Monthly Newsletter – July 2016

Excalibur Mission & Vision

Road to Washington

Conference Director Opportunity

Dates for your Diary

EXCALIBUR MISSION & VISION

A new Toastmaster year, 2016/17, and a new goal.  The aim for this year is to move Excalibur from a club full of talent and skill into a ‘Club of Excellence’ in everything we do, from stretched TT (table topics) to quality evaluations for every speech and effective introductions for every speaker.  A great opportunity to take all our speaking skills to the next level.

To support our goal; below are the Mission and Vision Statements for the year ahead.

Mission

To be a club of excellence where Toastmasters experience speeches, introductions and evaluations of the highest standard, improving the speaking ability of all our members.

Vision

To challenge the skills and abilities of our members and guests, stepping out of our comfort zones, in a safe environment, where we learn, develop and discover new ideas to the mutual benefit of both ourselves and others.

We aim to challenge ourselves, step out of our comfort zones and support each other.  We are ambitious, join us in our quest for excellence.

ROAD TO WASHINGTON

I went to this event last year and it was fabulous.  A really high standard of speeches and great to see speeches in development at an international level.  Do get to it if you can.

See your champions from Belgium, Ireland, Hungary, and the UK, in the heart of London including D91’s very talented representative Thien Trang Nguyen Phan.

When: Saturday 23rd July, at 1:45pm for a 2pm start until 6pm.

Where: Venue is being finalised.  Check the London Speaker for details.

Tickets:  http://roadtowashington.eventzilla.net/  priced £16.99.

CONFERENCE DIRECTOR OPPORTUNITY

Are you looking for a new challenge? Would you like the opportunity to contribute to Toastmasters in District 91 in a tangible and memorable way? If you’re looking to develop your leadership skills, then the Conference Director role might just be for you. The venue is booked in Woking, Surrey, just 25 minutes from London Waterloo and the date is 5-6 November 2016. If you’re up for a challenge, contact Program Quality Director Pedro Casillas or email dltdistrict91@gmail.com.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests:-

·      Club Contest – Wednesday 14^th September

·      Area Contest – Thursday 29^th September

·      Division Contest – Saturday 15^th October

·      District 91 Contest – Saturday & Sunday 5^th & 6^th November

Next Excalibur Meeting Wednesday 27^th July 7pm prompt.   Roles still available, including Toastmaster, Topics Master, so please sign up.

To be fair to everyone, we encourage all members to take turns in doing speeches, evaluations and functionary roles.

See you all there,

Best regards

Lynne

Lynne Cantor

Excalibur President 2016/17

Meeting Report 13th July 2016

Welcome to the new Toastmaster year.  After the decision to Brexit the country may be in a state of flux, but no need for Excalibur to be as we and Toastmasters are as strong as ever.  Our New President, Lynne Cantor, kicked off the meeting with a challenge to us all; to write down our goals and then share them, giving us a greater chance of actually achieving them.

….and here to kick us off….Lynne’s goal for this year, 2016/17, is to complete her HPL (High Performance Leadership) and at least one of her ACG (Advanced Communicator Gold) manuals. Here is Lynne clearly revelling in her new role! :)

The Timekeeper of the night was Tony Winyard who made everyone laugh by assigning the time of every speaker and evaluator to a notable event with the same winning time.  Novel and fun. 

Simon Cooper entertained us in TT (Table Topics) with a selection of objects and questions, with one or two risky additions!   With a bit of persuasion every one of the short evaluations had a recommendation.  The best TT Speaker was Daniel Broadhead winning with ‘A Beatles Album and why it was the best ever’.

David West was our competent and capable Toastmaster of the night.  He introduced two speakers at once as Cat Kipling and Lynne Cantor did a bit of a double act with two speeches from the Special Occasion Manual.  Cat ‘Presented an Award, The Presidency’ to Lynne and she ‘Accepted the Award with her inaugural speech’.  Cat’s speech flowed beautifully and did justice to the recipient.  Lynne’s speech was gracious, uplifting and inspiring taking us into the year ahead. 

The final speaker was Katja Van Koten doing the Keynote Address from the Professional Speaker series.  It was a very well grafted speech that was personal, touching and very moving, winning her the best Speaker of the night.

