Last Thursday 14th
November was our first November meeting and there is only one more regular meeting this year before 2013 is concluded with a
massive bang - that is - our Christmas end of year celebration dinner! Have you RSVP’d yet?
There is no better contrast from the
outside cold November evening of people rushing to get home from a long day's
work than to walk into the warmth of the Croydon Communicators meeting buzzing
with fellow Toastmasters and guests catching up or getting to know each other
for the first time! You know winter is around the corner when the hospitality
leader's warm hands are your first topic of conversation for the evening!
Meeting starts
At 7pm our sergeant at arms Arlene
opens the meeting with a huge smile and introduces our multi-talented el Presidenté
Cheryn who was also our Toastmaster of the day.
Arlene is also our Time keeper and
she reminds us of the importance of keeping within our allotted time or else
the notorious bell of shame will be heard!
A man of wise words who comes by the
name of David Thomson is our Grammarian and provides us with ‘nostalgia’ - our
word of the day.
Our Warm Up Leader, Samir, is the
first to use the word of the day. He skillfully used it to craft the topic of our
warm up - what was your most nostalgic
birthday event? It is also a very appropriate topic for Samir because he
celebrated his birthday only a few days earlier - happy birthday Samir! The
room fills with nostalgia as Sue relates their traditional wake up call with a
cold bucket of water at boarding school; David Thomson shares that his sister
shares her birthday with the Prince of Wales and Shahid shares the good news of
the birth of his second son. But as a guy who like fast objects, my favourite
is Paul's. Who knew that Paul's birthday present was – although briefly - to
fly a light airplane? How’s that for a memorable birthday present?!
I then hear you say "surely
having a child on your birthday is so magical!?" Yes, of course it is! But after flying that plane, Paul must have
slept blissfully for nights to come, dreaming and reliving his flight. Now compare that with Shahid's sleepless
nights for months - which one would you pick? I'm only kidding of course - I
would prefer to have both on the same day :-)
Prepared speeches
Once everyone shared their birthday
stories, the room is now primed for our first speaker Dan with his speech
entitled ‘Impact’. In an era where we spend more money and time on
our mobile phones than any other device, Dan's speech is very fitting. He also
shares some techniques on choosing one mobile over another, which might prove
useful to a number of the audience especially if someone is nearing the end of
their current contract and is spoilt for choice!
Sue is our second speaker with her
speech entitled ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’.
Her speech is from her advanced Storytelling manual where she reads an extract
from the famous book with the same title. Sue is really showing us her amazing
skill at reading a great work of literature. Now, I had never read that book
before, but after hearing Sue read from it, I'm not going to cook a vegetable
soup the same again :-) That is a
compliment and also a hint to you all to read this fascinating book to see what
I mean.
Speech evaluations
Dan's evaluator is Paul, who is
introduced by Toastmaster Cheryn (who asked meeting participants who they would
spend a day in the life of if they had the chance) as a man who would like to
live a day in the life of Martin Luther King and fight for the rights of black people
in a peaceful manner, as opposed to Malcolm X who at the time encouraged fighting
for freedom by ‘any means necessary’. Paul's delivery of his evaluation is very
calm and well thought out as his evaluations always are - with easy-to-follow
constructive feedback. His vocabulary complexion is as if he is hooked up to
the Oxford English dictionary. I'm sure he is reading this text and marking it
with a mental red marker pen :-)
Then, Dave evaluates Sue's advanced
speech. Knowing Dave's fondness of engineering, it comes as no surprise that he
would like to live a day in the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel – a bridges,
ships and railway legend. Dave
demonstrates his attention to detail by delivering his evaluation with
reference to specific parts of the speech and highlighting the importance of
the ‘power of three’ and how Sue used it effectively.
Table Topics
The 10 minute break is over and on
the outside everyone is looking forward to the Table Topics session, but inside
they are thinking ‘is it going to me?’ Aleks had chosen nine questions to go with the
theme of the evening "A day in the life of". For one night only,
everything is possible from living with the dinosaurs, to meeting your future
self, to switching bodies with your pet.
The first to the stage is Samir – he
is illiterate and working on a farm just to get by. No, I'm not talking about
him now, this is Samir living in 15th century Tudor England! It's amazing what 500 years can do as we saw
from Samir's performance :-)
If you were given the ability to
travel to anytime in the future, how far ahead would you travel? 500 years? Maybe 1,000 years? Yeah, I know, me too, but one of our charming guests
Ram chose to travel only 5 years ahead in the future – that was enough for him.
Well, while 1,000 years into the future would probably be exciting, seeing 5
years ahead might be more useful and practical given the current economic times!
Our next Table Topics speaker,
Richard, a dynamic and seasoned Toastmaster visiting us from our sister club
Bromley Speakers, is too humble to be either Martin Luther King or Nelson
Mandela when asked who he would rather be –saying he is not even fit to walk in
their shadows; but would certainly
fancy being James Bond for the day! I
admire how modest he is and that having the best looking women on his arm,
saving the world and winning at every casino he goes to had nothing to do with
it :-)
But then who do you think met with
native tribal leaders, and who killed the dinosaurs yet again and can you
imagine who would learn so much from having the senses of so many animals and
be able to turn a Table Topic into a discovery channel documentary full of
intriguing facts? None other than our
visitor Angela and our very own Dave!
What an exciting and nostalgic
Table Topics session!
Normally we have two Table Topic
evaluators, but no role is too big for David T, who helps us relive the speeches
from a 3rd dimension - that of a marinated evaluator, yes he has been a
seasoned speaker for a long time!
Meeting concludes
A man of listening skills, David
Thomson has the power to excite your neural receptors to recall specific
phrases from the meeting. In his role of
Grammarian, he shares how colourful our language was – did we 'mind the gaps'
or fill them?
Amma is our General Evaluator. She
spent most of the meeting quietly at the back of the room, but don't let that
fool you, she has advice for even the most experienced of the speakers. Amma
used the Toastmasters' famous sandwich method (Commend/ Recommend/ Commend)
throughout her evaluation. She used it time and again, making me feel rather
hungry thinking of sandwiches!
The meeting is coming to an end and
Cheryn starts by thanking our six guests and hands award ribbons to a number of
members for reaching certain milestones in their Toastmasters journey.
If you haven’t already responded to
Cheryn’s email invite to our Christmas celebration dinner on 12 December, then
do so as soon as possible, don't miss out on what promises to be a fabulous evening!
See you all at our next meeting –
Thursday, 28th November at 18:45!
