New format, more Inspiration, more new Faces and Six Speeches in total last
Thursday evening at Croydon Communicators!
New and regular guests - 11 in total!!! YOU ARE ALL SO WELCOME.
Members, Dignitaries & Guests were warmly greeted at the the door by a
friendly Aleks. What a pleasant way to settle any last minute nerves from any
new guest or pending speakers.
The evening was set to be a speech marathon and no other than the
confidence of our Sergeant at Arms, Arlene was required to open the meeting with
a great smile and a huge WELCOME to settle the audience.
President Hanna, full of energy and as vibrant as ever introduced Croydon
Communicators and demonstrated the essence of good communication skills and gave
us a brief history of Toastmasters. As always EXCELLENCE TOGETHER.
Practice makes perfect and experience certainly does show, as the ever
enthusiastic and seasoned speaker of the Toastmaster arena David L took control
as Toastmaster for the evening and set a theme for the evening... 'Change Little
and Change Often'... 'So what one thing would you like to change?'. There was
some food for thought for the audience! Now, if that was not enough, the format
for tonight's event had also changed and we had six-speeches lined up... roll
on...
With the program set and all intros & formalities explained it was time
to keep track of time and make way for our timekeeper for the evening Amma, who
precisely described the benefits of keeping track of time... and here's a quote
'We may delay, but time will not' - Benjamin Franklin... More food for
thought!
This was certainly an evening of 'change' and a first time role
(CONGRATULATIONS) presented itself to Simon, our Harkmaster for the evening.
This was a grammarian role with a difference because the audience were in for a
treat... stay seated, keep listening and watch this space!
One could feel the energy brewing, so why not let the audience soak up some
of that energy and get them talking. Warm up leader Elizabeth posed a question
to the audience, "If you had the opportunity to go back to a specific year,
which year would you go back to and why?". Some great responses followed
including; 1588 facing the Spanish Armada; being part of the fashionable 1960's;
going back to being given pocket money by my father; the Lunar Landing's of
1967; The fashionable 1960's and to being part of the 1966 coup in Ghana.
WOW... time travel could be interesting!
Audience, are you ready for some inspiration? Six prepared speeches
followed with a short interval in the middle. First to take centre stage with an
ICEBREAKER speech was KJ and a speech simply entitled, 'Untitled'. This was a
well delivered personal account of life, growing up with many challenges,
searching, achievements and accomplishments. KJ you certainly have started on
the road to another accomplishment... The Toastmaster journey. Fantastic!
In full swing and second to take the stage with his speech number five
speech entitled 'Spiritual Foundations' was Samir. Samir took the audience on a
spiritual journey of building the blocks and pillars of a sound foundation.
Something we all need! Great stage presence, movement, gestures, voice
projection and biblical quotes. For one minute, one could actually see Samir
literally building those three pillars on the stage! Delivered with
excellence.
WELCOME back David B :-) and with a hilarious speech entitled "My Lost
Door". There was just a moment to dwell on the event when the audience burst in
to fits of laughter. You had to be there last Thursday to 'see' and totally get
this! Warning - never ever forget your room keys in the hotel room and wonder
off to shared facilities; know your surroundings, otherwise you might find
yourself caught in an uncompromising situation!! How you got out of that one no
one knows! Luck was surely on your side.
Three great speeches and more to come before the break - it was time to
evaluate the first three speakers. David L promptly introduced the evaluators
Cheryn, Hanna & David T to provide some encouraging comments, commendations
and recommendations on the all the speeches.
First to evaluate was Cheryn who was concise in her evaluation of KJ in his
speech called 'Untitled. Cheryn, clearly making good use of the CCRRC evaluation
techniques and demonstrating good listening skills.
Second to evaluate was the
experienced Hanna, again pointing out the highlights, good technique, stage and
body movements in Samir's 'Spiritual Foundations'. David T, always knows how to
enhance an evaluation and when evaluating David B, "the third David", the
audience relived the speech from a totally different perspective. EXCELLENCE
TOGETHER.
