Graeme Conn was our Acting-President this week. Graeme opened the meeting with a confident and authoritative introduction, explaining how the skills gained through Toastmasters can be applied to many aspects of our lives. Graeme as usual was particularly welcoming to the guests, one of the main duties of the President.

After an absence over the past few weeks it was great to see Adrian Carter back as our Toastmaster for the evening. Adrian introduced the role in his relaxed and conversational style, and got us all up on our feet and speaking to the person next to us which was very effective in waking up the audience and raising the energy – a key task for every Toastmaster, but often easier said than done.

Marvin Barrett kicked off the prepared speeches with his No.2 speech on the subject of “The 3 benefits of goal setting”. A great speech subject that is universal to us all, Marvin explained that the benefits of goal setting are that it gives you focus, motivation, and adds value to your life. As Marvin told us in his conclusion – “Goal setting turns the imaginable into the tangible”. A well delivered second speech, accomplished without the use of notes.

Second on the programme was Ian Brown, who won best prepared speech of the night, with the story of his high adventures in Afghanistan. In keeping with the objectives of a no 4 speech he used vivid language to evoke the high mountain scenery and atmosphere of a remote Afghan village. He told us how he survived his trek – taking care to decline the kind offer of blue pills that he feared would have left him ‘out of his tree and up a mountain’.

Our third speaker was Zoe Colbeck, delivering a speech from the advanced “Speaking to Inform” manual. Zoe told us about the water wheel that has been installed at the National Trust property where she works. Zoe did well to deliver a technical speech, packed full of complex concepts and statistics, in a way that engaged the audience and left us interested and informed.

After the break Hisham Al-Obaidi led the Table Topics session. It was Hisham’s first time in the role, and he achieved the most important function of any Table Topics Master – choosing topics that give plenty of opportunity for improvisation and humour. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in a variety of roles, and were asked to respond to an imaginary question from the audience, provided by Hisham. We had leaders of BP asked to explain the recent oil spill, doctors asked to extol the virtues of a good breakfast, and a Prime Minister asked to sell the idea of higher taxes to a wary audience. For the second week running the contest was won by a guest, this time Doltam with a brilliant piece of persuasion to convince the audience that the moon is actually closer than Canada.

Nigel Barber filled the Table Topics Evaluator role at short notice, but still managed to give such a good performance that it earned him the Best Evaluator award. A great advertisement for what regular attendance at Toastmasters can help you achieve!

We also had a faultless example of timekeeping from Alan Mountain in the role for the first time, and we were under the grammatical guidance of the inimitable Kaveh Pourvand.

We were lucky to have Liz Hobbs from Tube Talk as our General Evaluator, and Liz gave a master-class in thorough, composed evaluating. Great feedback was given to speakers and the club in general, all delivered just within the time allotted, which is often difficult for GE’s to achieve.

Thus another successful Holborn meeting adjourned to the bar. Don’t forget there is now a break for a couple of weeks. The next meeting is on Tuesday 7th September.

Meeting report by James Goddard

Filed by: jgoddard | Category: Uncategorized
Friday, August 20th 2010 11:50 am

Zoe Colbeck was once again Acting-President. Zoe opened the meeting by talking about her day at work, and raised the energy of the audience with her warm and cheerful demeanour.

After a year of presidential responsibilities it was good to see Chris Boden back amongst the regular roles, as our Toastmaster for the evening. Chris delivered his usual energetic and confident performance, and was particularly effective in using the time between speakers to pass on his own experiences of how Toastmasters skills have been applied in situations in his own life, such as being asked to MC a wedding reception. Chris also gave advice on best man speeches and the importance of knowing your audience, and being clear as to the purpose of any speech you deliver. An excellent example of confident Toastmastering.

James Goddard kicked off the prepared speeches with an explanation of the underlying structure that is common to all myths and stories about heroes. It was a speech that ranged over mythology, folktales and psychology, and won James the Best Prepared Speech award.

Graeme Conn plugged a gap in the programme with an impromptu speech that stunned the audience by using the TV screen above the stage for the very first time! Displaying a photograph of his son and three friends, Graeme told us how a picture can tell more than one story, and cleverly weaved a story of South Africa’s past, present and future.

