HOD Jun 2018 - Five Speeches

Problem
How do you fit five speeches into the two-hour Toastmasters Club meeting? Especially when you also want five minutes to congratulate the outgoing President Martin Doe?

Answer
You cut out what you can do without:
You limit table topics to five.
Evaluations of topics is eliminated.
The break can be cut from fifteen minutes to ten.
No language evaluator - except later as part of the newsletter. Let Evaluators comment on the language used by speakers.
The General Evaluator is kept short and concentrates on the evaluators.

If necessary, go five minutes over time at the end.

Martin Doe, outgoing President, prepares for his last meeting as HOD Toastmasters speakers' club President.

Tony Winyard, our technical expert, helps another member set up their slide show.

Dennis Newman, efficient SAA who set up the room, as well as timer and video masters, with his keen assistant for the evening, a new member.

David Phelops, Toastmaster of the Day, interviews a record number of ten visitors on why they visited, and what they thought of the meeting so far and hope to gain.

David Phelops, left, Toastmaster of the Day, congratulating table topics winner and presenting her with a ribbon.

Gill Ornstein, incoming President, presented with ribbon for best speaker by David Phelops, Toastmaster of the Day.

Satya, presented with ribbon for best evaluator.

Your photographer, Angela Lansbury, ALB ACG, doing a selfie Singapore style.

More photos can and will be added.

To attend a club in any of the countries worldwide, go to Toastmasters International find a club. Email the club.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, member of HOD and Harrovians speakers clubs, in London, England, UK, and member of and VPR for Braddell Heights Advanced in Singapore.

Finding Thursday Meetings And Clubs Meeting Specific Days

Which clubs meet on a Thursday?
You can look at notifications from Meetup to find which clubs are meeting in your local area trough the week.

In London, HOD meets on two or three Thursdays each month, usually the first and third Thursdays.

Toastmasters International Find a Club
If you go to the Toastmasters International Find a Club page, you can select your area, the distance you are willing to travel, and find all the clubs meeting on that day.

If you visit a new country on holiday or business, and you cannot see a club meeting on your preferred day, write to the President or VPE of the biggest and busiest club in the area and ask if there are any meetings.

You might find that they have changed their day or meeting and venue but not yet updated the website. Meetings might have moved temporarily because of a national holiday.

When I go on holiday, whether for a weekend away, or a week, or two months, I check the local speaking clubs. I note the dates in my diary, write offering to speak or evaluate or be grammarian, to take over a role at the last minute if somebody drops out. I ask for directions.

If the club meeting is immovable, I can move my family arrangements, such as dinner out, to fit around important events such as a club Christmas party, a club inviting me to speak, or a seasonl celebration or a contest at which I am a judge.

AuthorAngela Lansbury, CL, ACG, member of HOD in London, England.

How to be an impromptu GE at Harrovians

I went to a Toastmasters club, Harrovians in London,  and towards the end the evening's toastmaster said that they didn't have a General Evaluator. I immediately offered to be the GE. 

Other people said they were impressed that I was able to do it at short notice. I should have offered earlier, seeing no GE listed on the programme. 

It wasn't difficult. I mentioned the work done on What's ap before the meeting to get it organised, the speech by the president, and I praised several people. 

I forgot to mention the evaluators. I was too busy doing an evaluation of one of the speeches to listen to other evaluators so I asked the audience for comments. 

I mentioned the missing board markers. That started a discussion. 

I saw I was still on the yellow light and had time for more, so I asked for comments from the floor. That led to a discussion on the heat. 

Job done. Next time I shall add two columns on the back of my agenda, with headings for LE and GE, just in case I am invited or volunteer. Better still, write in a large lined notebook, as done by Indra. Write LE and GE in the margin.

***
What I Could Have Added
When I got home I re-read my notes and watched my videos of the meeting. A one minute snippet was enough to remind me what a speaker or role player said and did.

Timer
Suchil was timer. He introduced his role with an illustration of the point that time is money. He had a boss who was paid by the hour (a large sum) and even if you only spoke to him for five minutes he timed the meeting so he could bill you for it.

