For those of you who are looking to complete the Competent Leadership manual this year, I have created a one page overview of the manual that summarises the roles within each project that you will need to perform in order to get the Competent Leader award. I have uploaded the matrix as a PDF to the Holborn Speakers website.
http://www.holbornspeakers.org.uk/competent_leader_matrix.pdf
Thanks to St. Paul’s Speakers for the original.
August reaches a conclusion as new Toastmasters step up to the plate. Sarah Maloof took on the TM role for the first time and did an amazing job on a night when many last minute changes were required. It was a fine example of grace under fire. In the spirit of innovation a new room layout was experimented with. Come early to get the comfy seats up front!
First up Jackie Brennan gave a preview of speech she will be giving for real at an awards ceremony in a couple of weeks. Another great example of how to use Toastmasters to help yourself. Zadi stepped up for an extended impromptu and taught everybody some things about male and female interaction. Very educational. And Adrian Carter has reached a personal goal by doing his number 10 speech and completing the Competent Communicator manual. Congratulations Adrian!!
With only three speeches, the table topics session was extended, presenting a challenge for the club’s newest member, and topics master, James Goddard. He was more than up for the challenge and his jazz themed questions had everybody riffing like a pro. None more so than a guest and former toastmaster Natalie who opened her speech with a bit of a gospel hymn. It was very effective, I’d love to see someone do this in the upcoming contest!
Keep talking.
Gladiators are you ready? Summer speaking season continued last week with Diana introducing a gladiatorial theme to the night. Four speakers stepped into the Coliseum to broaden our minds. Nathalie told us why the snooze button is not our friend and how break the addiction to getting an extra 10 minutes in the morning, while Sarah gave us the financial lessons of life as learnt from a Monopoly board.
In a welcome return from his long break away Zadi gave an inspiring speech about overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles. We also had a visit from our Area Governor, Christopher Hall, who talked about the whys and wherefores of starting a new Toastmasters club.
The topics session was lead in Ratan’s usual off-beat style. There was a lack of accountant jokes but otherwise folk were given some slightly whiffy topics to work with. The evening was rounded out with a very thorough and enjoyable general evalutation from Andrew Bennett. Andrew come visit again!
As you may know if you read your Toastmasters Magazine the annual international conference has just occurred in Mashantucket USA. The purpose of the conference is firstly to run the finals of the International Speech Contest. That’s the one that started back in April in every club and builds to the world final. The winner this year was Mark Hunter from Queensland in Australia. This is the first time an Australian has ever won the contest. Details here including a transcript of the speech:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,27574,25943219-3102,00.html
The other purpose of conference is to take care of Toastmasters business and administration. Again if you read your magazine you will know that there was a proposal for a complete overhaul of the organisational structure of Toastmasters International. It takes much of the representation at high level out of the US and spreads it around the world. Making Toastmasters truly international. I can report that this resolution was passed.
This won’t really change anything for us on a week to week level, we’re still the greatest club in the world no matter what happens. At some point our district [District 71, UK and Ireland] will become part of a Region. The Toastmasters International website is www.toastmasters.org. There will no doubt be further reports and information on it in the near future.
This week we had the full range of speech projects from Amit’s humorous number three speech about the nightmare of moving house to Diana’s number nine speech persuading us to connect with our communities. We also had several past presidents of the club in attendance. Freddie gave an advanced speech, with David evaluating the speech. Heike and Ratan were also there. Ratan stepped in as acting president for the night, reminding us that four years ago he joined toastmasters to gain more confidence when speaking in a professional capacity. In those four years we have seen him become a confident and entertaining speaker as well as going on to leading the club. So there’s inspiration for all those budding speakers out there! Come and join us and find out what you can achieve.
Some dates for your diary:
20th August – New Club Development Forum. Learn what it takes to start a new Toastmasters club. The Cheshire Cheese, 5 Little Essex Street, London WC2R 3LD from 7-9pm
2nd September – Improvisation and Humour workshop. A great way to get some tips for the upcoming contests. Book your ticket at
http://www.thelondonspeaker.com/weblog/2009/08/draft-2nd-sept-john-cremer-booking.html
29th September – Holborn Speakers Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contest. Sign up now and try your hand at making people laugh or speaking off the cuff, or both! Book your place via Clubplan.
7th October – Area 34 Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contest final. See the winners of our club contest take on contenders from the rest of Area 34. Hosted by … us!
21st October – Division B Final of Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contest. The winners of each Area contest battle it out for a place at the UK and Ireland Championships. Further details closer to the date.
Welcome to the Holborn Speakers blog page. Check this out regularly for meeting reports, news of upcoming events and useful links and articles. For the tech savvy there is an RSS feed to notify you of updates, otherwise just check back here regularly.
Most importantly keep coming to meetings and keep speaking!
Chris Boden
President.
