeping.
For the table topics the winner was Edwin ! Yay ! Congratulations to him and to all those who contributed in turning up and sharing value to improve our lives.
Is it time you joined the fun?
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