***

Harrovians meets in Edgware on Mondays, see website for which Mondays. Usually first and third Monday but not on Bank Holidays, and sometimes extra meetings as well as the summer and Christmas parties on other days and contests sometimes at weekends.

Author and Speaker

Angela Lansbury, speaker, mentor, competition judge, timer, past president, forthcoming mentoring manager. I am also a member of HOD Speakers (Thursdays - see websites for which weeks.)

In Singapore I am a member of Braddell Heights Advanced speakers' club.

How do you do the catering at your club or area event?

Clubs and events cater in three different ways:

1 A catering manager all year. HOD Speakers' Club in London did this for a while. So did Harrovians. In HOD the man who was president one year, SAA another year, organised all the food for club catering, and Club Officer Training events at the club. As a retired restaurant owner, he had a card for a wholesale catering outlet which could be used for big events. Milk was bought, and top up biscuits on a weekly basis as needed. This was for HOD club which provided sweet and savoury biscuits for evening meetings, sandwiches and or/ savouries such as dips for big inter club meetings which ran over lunch times (when visitors from afar had to leave home before lunch although we began after lunchtime for those who lived nearby.

2 A different caterer every week.

3 One person provides drinks, another favourite, another sweets or desserts.

4 Pot luck.
You might make a list and ask people to choose which item to bring. Or simply to say whether they will bring sweet or savoury to ensure you have a mixture.

Angela Lansbury ACG, CL>

Clubs Attended 2016 UK and Singapore and lessons learned

2015
UK
Harrovians
HOD

Singapore

January 2016
Monday Jan 18 to Sheraton Hotel SCS Spoke in topics
Tue 19

Wed 20 Bukit Panjang (around an oval table, I was given a welcome ribbon signed on back by president with name of club, and best speaker for my topic.

My topic subject was: one swallow does not make a summer.

I said:
Swallows in the old days used to predict Seasons
In the old days you could tell the seasons by the birds which flew into (seasonal) countries (like the UK) for the summer. But with Global warming the seasons are less predictable. We have longer, warmer summers. Yet in England which has cold winter, we get shorter but less predictable shifting snow intervals, no longer white Christmas but often White weeks with whiteouts in January, February or even March.

How does global warming affect birds? In England we have a bird count in January organised by the RSPB, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. That day volunteers all over the country count birds in their gardens. If you don't have a garden you can count in the nearest park. Even a windowsill if you put out bird food.

You don't count birds flying across, which are hard to identify accurately, only those which land.
You could have birds flying away and coming back. The same bird might be counted twice or ten times. So you only count the numbers you see together. I saw four magpies and two crows o ravens.

I wondered why we counted in January. The leaves fall so it's easier to see birds in the trees or on the end of the lawn, not hidden from view by overhanging branches. The idea is to compare each year with the next year, to find out whether birds are increasing or decreasing. And which birds? More robins? Or fewer?

Swallows and birds flying in for the summer are not native birds and are outside our control. One swallow does not make a summer was originally a saying about birds, although we now use it metaphorically, when I do the bird count I take it literally. You could probably do the same bird count in Singapore, but the saying would not be a swallow but another bird. Yes, I agree, one swallow does not make a summer.

What I learned:
Bilingual Cards With Proverbs
(I would like to know which bilingual cards have the sayings in both Chinese and English - are they from Toastmasters or another organisation?)

Thu 21 Bukit Batok speakers club meeting at Bukit Batok CC (Community Centre) beyond the West Mall beside Bukit Batok MRT (and bus station). (Bukit Batok, alliterative, could mean hill of Javanese coconuts ; or Batu-stone in Bahasa Malay for coughs/explosives at nearby Little Guilin lake).
In an upstairs room we sat around a large o v a l table.
At break time we had k w a y  t e o w, flat rice noodles in mystery sauce, cockles and prawns, been sprouts; char away teouw with sausage. Chinese carrot cake (neither carrots, nor cake, some kind of vegetable stew) bananas and grapes.

What I learned:

Fri 22 ..

Sat
Sun

Mon Jan 25 Tanglin Club's Tanglin Restaurant
Lunch saw Shan who told me about her business selling gluten free products.
Dinner 6 pm. See Catherine Lim. (Take book for signing.)

