Yesterday was another great meeting at Croydon Communicators!
Welcome back Joe – great job at welcoming our guests and
making them feel easy. Joe is off on a “Business” trip to Africa. Enjoy your
trip Joe and see you soon!
Meeting starts
Congratulations to Simon for stepping up to become our
Toastmaster of the day for the first time! Simon had chosen recession as the
theme of the day, which can be hard to get people excited about, but his introductions
gave us so much insight into what everyone was doing to help others around them.
Our very own, and always smiling el presidente, Cheryn told
us all about who we are and what are we doing here as Toastmasters.
To help us reduce those unwanted gap-filler words such as "ah", "um", "like", "so" etc, we had Charles as the Ah Counter. Congratulations to Charles for his first time
in this role!
Thanks to Marianne for introducing the word-of-the-day. The
word of the day had so much potential to be used, but surprisingly it didn’t
get mentioned as much for a while until Simon used it 3 or 4 times in one
introduction – well done Simon! What was the word I hear you say, it was “potential”,
and what a fitting word for our club and Toastmasters as a whole.
Ben took up the role to give the Tip of the Day for the
first time (Congratulations Ben!). At Croydon Communicators we have a wide
variety of tips, from how to improve out speaking skills, to improving our
confidence. Ben shared with us a very effective advice to cope with recession - save before the recession. Given that recessions occur every decade or so, this is a very useful tip. Those in low income may see saving as an impossible task, but save little - save often could be an approach.
To get us warmed up and ready for the main part of the meeting,
David Thomson took us all on a trip across oceans, mountains, and the heart of
England to get to know who was sitting within a few yards from us.
The speeches
Our first half of the evening was slightly different to the
usual structure with one prepared speech and one educational speech instead of
four prepared speeches.
Delivering his Icebreaker was Daniel with “Holiday”, and
what a performance that was! His role playing was brilliant with a great stage
presence, vocal variety and excellent use of pauses. When he told us where he
was going on holiday, I bet we were all thinking “woo, that place sounds exotic”
until he told us it was good old Croydon – you had to be there!
Our educational speaker was Amma, telling us all about the
club’s mentoring program. Amma was oozing with passion for a program that she
really believes in. I felt that some of her passion was rubbing on current
mentors and mentees, as well as encouraging others to get involved.
Speech evaluators
Evaluating Dan was an inspiring performer who analyses a
speech to fine detail and always has feedback that the speaker (no matter how
experienced they are) finds useful and something they can work with. Great work Sue!
Our past past president, past area governor and current
division governor evaluated Amma’s educational speech. No, Amma didn’t have
three evaluators, but someone who is as great an evaluator as he is a speaker
and leader. He is of course Dave Longley.
To close off the first part of the meeting our VP of Education
Aarthi gave us a summary of some of the events on the horizon. Aarthi also
reminded the members the advantages of using the D71.org portal to plan speeches, roles,
manage our progress and so much more. I strongly recommend registering, if you
haven’t done so already, and start using it.
Table Topics
To fit with the theme of the evening, Paul had a series of well thought out recession related questions for the weary-yet unsuspecting audience.
The participants of the table topics session were John,
Amma, Sue, Philip, David T, Tajes, Joe, Teagan, Ben, Yvonne, and Charles. Well
done to everybody for tackling the “recession” with such calm, inquisition and
masterfulness. In a true Croydon Communicators fashion 4 out of the Table Topics
speaker were guests (Philip, Tajes, Teagan and Yvonne) , who deserve special
congratulations for setting up to the challenge. As always with table topics,
you never know what answers you going to hear. My pick of the evening was from
Philip, describing recession to his 8 year-old daughter “if I buy you an x-box,
they will take your mum away”. Needless to say she went for the x-box.
Danilen was the first to get on the stage to evaluate the
odd-numbered speakers. This was Danilen’s first time as a TT evaluator, but not
that anyone noticed it in his performance - congratulations Danilen!
Evaluating the even-numbered speakers was Cheryn, who has
time and again been ready to take up multiple roles as a true leader would.
Marianne and Charles gave the reports on the use of the word
of the day and how well we did on avoiding those gap-filler words. I’m glad to
say overall everyone did very well at either making good use of pauses or
flowing through their speeches.
As toastmasters, we know that whatever role we do, someone
will evaluate us at every meeting. The general evaluator was Aarthi who
evaluated the evaluators and other role players who didn’t get evaluated
before. Well done to Aarthi for recognising everyone’s contributions and giving
them ideas how to improve.
In his announcements, Aleks informed every one of the Humorous
Speech and Table Topics Contest which start in September. The contest is a
great place to participate, support your fellow members and network with other
clubs.
Dates to for your diary:
Sep 12th Croydon
Communicators contest
Sep 28th Area
35 contest
Oct 16th Division
L contest
Nov 8th – 10th District 71 contest and conference
Our toastmaster Simon finally handed over the meeting to
Cheryn who thanked the guests (Kimankinda, Philip, Tajes, Teagan and Yvonne) for
coming and asked them if they could share some thoughts for the evening. Croydon
Communicators is always delighted by the high number of guests we receive; yesterday was another great turn out from our guests. Cheryn
then closed another successful meeting.
Next 2 Croydon
Communicators meetings
Aug 22nd
Assemble at 6:45pm for 7:00 – 9:15 meeting
Aug 29nd
Assemble at 6:45pm for 7:00 – 9:15 meeting
Venue: Mind in Croydon, Fairfield House, 10 Altyre
Road, Croydon, CR0 5LA
Please feel welcomed to visit us online at http://www.croydoncommunicators.org/
, or come along at any of our meetings on which are held
every 2nd, 4th and 5th Thursday of each months
apart from December.
Our venue is: Mind in Croydon, Fairfield House, 10 Altyre
Road, Croydon, CR0 5LA
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