Nazia Soon delivered a speech from the advanced Interpretive Reading manual. Nazia chose to read the text of “The Mindless Menace of Violence”, a speech delivered by Bobby Kennedy the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King against a backdrop of simmering racial tension during the Civil Rights Movement. The interpretive reading is always a tough task, but Nazia delivered the text with great authority and pacing, and had the audience hanging on every word. It is a speech notable not only for its technical structure and rhetorical devices, but more importantly for the humanity of its central message. Those of you that are interested can hear Bobby Kennedy deliver the speech here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVfjZllSFvw&feature=related

After the break Zoe Colbeck once again took to the stage to lead the Table Topics session. Zoe had chosen a theme of family and relationships, and we had topics ranging from advice on family reunions, to childhood recollections of breaking rules. A guest, Pierce, won the Table Topics award for a very funny account of his first date.

David Jones gave great feedback to the Table Topics participants, including some useful recommendations, a performance that earned him the Best Evaluator award.

We also had a faultless performance of Timekeeping from Chris Wedgewood undertaking the role for the first time, and Ian Brown blithely administered his Grammarian’s responsibilities.

Peter Fruzzetti was our General Evaluator and gave an evaluation that was cool, measured and extremely thorough, as is Peter’s trademark style.

We hope to see you all at the next meeting, Tuesday 17th August.

Filed by: jgoddard | Category: Uncategorized
Monday, August 16th 2010 11:56 am

At a meeting in which almost half the audience were guests, Zoe Colbeck was acting-President for the evening. Fresh from a day of interviewing, Zoe introduced the meeting with an account of how Toastmasters can help us with our confidence and performance in interview situations, and cleverly brought this back to the history of Toastmasters’ founding as a way to help Depression-era American youth find employment.

The Toastmaster role was yet again in the capable hands of Graeme Conn, who gave another authoritative performance. Graeme explained every section of the meeting very clearly, and was particularly welcoming to the many guests.

The first of two Icebreaker speeches was delivered by Alan Mountain, who told us of his childhood in South Africa, his  travelling throughout South and North America, the many and varied jobs he has held whilst living in the UK, and how all of this has shaped the person he is. It was a very competent first speech, winning Alan the Best Prepared Speech award on the night.

Chris Wedgewood also delivered his Icebreaker speech. A personal account of his philosophy on life, his golf career, and what made him first come to Toastmasters, it was a warm and funny introduction.

Well done to Alan and Chris for kicking off their Toastmaster careers with such assured performances.

Third speaker of the evening was Julie Bart delivering a speech from the Advanced Storytelling manual. Julie told the fascinating story of Johnny Appleseed, an American folk hero famous for wandering the land sowing apple seed, and being an early conservationist and missionary.

James Goddard was Topics Master, overseeing a fun session where participants were asked to imagine themselves as President of some weird and wonderful British clubs and societies and sell us the idea of membership. We had some great examples of impromptu speaking, with “Presidents” from the London Seduction Society, Cliff Richard Fan Club of London, Daydream Relaxation Club,  Salt and Pepper Collectors Society, etc.

Regular Table Topics winner Chris Boden took the award for an excellent performance as an ambassador of the Edgeware Pie Throwers.

Bode Sharp did a great job evaluating the Table Topics speakers, but it wasn’t enough to stop David Jones winning the Best Evaluator award for evaluating Julie Bart’s speech.

Hisham Al-Obaidi gave a faultless example of Timekeeping, and we were treated to the linguistic scrutiny of Anthony Robinson in the Grammarian role.

General Evaluator Paul O’Keefe, from West London Speakers, rounded off another successful Holborn Speakers meeting.

Don’t forget to book yourself in for a role at our next meeting on Tuesday August 10^th.

Filed by: jgoddard | Category: Uncategorized
Saturday, August 7th 2010 6:36 pm

This week’s meeting was opened by our new President, Dominique Fourniol, who reminded us of Toastmaster’s history and gave us a description of the various manuals that it is possible to work through as a Toastmasters member. Another assured performance from Dom that would have been of particular interest to the guests, which is one of the President’s main objectives.

Toastmaster for the evening was Michaela Talbot who gave her usual faultless performance, and told us the three main reasons that she continues to come to Toastmasters: the feedback, the stage practice, and the bar! Michaela had also gone to the trouble of asking all the participants what their dream job or dream place to live would be. A really well prepared element that helped us learn something about others in the club.

We were treated to three speeches from experienced members of the club. Firstly Rosalind delivered her No.10 speech – a personal and inspiring story of her father’s death from leukaemia, and how adversity can be overcome through love and compassion. A fantastic speech that earned the best prepared speech award on the night. Congratulations to Ros on achieving her Competent Communicator award.