Bukit Gombak - hill + bunch or collection

My Topics (table topics - impromptu speeches)


My Ribbons:
B i s h a n  (I had to insert spaces because autocorrect changed the name to Bison.)
I used the word Exquisite as Language Evaluator.
I won the table topics ribbon. My topic was?

Saturday Jan 30th 2016
Club Officer Training.
(I saw Alvin, Gibson, Ivy, Samantha)

Harrovian Speakers Monday 16 March 2015 - What An Evening!

President Indra, ATMS, AL* opened the meeting and he and Ruth Vishnick had co-ordinated well during Ruth's absence, as Indra had brought the fresh milk, teabags and old biscuits and fresh ones. I was observing what he did, noting it for when I am Toastmaster at sister club HOD. (I belong to two clubs in the UK and was a member of a club in Singapore.) The President is allowed only five minutes, which gave him time to introduce the guest, Nadine. He joked about the 'political' badge I was wearing, 'Birthday Girl', and the birthday cake I had brought for everybody to enjoy at the interval.

Toastmaster of the evening, Veeren Taylor, introduced Timekeeper Karen Carter succinctly by saying the Timekeeper was an important role. In the past I've heard the timekeeper or teamaker introduced as a 'thankless task'. ' A positive phrase such as 'A vital role' applies to both the timekeeper and the teamaker and anybody else. How much more encouraging for the evening's timekeeper, makes people listen to her, or want to volunteer to take the role.


Grammarian Jay Makwana had chosen the word of the day, LIMINAL. She had remembered to write it up on a card and bring Blutac to fix it. She went to stick it centrally, then sensibly moved it to the right of the stage so it would not be hidden by the speaker, helpfully telling everybody the reason.

Table Topics Master Minh Tran told us how she'd been longing to be the Table Topics Master ever since she joined. Great to see such enthusiasm. She had brought photos cut from newspapers for the impromptu speakers.

Table topics speakers were:
Indra, Warren, Chi, Angela, Nadine, Nigel, Dupe, Chi.

We had four longer planned speeches. Harri Seth, a mortgage adviser, gave a speech on mortgages. He advised, 'The best way to make money is to use somebody else's money, banks', and pay back using rent. Britain is landlocked with a rising population so there's dwindling supply and increasing demand. Population in London alone is 8.5 million now with an estimated 10 million in 10-15 years. The mayor of London plans building 42,000 homes a year. Where there is a demand for social housing, sometimes you are offered guaranteed rent, and maintenance paid for.

I was filling in my feedback slip, on a scrap of paper the size of my thumb, wondering how to condense my 'recommend' that he should answer the audience's prospective mortgage taker's fears about the rent being paid not to the landlords but to tenants who run off with the money, but we were on to the next speaker.

Thulasi Arunthavanatha gave a speech on drugs and clinical trials.

Jayanthiny Kangatharan gave an Icebreaker speech. She revealed that she is doing a PhD in psychology and impressed us with her use of several languages to translate research documents to report for the news section of her radio programme for graduates.

Lorna Burns CC gave an advanced project on How to Negotiating to Win-Win (both sides feel they have won or gained). After introducing the subject, she demonstrated a negotiation with her boss acted by Seema. Lorna's tips included picking your time to negotiate, whether with your spouse or your boss, preferably not first thing in the morning nor first thing in the evening. Talk about how I feel, listen to the answer, I appreciate your point, (and you benefit, not you don't understand).

Tea Break and Birthday Cake. I counted we had present 20 members (19 members and one guest). So I cut the cake into twenty pieces, hoping nobody would take two. I hung back for the first five minutes in case there was not enough for everybody. In the event a few people were not cake eaters so at least two people had seconds.

As a general rule, the thin people refuse cake. The people who are or were plump and jolly types smile broadly, discuss dieting, indulge themselves by taking the first piece, and want to be persuaded to take another. (Me, definitely, Indra, highly likely, Thulassi - possibly.)

Evaluators Nigel Tranah, Chinemelu Ezah, Sarda Hirani, Sanjay Ratnam, Jesus Parada.

