Tag: Toastmasters

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Announcements Toastmasters International

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests – Area Finals

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London Victorians is excited to host this years Area 8, Humorous Speech & Table Topic contests. 

This will be held at our Toastmaster venue between Victoria & Pimlico stations on Tuesday 27th of September

Anyone is welcome to come along and see some of the best Toastmasters in the Victoria and Westminster area compete to win the chance to speak at the Toastmasters Division B contest in October. 

The Victoria & Westminster Area 8 final will start at 18:45 promptly, please arrive any time from 18:30 to get ready for the contest. There will be no admittance once the contest has started!

How to find the Victoria & Westminster Area 8, Humorous Speech & Table Topic Toastmaster contest

Our venue is St James the Less church function rooms. The venue is slightly closer to Pimlico underground station and only a 10 minute walk from London Victoria Station. 

The entrance, behind a set of black iron gates is set back from Vauxhall Bridge Road behind a paved square area with trees and planters, along side a restaurant called ‘Moo Cantina’. 

Once you go through the black iron gates you will see a black church door, there is a buzzer to the right, please ring and one of our Toastmaster members will let you in. 

What to expect at the Victoria & Westminster Area 8, Humorous Speech & Table Topic Toastmaster contest

Toastmaster contests are held twice a year to allow willing members to showcase their skills at Club, Area, Division, District and once a year at an International Level. Our Toastmaster contest in Westminster will showcase the best humorous speech and table topics speakers from the 4 clubs in our area. 

During the first half of the meeting you will see up to 8 of the Victoria area Toastmasters delivering prepared speeches, which will be designed to be humorous. These should make you smile and laugh, while being a definite speech rather than a series of jokes. 

In the second half of the Westminster area Toastmaster meeting, you will see the best Table Topic’s speakers compete against each other to deliver a 1 to 2 minute speech on a completely impromptu subject. This is a masterful Toastmaster skill of turning a statement, question or sometimes even an object, in to a speech without any prior preparation. 

WE WELCOME ANYONE TO COME AND SEE THE CONTEST, and we particularly encourage members from the competing clubs to come and support your fellow members while they attempt to win representation of our great area at the Division B final. 

If you have any questions please get in touch via Facebook on our contact us page.

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Contest Past meetings Toastmasters International

Homorous Speech and Table Topics Contest

The lights were dimmed, guests were in their seats, and the judges had been briefed; most were relaxed, looking forward to the evening’s entertaining speeches. The contestants and organisers were looking a bit more serious. 13th September 2016 was the London Victorians contests evening.

rsz_IMG_1082The first half of the meeting was the Humorous Speech Contest and, after a short introduction from the club President, Sophia to took the stage as Contest Chair.

Sophia bounded with energy and enthusiasm as she explained the important rules and order of events. Looking calm and relaxed on stage, it is great to see the amazing benefits of regular toastmasters practice coming together for such a demanding role. She made sure each and every contestant was welcomed to the stage with rapturous applause, London Victorians style.

Humorous Speaking Contest

We had four humorous speeches lined up. Christophe was first, with a speech titled “Worst Advice”, where he told us of all the wonderful advice he has received in his life, along with the consequences. With advice like “just be yourself and everything will be fine” and “if you ignore the bullies, they’ll get bored and leave you alone”, Christophe took life examples many people can relate to and emphasised the ridiculousness of the advice they are  often given. A sure fire way to ensure the audience would be roaring with laughter.

Next up was George who used a part of his life story to take us on his journey from being “caught” by his wife through the Plenty of Fish dating website to his experiences as a white man living in Uganda. In particular, the way he was perceived by the locals and his attempts to negotiate a fair price on anything he bought. George mixed his humour with a serious message, concluding with a plea to treat everyone fairly.

rsz_IMG_1105Then came AK who taught us the art of lying. He said that lying was a very bad thing…if you don’t have the skills. AK then proceeded to go through the ethics of lying with using very funny examples.

