Meeting report, 17th August 2010
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