Fresh from her travels in the USA, Zoe gave us a speech on how best to organise a family reunion. Apparently the secret ingredients are location, plenty of activities to suit all ages, and timing the reunion so that as many as possible can attend. A really well structured and warmly delivered speech, it’s great to have Zoe back with us!

Thirdly we had a speech from the ever energetic Freddie Daniells, speaking from the advanced Humorous Speech manual. Transforming the story of how he awaited the launch of the new iPhone 4 into a funny and fast-paced narrative it was an excellent example of vocal variety and dramatic storytelling, delivered with typical Freddie Daniells gusto!

After the break the speeches were evaluated by Nathalie Durmuller, Peter Fruzetti and Chris Boden respectively. Guy Smith took charge of the Table Topics session, giving participants the chance to indulge in some salesmanship. Topics ranged from trying to sell the merits of black and white TVs in an age of high definition; selling the idea of smoking to a health conscious population; selling the holiday potential of Slough; and selling the tempting prospect of a dinner date with Gordon Brown – a performance for which Chris Boden won a justly deserved Table Topics prize. Well done to Guy for producing such inventive Topics that provided some great humour.

The Table Topics were evaluated by the inimitable Ratan Lele. Ratan gave another excellent evaluation, mixing useful recommendations with his own unique brand of humour. This created a Holborn Speakers first – a three way split in the Best Evaluator award, shared by Ratan, Chris Boden and Peter Fruzetti.

The meeting was rounded off by a General Evaluation from Andrew Jones of Early Bird Speakers, providing some useful recommendations for members and the club as a whole. Thanks to Andrew for filling the role.

Thus another successful Holborn meeting adjourned downstairs to the bar. For those of you wise enough to be in possession of a ticket to the Holborn Anniversary Party on the 23rd July, we shall see you there. Otherwise, our next regular meeting is on August 3rd.

Filed by: jgoddard | Category: Meetings
Thursday, July 22nd 2010 5:22 pm

Ian Brown grabbed the coveted best prepared speech award, while the hotly contested table topics trophy was lifted by our very own Mother Theresa…Kaveh Pourvand. Jackie Brennan managed to fight off audience distractions to win the best evaluator prize and the president’s award is on it’s way to Fremantle, Australia.

Ian Brown kicked off the prepared speeches with his speech entitled “booze blues”, the no #3 is about getting to the point and that he certainly did, he made us aware of the dangers of excessive alcohol. The governor of the Rugby Tavern might have wondered why the profits for the evening were down and why some of the Holborn members were drinking half pints. Hisham Al-Obaidi confessed to being a “drug dealer”, of the authorised kind – he told us about his life as a pharmacist and definitely managed to inform the audience, and if you can do that in an Ice Breaker well then you’re already starting to punch in the next division, a very confident first speech. Joga’s humorous impromptu speech gave us some insight into the world of Joga Bains and how to impress a lady on a first date with a bag of hot chips. He gave us a humorous account of his first meeting with his in-laws to be, or “outlaws” as he called them.

A concise round of speech evaluations followed the break. Michaela Talbot, Martin Mwaka and Anna Hayward all impressed, welcome back Anna Hayward after being away from Holborn for some time.

Table topics followed with our table topics mistress, Natalie Durmuller , an very interesting round of topics – with setting table topics, imagination is key, but who could have imagined Mother  Theresa being reincarnated in the Iranian embassy in London, beautiful ! Natalie in her task and being Swiss, managed to highlight the international diversity of Holborn Speakers – we had contestants from Australia, South Africa, Germany, Iran and of course Blighty, we also had a demonstration by Immo on how to shake hands with an Octopus. Congratulations to all the participants, Kaveh’s encounter with Mother Theresa in the Iranian embassy took the first prize.

Jackie Brennan did a great job of evaluating a signficant number of Table Topics contestants and in doing so kept to time, included her usual humor and gave good commendations and recommendations for each speaker, Jackie would be the eventual winner of the best evaluator award.

Graeme Conn our Toastmaster for the evening ran the meeting well – but to his own admission lacked a little energy, he was seen at the break discussing options with Hisham, the “authorised drug dealer”…  James Goddard produced a faultless effort as timekeeper for the evening and Anthony Robinson our grammarian gave us a master class in this very important discipline.  Joga Bains did a wonderful job as Sergeant-at-arms and helped a significant number of guests with their introductions. Ratan Lele stood in as General Evaluator for the evening, Ratan does what it says on the tin and more.