Pressing for time, our timekeeper Amma was back to give a quick account of
timings so far. We're all on point so far and, we also had time for another
quote; 'The past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we have is now' - Bill
Cosby.
Hold tight and stay with us... More speeches still to come, but how about
a break. But wait. Our VP of Education, Cheryn had an announcements... Our End
of Year Dinner Celebration is just round the corner! Contact Hanna or Joe for
more information and remember to book your menu selection.
After the interval Arlene quickly reconvened the meeting.
Sticking with the speeches and fourth in line to shine was Joe with his
speech number six entitled 'Think Environment' - Planting environmental seeds
into the audiences minds for an evening. This was definitely one for the
audience to take on board. Lights off when not needed, don't buy what we don't
need, prevent wastage and what!!!? A solar farm the size of Wales in the desert
to generate enough energy to power the world for a day! Surely, that's more food
for an environmental thought!
The fifth speech was entitled 'The Wedding Speech'. A true to life wedding
speech presented by John to his life long and faithful friend Isaac. Great
humour filled with sentiment and good wishes, delivered with the calm and
coolest of Issac's best man - John, you looked and felt the part. Any up and
coming weddings... ask John for a tip or two!
And to complete the speech marathon, last and certainly not least came
'Bias', and what a speech this was. This could have been a lecture room full of
physiatrists, economists and statisticians and it would have had them fixated on
the topic. Simply put Neuro Linguistic Programming of Thinking. Fantastic speech
with a wealth of facts and examples delivered with conviction. Thanks Aarthi,
you've restored faith in the phrase 'think out side the box'. One is always
learning new things here at Croydon Communicators!
Back for some more evaluations. Firstly, Sue provided a compressive CCRRC
evaluation, expressing the use of variable vocal pitch, stage movement and
audience engagement on Joe's speech 'Think Environment'. Second on the
evaluation stage was Wumi - a first time evaluation (CONGRATULATIONS) - picking
the best of John's 'The wedding Speech'. Wumi, you're learning very fast! No-one
would have guessed this was your first evaluation! And to end the evaluations,
Gareth demonstrated how to pull out the finer details of evaluation and
listening skills when evaluating Aarthi's speech 'Bias'.
So with all six speeches and evaluations at an end, an educated, enthralled
and inspired audience, what ubetter than to test their knowledge, grammaticism
and listening skills. Back came grammarian Simon with a few testing questions.
And here's the surprise, get the answer right and there was a sweet treat...
literally!
All good things have to come to end and with time of essence, timekeeper
Amma as back to give a final analysis of timings. Ouch! One over-run speech and
one over-run evaluation, but not to worry we're still on track with time and we
even have time for another quote; 'Time is the most valuable thing that a man
can spend' - Diogenes Laerthius.
On that note it was time to conclude and summarize the evenings event.
David Quasie from Meridian Speakers, exquisitely delivered a true and concise
account of the event and its participants. Thank You David.
Before we depart ways, President Hanna gave the opportunity for guests both
existing and new (YOU ARE ALL VERY WELCOME) to provide their feedback on the
evenings event. And as expected Croydon Communicators lived up to expectations
to inspire, motivate, educate whilst having fun at another Thursday evening at
Croydon Communicators.
If you ever want to improve your Public Speaking, Confidence and Leadership
skills there's no better way other than to come down, join in and get
involved.
Croydon Communicators certainly demonstrated another evening of "EXCELLENCE
TOGETHER"
Can't wait until the next meeting - Thurs 6th December 18:45 prompt!
Everyone welcome.
Don't miss out, be part of it Get Involved & Get Motivated, Be
Inspired, Build Confidence, Educate, Have Fun, Smile.
Excellence Together at Croydon Communicators. Mind in Croydon, 10 Altyre
Road, E. Croydon CR0 5LA