Last but by no means least was John who, apparently (see photo), is a life coach but is definitely aware of how prolific the industry has become with “self help gurus”. John explained that he specialised in helping those suffering a “quarter life crisis”. He dispelled some myths in his attempts to convince us the condition was real and was adamant that a quarter was not equal to half a midlife crisis, rather it was a full on medical condition in its own right!

Table Topic Contest

The second half of the meeting Tom took over as Contest Chair for the Table Topics Contest. The format here was slightly different so Tom asked the Sergeant at Arms, Stephen and Ed, to escort the contestants outside the room. They then returned one at a time where they each answered the same table topic question:

“What little white lies do you tell?”

As you would expect, each contestant put their own spin on their responses but, let’s just say, it turns out a lot of London Victorians lie about their age!

Tom kept everyone entertained with an informal table topic session while the judges formalised the results. He then handed the stage to Florian who, as Chief Judge, announced the results of both contests.

John and Christophe took first and second place respectively in the Humorous Speech contest. Christophe, Lawrence and Gary came first, second and third in the Table Topics.

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Past meetings Toastmasters International

Speaking in the Summer – 30th August

On Tuesday 30th August, St James the Less Church buzzed with anticipation as toastmasters and guests took their seats. Eleanor Gelston filled in for Terry as President and kicked off the meeting by reminiscing about her own Toastmasters journey and how she had faced her fear of speaking in public. She ended on a powerful notes “all you have to do is do it” before handing over to the Toastmasters of the evening, Prateek.

Toastmasters give rapturous applause
Enthusiastic club members

Prateek immediately filled the room with energy and enthusiasm. He encouraged both sides of the room to cheer and clap as loudly as possible as he first introduced the functionaries and then the speakers.

Christophe gave the first speech of the night. Speaking about the US Presidential Elections and why his support goes to Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. He used powerful language to describe why Clinton would drive the USA to the ground as opposed to Trump who will make the country great again. He analysed the candidates’ solutions to three current issues: international trade, Russia and the terrorist organisation ISIS. He concluded that Trump has brought these issues to the forefront and is committed to solving them, while Clinton has no real solutions.

The second speaker was Eleanor Bucher who took us on a journey through Iceland. She guided the audience through the country by their senses, describing the sensation of standing on tectonic plates, the sound of horses’ hooves, the smell of “lip-curling” sulphur, the taste of salty fish and finally the magnificent sight of the honeycomb harbour building in Reykjavik.

Eleanor Handslip spoke next about “another Eleanor” (Eleanors took centre stage at this meeting!) and told us about the difficult life of Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the USA. She described Eleanor Roosevelt’s sad childhood as an orphan and her marriage to Franklin D.Roosevelt which was complicated by his interfering mother and his affair with his secretary. She then related how Eleanor Roosevelt overcame these challenges and became a role model for ambitious women as well as an advocate for human rights.

The final speech was by Thomas who shared a powerful and persuasive message: everyone must share in globalisation and wealth. He told us that he put money behind Brexit and described the vote to leave the EU as a “vote against globalisation”. He then outlined the history behind globalisation and international trade, taking us back to the Industrial Revolution. He highlighted the link between globalisation and xenophobia and the rise of nationalism.

Tom doing his competant communicator speech 9 - persuade with power
Toastmaster of the meeting Thomas

In the second half of the meeting we listened to some entertaining and insightful table topics. Isabelle who chose “looking back and moving forward” as the theme asked speakers to talk about memories and future plans. Questions ranged from “would you take part in a mission to Mars” to “if you could invite a historical figure to dinner, who would you choose?”

It was a great meeting which showcased the talent of London Victorians – come along to the next meeting on Tuesday 6th September at 6.45pm!

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Past meetings Toastmasters International

Impromptu Speaking Galore – 19th July

We last meeting basked in summer heat and guess what. With four speeches, including an impromptu one by our past President Florian, we raised the temperature yet further! Robert took charge of the meeting as Toastmaster for the very first time (well done Robert!) and quickly introduced his team of functionaries for the evening. Christophe as timekeeper, Andrew as grammarian and last but not least, Cleo as harkmaster.

