Another Wonderful Excalibur Meeting...

EXCALIBUR SPEAKERS MEETING REPORT FOR 8^TH AUGUST, 2018

We enjoyed another fantastic meeting in the Fitzrovia Community Centre, with Ben calling the meeting to order before he handed over to club president Monika, who opened the meeting. She then introduced our Toastmaster for the evening, Alfredo, who took command.

Robin—who was performing the role of Meet and Greet—then invited our three guests on stage: Marti, Thomas and Edmund, who all told us a little about themselves and explained why they were visiting Excalibur, which is an advanced Toastmasters club.

Our Timekeeper was Nick, who explained his role before effortlessly keeping things on track throughout the evening.

Table Topics Master was Ian, whose topic was stupidity (!) though his questions were anything but. Ben, Thomas, David, Robin, Monika and Edmund all found something interesting to say, though members of the audience in general and Marcin in particular voiced doubts about the veracity of Ben’s claims to have punched (later to become) Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on the nose, back in the day. Evaluators were Marcin, Eva, Freddie, Cat, Simon and Errol.

 

The first prepared speech was delivered by Chinkata (Interpretive Reading 5 – The Oratorical Speech). He chose President Kennedy’s 1961 powerful inauguration address, written by Ted Sorensen. This is often considered one of the very greatest speeches and Chinkata did it justice with his flawless delivery.

Our second speaker, Lukasz (The Entertaining Speaker – 1 – The Entertaining Speech) was titled “How to Meet the Queen”. Not, as it turned out, QE2, but a damsel in his coffee shop! The audience shared his pain when it was revealed his carefully crafted advance was not entirely successful.

In our third speech, Cat (Storytelling – 5 – Bringing History to Life) recounted the mystery of the ten day disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. From a car abandoned at a quarry to denials of her identity, Cat kept us enthralled not just by the narrative, but also by her expert use of pauses.

Three insightful speech evaluations were delivered by Errol, Marcin and Sue.

Freddie then conducted the Open Feedback session—where audience members are invited to make commends and recommends on the evening’s speeches.

Our General Evaluator was Marti. When Marti commented that Nick, the Timekeeper, had performed so faultlessly that he couldn’t think of a single recommend, Nick helpfully volunteered him an extra two minutes to develop the point.

  

Alfredo then handed back to Monika, who announced the evening’s prize winners:

Table Topic Winner: Robin 

Best Evaluator: Errol

Best Speech: Cat

Our next meeting is at 19:00 on 22^nd August, 2018 at the Fitzrovia Community Centre, W1W 6DN. Guests are very welcome!