General Evaluator Warren Sheng, ACS, AL, said 'the job of the General Evaluator is to evaluate everything', (including the Evaluators of speeches). He commented 'brevity is the key'. He said that the timekeeper should time everything, including the break, to be sure the evening ran to time. You should could call people back two minutes early, because nobody would notice or complain, and it takes two minutes to get everybody back to their seats. A Timekeeper should not simply stand up at the back, but come to the front stage (and enjoy) - the Timekeeper's five minutes in the limelight.
Warren's comment on the Table Topics Master, Minh Tran, was that she did well to invite the guest to speak.

Future Meetings
March 28 Contest on a Saturday, starts at 9.30 am, at London Business School a walk from Baker Street station. (Cost?) Warren Sheng is doing a workshop/training session (so he won't be paying).

You will have a chance to hear Harrovian Speakers' Gosbert Chagula, a former president, giving his prize-winning speech on Africa. He is Harrovians' winner of the club contest, then won the Area contest, now reaching the third level, division contest. If he wins that he represent us in the International Contest.

Another personality at the event is Hilary Briggs who has already visited clubs in the area giving training sessions on Evaluations - the other contest on the day being the Evaluation contest.

Our toastmaster for the evening, Veeren Taylor, is planning a workshop/training about success, including various motivational topics, at the club meeting place, Glebe Hall, Glebe Road, dates and details to be confirmed, fee covering the cost of hall hire and/or other expenses, to be announced later.

WINNERS
President Indra Sikdar presented prizes.
Jayanthini Kangatharai was presented with a ribbon for having the courage and dedication to present her first toastmasters speech, project one, the Icebreaker.

The winner of the table topics ribbon was the President, Indra Sikdar.

The winner of the speech ribbon was Lorna Burns.

The winner of the evaluator ribbon was Jay Makwana.

Nigel was presented with his CC award, a wooden plaque which has a tab at the back to enable you to stand it on a shelf.  This was Indra's good idea. I had received only a certificate from head office for my CC and Indra said the club would not pay for the plaques for previous years. So now I shall go through the manual again to win a point for the club and the plaque. Meanwhile I photographed myself with Nigel's plaque.

(Note the letters listed on agendas: PP which is short for a Past President. IPP is immediate Past President).
More on newsletters see later post.
For more on cakes see later post.
Angela Lansbury CL ACG* (For more on Toastmasters awards letters see later post.)

How to change your life, from rags to riches, and use singing to enhance public speaking - HOD Meeting Thursday March 5th

President Tony Winyard

Toastmaster of the evening
Bijan

Grammarian Angela Lansbury with her props, a percussion instrument to get attention, plus a dictionary and a grammar book.

From the club cupboard Angela had found the pack of words of the day and selected recapitulate. Re-cap-it-u-late.

Visitors included General Evaluator Geoffrey Freedland, a former HOD Speakers' Club member who now lives in Glasgow and attends a Toastmasters club there. 

David fetched a display board from the second library. Angela wrote the word of the evening large and positioned the display board diagonally so it could be seen by both speakers on stage and the audience. She used a clipboard from the cupboard as a ruler to get the lettering straight.

 Geoffrey Freedland, who suggested she should write on the board a reminder of the meaning of the word so Angela wrote underneath the synonym Summarize, using the American spelling, which was on the card supplied by Toastmasters International which has its HQ in the USA where the organisation started. In any case, IPC converted to using Z in spellings two or three decades ago when Angela worked there as a sub-editor.

The first speech was an ice breaker or first introductory speech by Adam. His speech was full of humour about his life as a gambler. He described his grandmother as living until her nineties.  'She smoked, and drank - and was an inspiration to us all!'

The second speech was entitled Me, and was a rags to riches story. The speaker's turning point was reading the book: The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Steven Covey.

The third speech by Coral Dawkins was from the advanced Storytelling manual. She used confrontational conversation when she told us about her childhood drama standing her ground against her teacher and head master. Despite being good at maths she had been marked down, and refused to accept the paper. Her punchline was that she had been given the paper of a girl named Carol. She refused to accept the paper with the low mark. The moral of the story is that you should not accept others' underestimation of your abilities.

The fourth speech was by David Phelops on using singing scales and songs to improve speaking. He sang and used gestures. He successfully persuaded us to sign up for a singing event or course.

