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Inspired by workshop on how to win the International Speech Contest

Our fabulous member Karen has kindly written up the following blog as an overview of the awesome workshop given at London Victorians Toastmasters Club in January:

Ever wondered what it takes to deliver a world class speech? Or how to communicate a message powerfully and persuasively?

London Victorians were given the tools to do just that last week at a masterclass in speech craft delivered by Toastmasters veteran and legend, Freddie Daniels. With speech season about to get underway, Freddie shared lots of tips on how to make it to the Olympics of public speaking –  Toastmasters World Championships! For those of us less focused on contest glory, there were lots of useful insights and tools to help improve our communication skills.  Top among Freddie’s tips were:

Keep it simple

Don’t underestimate the power of a simple, relatable message.  Speeches that highlight common challenges, life lessons or universally accepted wisdom do well at speech contests. Freddie encouraged us to think about our own experiences and the lessons we’ve learned. What advice would you give to your younger self? Wisdom is the bedrock of inspiration as Freddie reminded us and an audience loves a speech it can relate to.

Watch a movie

What do Hollywood movies and world class speeches have in common? Freddie showed us that both have a well-told story at their core. The Pursuit of Happiness, the Kings Speech and Disney movies are examples of great storytelling. They all follow a predictable pattern, the ideal structure for a cracking speech – a situation, a main character, a goal, an obstacle and a journey to success. If you’re concerned it might not be possible to fit all that into a ten-minute speech, check out toastmasters website to see recordings of previous winners.

Have a laugh

Freddie really emphasised the power of humour. Speeches that win at district, area and international level are those that entertain. He reminded us that even when speaking about the most serious of topics, a dash of humour has the power to move an audience and keep them interested.

You can never have enough mentors

They say it takes a village to raise a child… Freddie’s workshop really showed that it takes a whole bunch of mentors, supporters and friends to craft a great speech. Freddie stressed the importance of practicing at different clubs, getting tips from those who have done well before, gathering feedback and constantly refining the delivery.

Interested in pushing yourself and taking your step towards the final? London Victorians club contest is taking place on 7 March and there are still places available. As Freddie said, someone’s got to win and that someone could be you!

 

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Past meetings Toastmasters International Workshop

World Champion of Public Speaking – Tuesday 10th May

On Tuesday we had the pleasure of hosting Mohammed Qahtani the 2015 World champion of public speaking. The workshop was split into two parts, the first part entitled “Conquer adversity and live up to your dreams”, The second section of the workshop was entitled “Inject more humour into your speeches”. Mohammed delivered a very dynamic, humorous and energetic workshop with Q&A sessions after each section.

Our guest of honour Mohammed Qahtani
Our guest of honour Mohammed Qahtani

Mohammed began the first section of the workshop by stating that in order to achieve your dreams the word “impossible” should not exist in your vocabulary. To effectively achieve your dreams successfully, he broke down the challenge of achieving your dream into a number of steps and listed adversities that you may encounter. For each item, he also included a fact or anecdote as an example.

Mohammed explained to the audience the need to have specific goals, and included the advice that goals should not be superficial; ideally they should have a higher or noble cause. Once you have identified your dreams, Mohammed provided advice in facing limiting fears by using facts to dispel worry. He cited that often what we fear is irrational. Using the common fear of snakes as an example, Mohammed stated that “16% of snakes are poisonous, 40% have fangs than can bite, 2% have poison that can kill humans and often snakes only bite when they are being attacked.” Therefore like many fears, the fear of snakes is, in some ways irrational.

Mohammed addressing our packed venue
Mohammed addressing our packed venue

Mohammed’s workshop offered practical advice that he finds effective in controlling fear. He demonstrated this in an exercise with the audience, asking participants to breathe deep into the belly to get the benefits inhaling and exhaling slowly, to calm nerves.

Mohammed added a humorous element by demonstrating to the audience how to become more self aware. He did this by utilising Nadia a member of the audience, to throw rolled up paper balls at him if he said anything negative during the proceedings. This added comedy value throughout his workshop and highlighted to the audience that we should have more self awareness and approach life in a more positive manner.

In summary of the workshop in dealing with adversity and living up to your dreams, Mohammed urged the audience not to live an ordinary life. He went on to end the section with the statement “Don’t just exist, live” explaining that he has a bucket list and every year he adds 5 things to this list to complete before he dies. Mohammed told the audience that he reminds himself of this bucket list daily, continually adding and stroking off goals once completed.

Packed room for this special event!
Packed room for this special event!

The second section of the workshop began with Mohammed explaining the reasons why humour is important in order to catch the audience’s attention, maintain audience engagement, and how humour can often help in delivering an important message. He spoke about his basic rules of comedy, different types of humour, and the benefits and pitfalls of each. He then demonstrated his skills with a very humourous prepared speech in which he recounted an aeroplane journey where he changed his seat multiple times and encountered new issues each time, intertwining a message at the end; that we should take control of our lives and actively change our circumstances if we are unhappy.

Thanking our guest and the audience for an amazing event!
Thanking our guest and the audience for an amazing event!

Overall Mohamed’s two workshops were very inspiring and included excellent practical advice on humorous speech making, goal setting, positive thinking and how to lead extraordinary lives.

Refreshments for the break kindly provided by Savse Smoothies.
Amazing refreshments for the break were kindly provided by Savse Smoothies.

We would like to thanks to Savse for the smoothies and Warren Sheng for the photographs!

Categories
Past meetings Toastmasters International Workshop

Evaluation Workshop – Tuesday 26th April

On Tuesday, London Victorians held an evaluation workshop with guest facilitator Catherine Casale. Eleanor G was Toastmaster, Fahad as Sergeant At Arms and Stephen took on the role of timekeeper.

Eleanor G as Toastmaster
Eleanor G as Toastmaster

Catherine hosted an interactive workshop, including a visual presentation and there was lots of audience interaction. Toastmasters has a longstanding tradition of evaluating and there are many benefits to this practice.

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Catherine hosting the Evaluation Workshop

During the workshop Catherine highlighted the fact that the practice of delivering constructive feedback builds emotional intelligence, develops critical thinking skills and these transferable techniques can easily be incorporated within scenarios outside Toastmasters. She split the Evaluation workshop into three main sections; why evaluate, key evaluation concepts, and practice makes proficient.

During the workshop we explored how each participant benefits during the evaluation process from the three main stakeholders; the evaluator, the audience, and the speaker’s perspective.

In the third section, Catherine invited 6 volunteers to evaluate two speeches, and after Rob’s speech she invited three volunteers to try out new structures in order to experiment with technique and explore ways to develop and improve the evaluation process. 

First speaker on stage was George who delivered his icebreaker. His speech informed the audience of his multi-faceted life; from being in the Royal Air Force, to writing books on ebay selling techniques and most recently acquiring a farm in Uganda. It was an entertaining and informative speech which was very engaging.

Robert delivered a well-structured speech educating the audience in some of the psychological aspects of playing tennis, and how the game is not just a physical sport. Whilst training at professional level, Robert recounted the lessons of sportsmanship versus gamesmanship. During his tennis training he was taught techniques such as breaking your opponents playing rhythm when they had built momentum with stalling techniques for example, tying shoelaces or bouncing the tennis ball.

Robert delivering his speech
Robert delivering his speech

An excellent workshop…Join us on for our next meeting on 3rd of May!