Highlights of Speeches at Harrovians Speakers Club Monday November 30th 2015

 The President of Harrovians' Speakers' Club, Seema Menon, CC, ALB, opened the meeting with the best welcoming speech I have ever heard.

Standing Firmly or Moving?

She gave us a quick guide to how to stand looking firm and authoritative when speaking. Then how to use the stage when speaking, moving to show progress through life or time, but not marching up and down distractingly.

Our Toastmaster of the evening was Karen, a tall figure with an enviable statuesque, commanding height but a warm manner, friendly smile and soothing voice.

  The enthusiasm and confidence of members and guests received a momentary setback when Warren stood up to deliberately challenge us with table topics of the kind that interviewers use to throw us off guard and reveal our weaknesses.
   Guest and returning member Francis West was delighted at the warm reception he received from  several of us. I see him regularly on Facebook, so I was delighted to meet him again in person. Warren Sheng, ACS, ALB, an old-timer, and long-term membership secretary regards every departing member as a personal loss, and every member returning as a guest as a personal triumph.

Challenging Topics

I was aghast at Warren's opening question, to Francis, in the form of a table topic of impromptu speech. What was your worst business mistake?
 West's reply was that it was giving an investor a 51% stake in the company, which enabled somebody else to later tell West to leave the company which he had founded. He recalled leaving, not even taking his computer.
   I'd always heard about keeping a 51% share of the company so that you had the majority vote on any decisions. I had also heard of people being asked to leave the company they had founded. But I had not seen the two events juxtaposed so vividly - in the two minutes allowed for an impromptu speech. Francis won the ribbon for the best table topic answer.
 
The other guest, Indra's aunt, was given another challenging topic, about explaining sex. How do you tell a seven-year-old boy child where babies come from? She produced a brilliant answer to avoid the facts of life. She said: 'A man and woman get together and love each other they make a baby. But making a baby is like a recipe for making a cake. It's quite complicated and you wouldn't understand it or be able to do it until you are older. When you are ready, we will explain the whole thing to you. The simple version, and all you need to know now, is, that the important ingredients are a man and woman being together and the fact that they love each other.'

Warren's other challenging topics included: 'When have you regretted being married?' Warren knows the secret to humour is to follow the start of the sentence with its opposite. He said,  'I have only regretted being married once, or twice - a day.'

Prepared Speeches

Every Cloud Has a Silver Living
We then moved on to the prepared speech. I spoke first on the subject: 'Every cloud has a silver lining.' I held up an umbrella against the rain that falls into every life. My three stories are described in another post in my blog on Toastmasters. I began with the story about my uncle whose disadvantage in life was that he was colour blind. So when he joined the RAF in WWII he could not be a pilot; he was very disappointed. But because of this seeming disadvantage, he survived WWII, and outlived everybody he knew.

 Francis evaluated my speech, giving valuable feedback. I had followed Seema's advice and moved forward across the stage from the first story about my uncle, set in 2002, to the next story, the London bombing, set in 2005. Francis explained on how I could improve my use of the stage, stepping forward across the stage, yet again, for the last story (the Paris bombing in 2015), but although the stage movements could be steps and pauses, verbally I need to make stronger verbal transitions or connections from one story to the next.

The Most Important Day

 Sanjay won the best evaluator ribbon for his analysis of a speech by Jesus on 'the most important day in the 1960s', the day Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. Jesus began with a count-down:, 'Ten, nine, eight ...' He ended dramatically 'with a giant leap for mankind,' taking an emphatic step, stamping on the stage.

Sanjay's useful tip on how this excellent speech could be made even better, was to turn the title into a question or something generating excitement.

India and England

 We also enjoyed an entertaining ice breaker speech introducing us to new member Vipul. Lorna, his evaluator, was warm and encouraging. She complimented him on his 'conversational style', said 'his enthusiasm shone through' and 'he has made a great start to his Toastmasters journey.'

I loved his phrases contrasting England and India. He said that India was known by the English, nowadays, as 'a land of snake charmers and - call centres'. That got a laugh. His school in India taught him :'more about cricket than mathematics'.

Amparo, our Grammarian, gave us the word of the day Gravitate. Several of us were able to incorporate into our speeches. One useful trick is to write the word of the day at the top of your speech notes and use the word straight away in your opening sentence.

Presentation to Indra Sikdar

Former President Indra Sikdar was presented with an antique ship's compass (an appropriate and personal gift thoughtfully chosen in honour of the fact that his late father worked in shipping). Indra was a founder member of Harrovians and has been a constant supporter through the years, bringing guests and organising and helping in innumerable ways.

Angela Lansbury, ACG, CL.

Glossary Of awards from Toastmasters International, HQ in the USA
ACS Advanced Communicator Silver
ALB Advanced Leader Bronze
ACG Advanced Communicator Gold
CC Competent Communicator
CL Competent Leader

Amparo, grammarian, chose gravitate as word of the day.She added a word to our working vocabulary, as well as reminding us not to keep repeating word fillers such as 'so ...'.

President Seema instructed us on standing sill and moving.

Seema presented ribbons.

Angela won best speaker ribbon.

V i p u l achieved first step with his first icebreaker speech.

The audience.

More happy faces.

Photos by Angela Lansbury. In this one you see me in the second row behind Seema and next to Warren. Francis has kindly offered to take a photo so I can be in the picture.

Newsletter report by Angela Lansbury.

Next club meetings, last chance, two chances, in 2015, Monday December 6th and Monday December 13th for the pot luck party. Bring your best seasonal stories and some seasonal food.

For more details on Toastmasters International club meetings worldwide, check Toastmasters International Find a club. Check with clubs about their December and January meeting dates and venues. Some clubs have their Christmas meetings at local restaurants.