Peter Jacques was Topics Master and despite being pushed into the position on the day because somebody else was unable to attend, he came up with some challenging and amusing topics.

All the topics speakers were amusing and interesting. But the winner of the ribbon won despite being off topic because he was truly memorable and impressive. Nobody can remember what the topic was but we can all remember his response - a demonstration of asking everybody in the room to say their name - then remembering all the names.

The last photo shows Toastmaster of the evening, Bijan, presenting the ribbon for the best table topic.

Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright Angela Lansbury. More photos of this event and others are available to members of Toastmasters.

If you wish to attend an HOD meeting, see details on Facebook, or on the club website, or on the Toastmasters International Find a Club website.

I was asked by a committee member (who I hope will be our next President) about membership numbers in both clubs I belong to in the UK and what causes membership to go up and down. She will be incorporating and adapting some of these ideas in her presentation at the next Club Officer Training.

1Email HQ in USA. They should have exact membership figures. Indra may be able to help. He was a founder member of Harrovians and introduced me and was my mentor. He recruited me from another local club, Harrow Writers' Circle.

2 We used to have a list of members and their addresses, phone numbers and emails which was given to all new members so everybody knew the exact membership number every other month. This was discontinued for security reasons. 

3 It would be helpful to have the president announcing the membership numbers at every meeting. Then every committee members and and ordinary members and guest would know where they stand. (Some guests would like to join a busy club which is obviously successful and in demand. Others prefer a small club where they can quickly get a committee role, become a VIP, improve their CV, and get speaking slots to achieve their CC or CL certificate within a year, whilst living in London, ready for next job interview/post, wedding speech in Spring or summer, or to get results like O level in one year for the price of one year’s membership fee.

4 Membership increased when we were the only club in the area meeting twice a month and nearest rival was HOD meeting only once a month and Watford did not exist and we met at a pub in central Harrow near the tube station. The president was a charismatic single man who held committee meetings at his house and had a series of girlfriends. Membership was challenged by some disappearing presidents (one lasted less than a month - achieving his aim of getting promoted to a good job). We also had loss of and change of venue, our pub meeting place closed down. We were originally double the size of HOD 30-40 compared to their 15-20. HOD was retired people in no hurry to complete manuals,a social group rising money for charity.

5 The biggest challenge is actually having a membership secretary who signs people up at meetings. I was signed up at the first meeting I attended by Ann Connolly. She had the manuals and said if I wrote a cheque, for less than £100, I would have a year’s membership, a mentor, be on the next meeting programme with my first speech, and she would give me the two manuals she showed me at break time. I joined instantly to get the manuals and join the group.

6 membership sank when we had membership secretary who was away several meetings in a row on business and it was decided that ‘everyone’ would stand in which meant nobody did - everybody was engaged chatting to friends or arranging other matters.

7 We’ve had a lot of members between jobs reluctant to spend money and part with it. We’ve even had a president who was not a paid up members, naturally not pro-active in in persuading others to pay. 

8 At both Harrovians and HOD we’ve gone through periods of negative sales. Instead of selling the club and joining - and if you think the club is the best thing ever, you should be selling it, we’ve had negative statements:

a) Phrases containing negatives such as I can’t read your writing, I don’t want you to join and not come to meetings, 

9 One person should be delegated to talk people into joining, show manuals, take emails, fill in membership form (for those not computer literate or too busy). Mamership form and money in the hand is worth two in the hands of I’ll do it later. Take the money.

10 Young family members were on another committee and were vanishing to take children to London when we were meeting for training up in St Albans.

11 New computer-savvy presidents made great changes. Easy Speak enables you to keep track.

12 Members who leave often come back months or even years later. If we keep emailing our passive list, we can sometimes reclaim members later.

13 It is helpful to maintain goodwill, send at least a Xmas party invite to former members, phone them up, how’s your new baby?

14 Cross fertilisation of clubs is great. People often joint, even because a relative overseas belonged.

15 Membership secretary should know that the best club, toastmasters, tennis, whatever sort, loses members through illness, death, brith, marriage, new jobs, lack of jobs, lost interest, personality clash. You need to be adding at the same rate you are losing.

