David Hampton is a management consultant from Sevenoaks. He has been a member of Toastmasters for and incredible 19 years and a member of Bromley Speakers club for 18 of those years.
When asked why he joined Toastmasters David said, “I was moving to a role where I would spend a lot of time training people and needed to be more comfortable speaking without a script. I had enjoyed debating at school and university.”
David likes Bromley Speakers club because it’s very friendly and the members are easy-going people. He believes that the meetings are really well organised with good speakers that he can learn from. The less-experienced speakers get practice and receive helpful feedback from the more experienced speakers, which helps them to improve.
David finds the second half of the meetings, the Table Topics sessions, tremendously beneficial as they have helped him to develop his skills and confidence in an impromptu setting. The sessions have particularly helped his ability to speak and think at the same time, while simultaneously creating a structure to what he is saying.
“One particular benefit of Table Topics is that, by becoming better at thinking and speaking at the same time, I have more head-space for finding particular way of phrasing a criticism, or my disagreement with the client, so that it comes across as a suggestion or a recommendation.”
The nature of David’s work requires him to deliver a great deal of training.
“I lead workshops and I coach people and giving speech evaluations on a club night helps me with this aspect of my job. I need to present myself as confident and articulate, particularly when I am advising clients who are senior leaders, or in a sales setting.”
David has ambitions of setting up a new Toastmasters club in his home town of Sevenoaks. However, with his busy work schedule, that will have to wait until he retires.
David has entered various Toastmasters contests over the years. His humorous speech entitled ‘My Shame’ won 2nd place in the District 71 Conference in 2002 and can be viewed on youtube.
David, a great team player who likes to get involved when the time permits, recently took part in a promotional video for District 91 which we are looking forward to seeing soon.
Bromley Speakers meets at Ripley Arts Centre, Bromley on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Thursdays of the month, at 7.15 pm.
For more information please email us
vppublicrelations@bromleyspeakers.co.uk