Harrovians Meeting Learning about Workers' Welfare, Writing Your Family History and Improving Meetings

Speech by Indra

Speech by Angela Lansbury On Writing Your Family History
I spoke about being a writer of several books including one on Weddings and Toasts which was why when I met Indra at a Harrow Writers Circle meeting, Indra invited me to join Toastmasters.and recommended writing your family history. I said that I was previously a travel writer and had to check all phone numbers before going to press because one reader because of a typo had her number given out as for a restaurant, part of a hotel, and had dozens of photos from people wanting to book meals.

I thought that writing about the past would be easier. I wrote about my late father's grandfather who came from Ukraine to London, starting with 1880 and I soon became an expert on the period 1880-1890.

I had him working in the post office. I finished my first chapter all about him working in the post office. Then I discovered that hew as the wrong nationality and religion and would not have been allowed to work in the post office. I had to rewrite the chapter, making others suspect him, and him being chased.

Next I had my hero getting on an old-fashioned train, a steam train. Then I looked for a picture of a train in Ukraine and discovered they had horse drawn trains on rails.

Following that, I had my book's hero landing in New York and seeing the Statue of Liberty. I thought, let's check how long after it was built he arrived. I found it had not yet been built, although he was would have known the poem written as a fund-raiser.

Writers' Holiday
Researching a novel does wonders for your history and is a constant entertainment. I am going on a writing holiday shortly, there's another in February. I suggest you come with me, and learn to write novels, poetry or your family history.

You would think that moving my novel's hero back to London, would make life easy for an English writer. My mother told me her grandfather was the first person in the street to have electric lights. That sounded like an idle boast. Until I realised that he had a store selling building supplies and fittings. So he sold electric lights. Also having electric lights would advertise his shop. What about electric lights in streets? The internet was no use. All the searches told me about the first electric lights in Chicago or New York. Most English speaking readers and writers on the internet are in America. My source would be the library of London's East End.

Best evaluator ribbon won by Grammarian by Steve Ferguson, a visitor. He had been a member of a Toastmasters group a long time ago when he did a best man's speech for a wedding in Wales.

Table Topics and Christmas In Communist Countries
His friend, Denise, revealed in table topics that she is from Albania and that in a Communist country they did not celebrate Christmas but New Year.

Table topics ribbon was won by Lorna.

Indra won best speaker, telling us he worked for the home office and when the system was that people were risking their jobs at the annual review, they worked less well than later. The system changed to one of rewards instead of punishments. Nowadays they also tried to make positive moves to keep workers happy and have team spirit. He was part of a committee finding new ideas and had suggested a monthly lunch together, and a breakfast together.

Jayanthini conducted a very useful workshop brain storming on how we could improve club meetings. (We were down to about nine members but that is usual in August when many members are on holiday.)

I gave a talk on why you should write your life story and go to a writing course.

Author
Angela Lansbury, author of Quick Quotation for Writers and Speakers. You can buy it through Lulu.com and Amazon.com

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