We had three excellent evaluations from George Chiesa, Giovanna Vasaturo and Irene Bradshaw.  All providing R’s (recommendations) and a tip on ‘how to improve’.   Winning the Award with her tips on ‘breathing’ was Irene. 

There were two open feedback sessions this week, one for the three Speakers, run by Daniel Broadhead, and one for the three evaluators, run by Freddie Daniells. This was well received and added a little variety to the standard meeting format.

It was a very positive and uplifting first meeting of the new Toastmaster year.  Do join us again on Wednesday 27^th July.  See you all there.

International Speech and Evaluation contest results

Last week, Excalibur Speakers held its International Speech and Evaluation contest. An audience of over 30 members and guests witnessed an evening of inspirational quality and amusement.

We were blessed to have the hugely experienced Bob Ferguson as our Contest Chair and Andy O’Sullivan, the District Chief Judge, as our Chief Judge. Both made their roles look effortless.

With speeches from Paul Andreas, Lynne Cantor, David Lennon, Janet Tarasofsky and Tony Winyard, the judges had a tough time choosing the winners. However, the winners were:

1^st Place: Lynne Cantor

2^nd Place: Janet Tarasofsky

3^rd Place: Paul Andreas

Ayse Lowe of Clerkenwell Speakers delivered the target speech for the Evaluation Contest. She told a powerful story with a strong message.

The Evaluation contestants were Simon Cooper, Cat Kipling, David West and Tony Winyard. The results were:

1^st Place: David West

2^nd Place: Cat Kipling

In our Area, both first and second place contestants will get the opportunity to compete at the Area level of the contests. As such, good luck to Lynne, Janet, David and Cat!

Thank you to all the functionaries - Bob, Andy George, Daniel and all the judges - for all their help.

Please come along to support our contestants at Area level

The Area contest will be held on March 17th at the Inn of Court pub, 18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE. Doors will open at 6.45 for a 7pm start so please mark your diaries for that time. Our Area Director, Daniel Broadhead, will be there to welcome you. I will see you there!

Our next regular meeting of Excalibur is on March 9th. We already have a strong agenda so make sure to be there!

Excalibur Speakers helps committed speakers, who are working on the Toastmasters advanced manuals, to get the quality feedback they need to accelerate their learning. 

Presidents Newsletter, February 2016

Hello, fellow Excaliburgers! I hope your 2016 is off to a flying start.

Club International Speech and Evaluation contest

This year, the Club International Speech and Evaluation contests will be held on February 24th, 2016. With just a couple of weeks to go, please get writing your speeches and honing those evaluation skills. If you wish to enter the contests, please let our VPE know.

Mark your diary for the Area and Division contest dates

Our club winner will, of course, enter into the Area 9 contest at the next round. This session will be held on Thursday 17th March at the Inn of Court, 18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE.

The winner of that will enter the Division contest which will occur on Saturday 9th April, Freemasons Hall, Covent Garden.

Book your place at the May District 91 Conference

The District conference is returning to the Grange Hotel in Tower Hill this coming May. It promises to be an excellent occasion with the District finals of the International Speech and Evaluation finals. There are exciting workshops from (amongst others) David Taylor, author of the Naked Leader, and the current World Champion of Public Speaking, Mohammed Qahtani. And, of course, there will be the usual merriment at the gala dinner. Early bird pricing is available until the end of February so get booking soon!

VP PR

Our VP PR has stepped down from the role, so we are looking for someone to take over. Your responsibilities would be to write meeting reports, create occasional articles for The London Speaker and to pick up our social media responsibilities. The role would suit a regular attendee at the club and will initially run until the end of June 2016. Please let me know if you are interested.

Come along to Excalibur...we miss you!

While we have had lively and high-quality meetings recently, attendance at the club has been lower than we would like. Our meetings thrive on good attendance by our members so please try and get to one of our next couple of meetings. Please make the effort to come along...members always seem to enjoy it when they do! I hope to see you soon!

Excalibur Speakers helps committed speakers, who are working on the Toastmasters advanced manuals, to get the quality feedback they need to accelerate their learning.