Tall Tales Contest Highlights - including my singing Santa

Problem How to get silence when you start? Answer I got silence from the audience when I started the Tall Tales Contest at HOD Speakers' Club in London by pressing the ear of the Santa on the front of my red Xmas theme sweater. Santa continues dancing until you have everybody's attention. Then you press the ear again and it switches off. By now the whole audience is smiling and I'm beaming with delight at my success and their surprise. Story I'm been looking forward to using my dancing singing Santa for weeks, since I'd bought it in the St Luke's shop. Just the thing! I thought. On the right of the picture of our group you can see me wearing my red Santa sweater, which outclassed my Christmas cake hat which normally gets attention.

My joke opening for the tall tales contest was: "Welcome to the HOD Tall Tales Contest. I wondered why they hadn't chosen somebody taller to be contest chair of a tall tales contest, but perhaps they thought I would tell a tall tale about making myself taller." Lots For Speaking Position - Luck of the draw? We had already drawn lots for speakers, numbers on pieces of white paper. You draw lots so that you don't have the organisers favouring their friends with the preferred first and last spots. Some people like to be first; others like to be last. Others are sure they will win, or lose, or don't think the order of speaking makes any difference, or shrug, or are happy to oblige somebody who wants to swap. In the past I've been a secret swapper. The aim of the exercise is to keep everybody happy. So I allowed two speakers to swap numbered positions and speak in their preferred places. Yes, once I have given everybody an equal chance, I don't care if somebody who doesn't care swaps with somebody who does. I like to keep people happy and confident.

SPEAKER Sina Spoke on Nine Snakes Speaker Sina entertained us with a speech entitled Nine Snakes about climbing a mountain called Nine Snakes in Iran. He donned a backpack and stood with one foot on the table another on the chair. I thought this was very effective. Better than standing on a table, which makes everybody nervous in case he falls off. And keeps him in climbing mode. JUDGES I made the whole audience judges. That keeps the judges anonymous. Everybody gets practice at being judges, so you can call on them to be judges at the next contest. Here's the audience writing, whilst the next speaker Martin is waiting to be called. Martin Doe spoke on My Adventure In a Post Industrial World. He was on fine form and most amusing. The speech was very visual. He began at our meeting in Harrow, went to locations in the area, spoke to people, nearly got arrested, showed pictures of us on an electronic device, escaped, travelled back in time to now. His speech incorporated geography, history (time travel), and conflict, danger, an escape. However, I was confused as to whether he was in the past or the future. He was travelling in time to the future. But people were using bows and arrows. When we filled in time at the end of the meeting with interviews of the candidates I stuck to three simple questions: your speech; your work/day job; your hobby/what you do for fun. I then discovered that his speech was in the future when we ran out of power sources and had to go back to bows and arrows. Everybody who speaks gets a certificate of participation. Speaker Gill Ornstein on A Tall Tale of Tiles "This is a tongue-twister," I said. "I've been practising saying it all afternoon!" WINNERS The First Place winner was President Gill, with her speech, a story with three characters, herself, her husband, and the VIP man delivering large heavy tiles in a van which blocked their narrow street. I'd heard this speech before when she won with it at a humorous speech contest.

The Second Place Winner was Ade. His speech was entitled, 'Back To The ... Past'. He spoke about the future, and how phones might run our lives. His name is pronounced Add - ay, like advertisement and addition, (not aid).

The Third Place Winner was Robert Baker. His speech Shedding Light On Thomas and Rover featured Edison who invented the light bulb, on advice from his dog Rover, who understood human speech but, like all dogs, concealed the fact. However, equally memorable was his table topic. (At the end we had table topics with everybody telling a tall tale. To my surprise and delight, the speakers all found something to say about the first three simple subjects I chose, a problem with a dog, a house, or a bath. Robert's story was how, in a new house, the water was unexpectedly hot and he got into a boiling hot bath. He demonstrated the bath with two chairs which he lay across with his feet in the air, demonstrated how he had to support himself in the air on his elbows, then wiggled his ankle to show how he had to turn off the hot tap with his toes.

Our tally counters were Angela Hook and Oana (pronounced one-ah) Stroie. Timers were Dennis Newman and Bobbie Rutherford. They seem to enjoy their job. On the right of the picture is Angela Hook. I need an L after the name Angela on my badge; otherwise two of us with the same first name get muddled up. What did we learn from this contest? Commend Recommend Commend: You need to focus on one story and one prop so that at the end of the contest the judges have a clear memory of each speech and what it was about. Indra, our Chief Judge, had been in another club contest, and was able to be a judge because he was no longer competing. He said he had felt uncomfortable telling an untrue story about anything, including himself. (He had told a story from mythology.) An alternative to telling a story from mythology or the distant past (such as the creation of the earth, or what it was like to live in a cave, is to pick the future. I learned that a tall tales, although it seems absurd, contest is a lot of fun. TIMERS AND A TRICK In the group photo notice Robbie on the left of the photo, creating the illusion that his legs are half size by kneeling on his shoes.

AUTHOR Angela Lansbury PS If you ever come to London, England, you can visit Harrovians or HOD clubs in the suburbs of NW London. Several more clubs are in central London and around England and Ireland. If you visit Singapore there are about 350 clubs and when I am there I have a choice of half a dozen clubs within 20 miles most days except Sunday when there may be only one or two clubs, often a bilingual Tamil and English speaking club with speeches either all in English or in both languages.

Mentoring a Speech - and ideas for speech and props

It is very true that teaching others helps you to learn. I have just mentored somebody with their speech. One idea I gave them about props I have just used for my own speech. Can you guess what it is? Read on.

I wrote to my mentee: What project is it? Five? Your body speaks?

Video yourself and note the gestures you make and exaggerate them and write them into the draft in another colour. Make sure you have a gesture or movement every couple of sentences.

From what I remember of your test speech at Harrovians’ contest, as well as other people’s, you had good stage control already, and lots of conversation. Although this project is not about voice, you need to remember these 

points:

1 When asking a rhetorical question pause, raise eyebrows. If you don’t want shouting and heckling tell them to make a mental (or written) note.

If expecting an answer, show the audience you expect an answer.

2 If this is a speech to Toastmasters (eg to deliver as an officer training workshop or a training for newcomers, rather than simply rehearsing at Toastmasters for another occasion such as a wedding speech) make every other sentence related to Toastmasters, (eg climbing through the manual). You could alter your tone for each part - eg extra enthusiasm, smiling, speaking louder for all the sentences relating to toastmasters, or vice versa. 

3 Avoid being monotone - find a word to emphasise and underline it in the speech

4 Allow extra time if you are crossing the stage without saying anything or if walking about will slow down your delivery.

5 Try to get the important word  at the end of the sentence. Don’t tail off at the end of the sentence, going quieter or losing the last word. eg end on mount TOP, rather than top of the mountain. Add a few shorter sentences for variety.

You already did a good job of conversation in your last speech. Maybe you can invent an imaginary mountain climbing guide, perhaps with a German accent, encouraging you or not allowing you to fall back or ignoring your protest.

Which country is the mountain? Plenty of scope for two different accents. 

I hope this helps.

Now, dear reader, you may have gathered which tip I am using in my speech.

 Two or three copies of the photo in progressively larger sizes.

Angela Lansbury BA Hons, CL, ACG.