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

On a wet and wild night Holborn turned on a great show for the many guests who visited. In a welcome return to the fold Holborn Speaker’s own Freddie Daniells led the evening as toastmaster. He showed the style and energy that has propelled him to the upper echolons of the TM organisation in the UK. Femi started the speeches with an examination of the why’s and why nots of snoring. Happily with Femi on the stage the audience wasn’t doing any snoring of their own. Auguste then spoke about the perils of believing in IQ tests, and sounded very clever doing so.

In table topics Martin gave us a chance to be persuasive. That is to lie outrageously. How would you convince somebody of something that isn’t really true? There were some outstanding efforts. James took the prize by explaining that for all the good intentions he was just too English to try to get a woman’s number on a train. Ratan also made a welcome return to action evaluating the 10(!) Topics speakers. The night was rounded off with a general evaluation from Christopher Hall, our area governor, who took a unique but effective approach to the role. An enjoyable evening was had by all, the next one is on the 2nd of March.

Filed by: chrisboden | Category: Uncategorized
Monday, February 22nd 2010 8:26 am

A BBC News 24 blooper during the reporting of the Josef Fritzl case in Austria.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loWFypHb48k

Filed by: sramay | Category: Uncategorized
Thursday, February 11th 2010 12:04 am

Holbornites,

Due to the size and success of the club over the last several years we have developed a reasonable surplus of funds in the club bank account. As a non-profit organisation this is less than ideal so the committee have decided to look at ways to use the surplus constructively and lower it. To this end a few things are happening:

Firstly Bloomsbury speakers has been given a handsome startup fund. Secondly fees are going down. At the next renewal (end of March) fees will be a fair bit lower than previously.

And finally, and this is the really interesting bit, we are offering incentives. Namely, any member who completes their Competent Leader, Advanced Leader Bronze or Silver, Advanced Communicator Bronze, Silver, Gold or DTM will be eligible for 6 months free membership. So, how is that CL manual going?

The club contest is on the 16^th March. There are a number of key CL manual projects that are most easily done during a contest … just saying.

Filed by: chrisboden | Category: Committee, Competent Leader, Contests
Wednesday, February 3rd 2010 9:43 pm