Our meeting this evening brought out the true spirit of Toastmasters, with members stepping in at the last minute to fill various roles. This is because transport and other problems prevented some members from attending.

So, the meeting was opened by Paul Andreas, who then introduced the President – himself.  Paul reported on the workshop that he had attended earlier in the week with Craig Valentine, reputedly one of the best speakers and coaches in the world.  Paul then encouraged members to subscribe to the London Speakers’ Newsletter to stay informed about similar events.

The Toastmaster of the Day was Alain Culos, an Engineer who likes to be prepared, which is why he chose the theme of Preparedness for the meeting.

Our first speaker was Neil Pettigrew, who gave an excellent educational speech about “Strategies for Impromptu Speaking”, a subject that he knows a lot about.  He shared with us some tips, which have helped him to become very good at Table Topic speeches and win several TT Contests.

This was followed by Georgina Singleton, whose speech title was “Boring”.  Georgina managed to make an interesting speech out of a boring subject, “Pensions”, which she embellished with an excellent Powerpoint Presentation.

The third speaker was Richard Murray with an inspirational speech about how we react to circumstances.  Are we like an egg, which goes hard in boiling water or like a potato, which goes soft in boiling water?  We can choose and make a Spanish Omelette with the results!

After the break we were entertained by Table Topics led by our TTM, Luke Dzierzek, who did an excellent job especially as he has been a member for only five weeks.

The award for best evaluation went to Dave Hampton, best speech award went to Richard Murray and the best Table Topic Award went to Eddie Barnes who gave a humorous speech about his struggle with new technology.  It’s great to welcome Eddie back as he has been unable to attend the club for several months.  Congratulations on winning an award on the first meeting back.

The meeting was wrapped up with a presentation of their pins to the new Committee.

 

News:

Simon Maggs was unable to attend the meeting because he broke a bone in his foot earlier that day.  We wish him a speedy recovery.

The day after our meeting Richard Murray competed in the “Corporate Speaking Challenge 2016 Contest” and won.  The competition was fierce, as the quality of speeches was high, with ten finalists so congratulations, Richard, who gets to keep a big silver cup for a year, as a reward.

Congratulations to Neil Pettigrew who celebrated his 60^th birthday at the Knights Templar pub last Saturday with friends from school, uni and the various clubs that he belongs to –  a great evening of food, drink and dancing to some of Neil’s favourite music.

Neil Pettigrew opened the meeting then handed over to our President, Paul Andreas.

 

Paul reported back on the advanced club, Excalibur’s, open evening the previous week and encouraged members to visit Excalibur, so that they could learn some advanced speaking skills and  then bring back to their home club.

 

Richard Green was the Toastmaster for the evening who then introduced his team of Simon Maggs, Timekeeper, Georgina Singleton, Grammarian and Margot Glover, Ah Counter.  Jenny Taggart then warmed us up and Alain Culos gave us a Hot Tip, which was to remember to shake hands when transferring the stage to someone else.

 

The first speech was given by Luke Dzierzek, a new member, giving his Icebreaker speech.  Luke told us a very interesting and entertaining story about his love of music and how his hobby had become his career.

 

This was followed by an entertaining speech about the Moon Landings by Dave Henson. 

 

The final speech was an educational speech from the “Successful Club Series” titled “Evaluate to Motivate”  by Paul Andreas.  Paul gave a presentation about how to create excellent evaluations, using the CRC sandwich method and then use them to motivate, inspire and encourage other members.

 

This was followed by the break and the opportunity to eat some of the delicious biscuits that Neil Pettigrew, our SAA, had provided.

 

In the second part of the meeting we were entertained by some very interesting Table Topics, dreamed up by our TT Master, Karen Mefflin.

And the Best Speaker Award went to Dave Henson and the best Table Topic Award went to Alex Clark who had given a very entertaining speech about, “What Makes You Angry?”

 

Congratulations were given to Susan Rayner and Alex Clark for achieving their Competent Communicator Awards

 

After the meeting several members retired to the Anglesey Arms, where there was a very lively discussion about moon landings, music and evaluations – amongst other things.

 

At the end of the meeting several members asked Paul Andreas to email them the slides and script that Paul used in his speech about “Great Evaluations”.  If you would like a copy then please email Paul at ToastmasterPaul@yahoo.co.uk