Toastmaster of the meeting Robert showing the Competent Communicator manual
Toastmaster of the meeting Robert showing the Competent Communicator manual

Andy did the first speech of the evening ‘A Caribbean Pirate’ telling us the story of Wolfie, a dog his family adopted while he was working in the Caribbean. Thomas followed on by beginning his speech ‘Practice Pratice’ with a reference to Carnegie Hall and how only the best musicians perform here. The secret to performing here is indeed practice and Thomas told us a personal story of how as a cello player, he and a friend could have avoided making a routine mistake by practicing more. The third speech was an impromptu one delivered by Florian who was asked what he would do if he became UK Foreign Secretary. Visits to Germany, Russia, France and the United States featured in the speech and an insistence that the UK should always be open to others. Finally, Fahad in the last speech of the meeting ‘The Most Powerful Force in the Universe’ told us the power of exponential growth. A power illustrated by mankind’s population growth since antiquity, house price inflation and many more examples. The value of the pound if our pocket is diminishing as we speak, scary…

Practice makes perfect according to our second speaker!
Practice makes perfect according to our second speaker!

John, Sophia, Romain and Tatiana evaluated the speakers in turn, giving them feedback on their strong points and areas for improvement.

Speech evaluator Tatiana
Speech evaluator Tatiana

More impromptu speaking followed after a short break with AK taking control as table topics master. AK came up with questions based on how people would behave in an alternate universe were they were infamous politicians. These could be Nigel Farage pursued by a mob or Donald Trump with his wig falling off. Guests and members took turns answering these questions and were provided feedback on their performance by table topic evaluator Terry.

AK our lively impromptu speaking master
AK our lively impromptu speaking master

John and Cleo then came back for their respective reports followed by our general evaluator Karthik.

Categories
Past meetings Toastmasters International

Best Scientific Advances and Improvised Speeches – 12th July 

Florian was the Toastmaster of the evening and chose a very “Florianesque” theme of the evening: What are the best scientific advances?  Personally, I would have picked toilet paper, but thankfully the speakers and functionary had more meaningful answers such as antibiotics, the wheel, and the Internet.  Fahad as the Grammarian picked the word phenomenal and asked the audience to yell “EUREKA” whenever it was used in the meeting.  This ensured plentiful usage.  Cleo was timekeeper and Judy was Harkmaster.

We had four speeches from various levels of the CC.  The first speaker, Christophe, started us off by explaining why veganism is trending.  It was quite a deep speech with questions such as why do we call it beef rather than cow or pork rather than pig. Was it to distance ourselves from the animal?  I had to think about it that night when I chowed down on my beef tartar.

The second speaker was Eleanor who successfully convinced us that Beethoven’s music is so good that NASA decided to put his music on the Voyager spacecraft that is now 15 billion kilometers away from Earth.  And the craziest fact about Beethoven is that he continued to compose against all odds even as he became completely deaf.

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Eleanor delivering her speech

George is an EBay guru.  In his speech, he told the story of how a 3-hour PowerPoint presentation in the British Library turned into him publishing a book that is available on Amazon.  And he did not stop there!  He wrote three more books after that.

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George delivering his speech

The last speaker of the evening was Tatiana, with a speech about her Pie Challenge.  She made a bet with a friend to bake a pie in as many countries as possible.  It turns out this is quite an undertaking.  Think about it.  You need a kitchen, ingredients, and time in order to make this happen.  And she has done it 8 times now!  I have never even baked a pie in my life!

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Tatiana delivering her speech

Lastly on agenda were table topics with our excellent Table Topics Master Nuala.  She provided pictures for the speakers to improvise on.  We had several great stories including Pranav, who would build a nuclear reactor using a paper clip and bandaid and John who told the story of an old lady that kidnapped his cat Curtis.

Overall, the meeting was phenomenal!  EUREKA!