Dominique Fourniol closed off his first presidential duty for the year, by handing out the awards for the evening. His choice to hand his first president’s award to a 12 year old visitor (Georgie Street) from Freemantle, Australia was met with rapturous agreement from the Holborn audience.

A fantastic start to the toastmaster year, which was summarised very nicely in this thank you note from an international guest:

Dear Dominique

Thank you for welcoming us to your club last night. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the differences and similarities of the meeting. The greatest similarity was the warmth and friendliness from everyone and I hope we will be able to welcome some of your members visiting Fremantle Gateway Club in the future. Congratulations on your first night as president. Georgie is really thrilled with her award!

Best Wishes for a happy year

Gilly

Another action packed evening ended in the customary “networking” session downstairs in the comfort of the Rugby tavern. Last orders, we’ll see you next week.

Filed by: graemeconn | Category: Meetings
Thursday, July 15th 2010 11:32 am

Due to the World Cup and other absences there will be no meeting on Tuesday 6th July. The next regular meeting is on Tuesday 13th July.

Filed by: sramay | Category: Uncategorized
Saturday, July 3rd 2010 1:19 pm

It is Holborn Speakers’ 10th anniverary this year and we have organised a dinner & dance to celebrate. Read all about the event here:-

http://holbornspeakers.org.uk/anniversary_party.html

Tickets can be purchased through EventBrite.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/734644341

If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at this email address:

holbornspeakers10th@gmail.com

We look forward to seeing you there.

Filed by: sramay | Category: Uncategorized
Sunday, June 20th 2010 9:57 pm

The end of the Toastmasters year saw the last meeting for our President, Chris Boden. Chris opened the meeting with the style that has characterised his year as President of the club: a confident, warm and friendly introduction to the guests and members that set a great tone for the rest of the meeting.

Toastmaster for the evening was Nazia Soon, who gave her usual assured performance in the role. Nazia introduced her football theme for the meeting, inspired by the World Cup. Nazia reminded us of the similarities between football and Toastmasters, as both require dedication, practice and teamwork.

We were lucky to have four varied prepared speeches. Marvin Barrett gave his Ice-breaker speech, and gave us a chance to get to know him through some effective anecdotes and storytelling about his love for travel, new challenges, and his desire to become a life coach.

Graeme Conn delivered a passionate and insightful speech on “The Beautiful Game”, his views on the World Cup as a South African, the politics behind the games, and his belief that despite the success of the World Cup it may instead be the game of rugby that has the potential to transform South Africa in the future.

Sam Richardson delivered an excellent speech on his love of music, and how this has enriched his life and affected the choices he has made in his professional career.

David Jones delivered a speech from the advanced Public Relations manual. David attempted to give a press conference as a representative from BP, on the subject of the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. No easy task, yet David gave a confident and well informed performance and handled questions from the audience with great skill.

In the second half of the meeting Dominique Fourniol filled the role of Table Topics Master with a great set of World Cup related topics that gave participants the chance to improvise widely on topics including national stereotypes; the case for or against astrology; is it the winning or the taking part that matters most?; embarrassing moments; and is cheating ever justified? Well done to Dom for leading such a fun session, and to all the volunteers who took part.

Our General Evaluator was Natalie Ker Watson from London Meridian Speakers. Natalie wowed the audience with an excellent GE report delivered without the use of any notes! A remarkable feat that was very impressive to watch. A big thank you to Natalie for filling the role.

The meeting ended with the annual ritual of installing the club’s new President, as Chris Boden passed on the mantle to newly-elected President, Dominique Fourniol. Our thanks to Chris for his excellent job as President, and for his hard work in overseeing another highly successful year for Holborn Speakers.

We wish Dom well for what will no doubt be another year of challenges and achievements for Holborn Speakers.

Filed by: jgoddard | Category: Meetings
Thursday, June 17th 2010 5:05 pm

Chris Boden, the current club President kicked off the evening with a inspirational opening talk encouraging the audience by reminding us of the great benefits that come with joining toastmasters and doing a few speeches. Displaying great speaking and communication skills that he himself has developed through toastmasters.

Bode, this weeks toastmaster took over from Chris to MC the evening and guide us through the many speeches on the programme. Using a “food” theme he introduced each speaker with there favourite food. Bode quickly gave us a run down of the programme, introduced the functionaries and got the evening underway.