16 Membership secretary needs a goal of 2 new members per meeting. If you miss out for whatever reason on this goal over two or three meetings, you need to admit it and get help.

17 Once members realise the club will close if you don’t have money to pay the rent, pay USA HQ, have paid up members eligible for competitions, they will help.

18 I once said we needed members and needed to leaflet or knock on doors or nearby homes. Warren Sheng announced he would race out in the break. I thought he was joking. He knocked on four doors and his last call found somebody in who came and joined and was our Sergeant at Arms for a year, very convenient for him and us - even when he could not attend he crossed the road and opened up, put out chairs. 

Fear, Happiness and Improv Songwriting - What an Evening of speeches at Harrovians Monday 5 Jan 2014

What An Evening
Fear, Happiness and Improv Songwriting - What an Evening of speeches at Harrovians Monday 5 Jan 2014 at Glebe Hall, Stanmore, cosy with the electric fire.

What do you do when the President is away and not enough people reply to emails? While President Indra was away in India, or maybe an Indian restaurant, past past president Ruth Vishnick CC followed the precedents Indra and another past President Gosbert had established by reading out the Toastmasters mission statement. She then quickly, enthusiastically handed over steering the evening's proceedings to Minh, beaming, debut Toastmaster of the Evening.

Minh's New Year Theme
Minh Tran had received emails from several members on New Year Resolutions and tips for running your year and life. She had supplemented them with her own favourite ideas, selected from the internet, printed them out and placed them in an envelope for each person taking the stage to read. This system gave the evening a coherent running theme, as well as  holding the audience's attention with an element of surprise

Happy Time
Karen Carter, seemed very happy in her Happy Hour as time keeper of the evening. By happy chance, when Minh called Karen to tell us how the timing works, Karen selected a tip on time keeping, a quotation from Abraham Lincoln, that those of us poor in other ways are rich in time. Karen continued on a positive note, saying that as time keeper, her job was to help us keep to time.

So often I've heard time keepers emphasize negative aspects of running over time. I must remember to advise future timekeepers to emphasize the benefits of keeping to time.

How helpful it is to have a timekeeper warning us how well we are doing.  Speakers see they have successfully reached the green light for the minimum time allotted. Then they see orange, suggesting that it's a good time to move towards the conclusion. Finally, on the red light it's over - time's up - we have successfully spoken right to the last second, as Rudyard Kipling said in his poem If: 'filling every minute ...'

Grammarian
Grammarian Chinamelu Ezeh (Chi for short) gave us the word of the day, obstreperous.

Veeren Taylor presented a variety of table topics for brief impromptu speeches, all thought-provoking  subjects without being over-challenging.

Table Topics

Happiness -The First Prepared Speech Subject
Sachin Madhav

Introduction to happy Harri Sethi
Harri gave us a classic rags to riches story. In his childhood his father had fallen ill and while the parent was ill the business lost all its money. Harri grew up fast, with more responsibility than is usual for a child. The good news was he ended up, with his father's encouragement, seeking to be qualified to work in business and finance, coming to the UK to further his studies. He is now furthering his skills by attending our Toastmasters International speakers' training club.

Fear by Nigel Tranah

Evaluations of Speeches
Seema
Ruth
Warren evaluating Angela

Prize Winners
Prize winners were Nigel for best prepared speech.

Warren won a ribbon for best evaluation of a speech.

 For best impromptu table topic, Ampara.

For my speech on
What the Brighton Speakers conference taught us about performing on stage, using props and improvising songs, see next post.

Evaluations

CC = Competent Communicator (One who has completed the ten speeches in the first manual).
CL=Competent Leader
ACB= Advanced Communicator Bronze (20 speeches)
ACS=Advanced Communicator Silver (30 speeches)
ACG Advanced Communicator Gold (40 speeches)

Meetings are held twice, occasionally three times a month.
The next meeting is on Monday January 19th.
Speech Contest is Feb 2nd 2015.
Club Officer Training is at the venue of sister club HOD. (I am a member of both).
Guests are very welcome at both Toastmaster Clubs. if you wish to attend a meeting please contact the clubs through their website(s). Toastmasters International Find a club. The clubs are also on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Angela Lansbury CC ACG