First speaker of the evening did an outstanding job of pulling off a last minute impromptu/advanced speech from the storytelling manual with only 15mins preparation. I can say outstanding because that was my speech and a year ago I would have never thought I would be able to complete an advanced speech with such little preparation and not use any notes at all. Chris returned to the front grabbing the audience from the opening of his speech with “I am a disaster” and gave us all a great demonstration of what talent toastmasters can pull out of you with his impromptu speech. Michaela, another experience toastmaster got the audience involved in her speech as she took us through a mentoring workshop. Explaining the benefits of having a mentor or being mentored in toastmasters.

Evaluations for the 3 speeches came from Graeme Conn and Ian Brown reminding us of the highlights of each speech and offering helpful feedback to each speaker.

After the evaluations Bode introduced the second impromptu speaking part of the evening by explaining to the audience that this is when “things get a little more juicy”, still not quite sure what he meant by that. James brought us a great table topics session with hot current event topics like compulsory voting, Gordon Brown, the oil slip in the gulf of Mexico, the IMF bailout, x factor judges and BA strikes.

Ratan Lele, the Indian ex-president accountant who loves an English breakfast began his topics evaluation with a great laugh from the audience when he tried to explain his love of English food rather than the English favourite Indian curry.

Christopher Hall began his general evaluation with some kind words for our award winning president. Being a very experienced toastmaster himself he gave very specific advice for a number of speakers through out the evening. Once again repeating what all visiting general evaluators say by giving praise for Holborn Speakers great reputation for being a very friendly club.

I look forward to the next meeting on the 18th May. To the guests, thank you for coming, it was a pleasure to have you and please feel welcome to join us again. Or better still contact Zoe Colbeck or Dominique Fourniol to find out more about club membership and how to join. They are ready to help.

Filed by: adriancarter | Category: Meetings
Thursday, May 13th 2010 4:31 pm

Chris gave his usual sparkling President’s introduction, drumming up enthusiasm not only for the night ahead, but also the upcoming International Speech and Evaluation Competition on the 16th of March.  Julie our Toastmaster announced:

“Holborn Speakers is about EXCELLENCE!!” she passionately proclaimed!

 James, who doubled as Grammarian, proceeded to take a novel approach to the Word of The Day by introducing us to ‘Anaphora’, a rhetorical device where the beginning of a phrase is repeated for effect as in “We came, we saw and we conquered!” – something a Toastmaster might use to great advantage in the pursuit of excellence.

 Our first Speaker of the evening was Kaveh with his 7th speech in the Competent Communicator manual. In his last speech, Kaveh spoke to us about Death and now he evidently sought to redress the balance by speaking about Life! Using examples from his job and striding about the stage with his expansive and rousing gestures, Kaveh gave an inspiring speech with great comic flair.

Next up was Ros, with a complimentary theme and a speech, also No. 7, entitled: “Happy Now?”. Ros made great use of statistics and her universally popular theme: happiness, to grip the audience’s attention. I felt her speech had a beautiful flow to it, charged with her unique brand of enthusiasm.

After these two fantastic speeches, we were treated to something a bit different from Nazia, our final Speaker of the evening. An extremely experienced member, Nazia has soared beyond the Competent Communicator manual to the Advanced Speaking manual and so we were treated to a lyrical reading of Robert Browning’s Pied Piper of Hamlyn. Nazia commanded the stage with her usual warmth. 

And then, the moment everybody had been simultaneously hoping for yet praying would never actually arrive (if they were anything like me as a guest!): Table Topics!  Anthony was master of ceremonies and had cleverly devised a novel theme, inspired by his profession as a practitioner of the LAW. Defending the Indefensible!

Thus followed a most amusing set of “Lawyers” defending such popular members of society as fellow lawyers, door to door salesmen, accountants, politicians and CEOs of major national banks…Each “willing volunteer” bravely strode to the stage and many “willing volunteers” were guests, giving them the chance to experience more fully what it means to be a Toastmaster, to make a mini-speech and be evaluated on it. Joga was the man tasked with this job as Topics Evaluator, not an easy job at all, but he sailed through it with his sometimes questionable humour (only kidding Joga, your jokes are great!) and easy manner. 

The evening was gradually coming to a close, but before we finished, there was one more VIP to grace the stage: The GE, our very own Nigel. Nigel has been a member of Holborn Speakers since dinosaurs roamed the earth, well, a long time anyway, and this was clear in his evaluation, which was kind, fair, helpful and all-encompassing! Just what we needed to round off the evening.

That’s it from me for now. See you next week for more good old-fashioned fun (enhanced by the zest of competition)!

Filed by: Jay Surti | Category: Meetings
Monday, March 15th 2010 9:58 am