Speak Out report for 25 September 2014

The September monthly Speak Out event got the new season off to a busy start with Ken announcing the schedule of Speakers, to be followed by the open feedback from the floor.

The first speaker, Marc tackled Project 2 from the Interpretive Reading manual, "Shakespeare - Sonnet 60". The poem has the typical form of a Shakespearean sonnet with quatrain, quatrain, quatrain, couplet structure. Beginning with tide as a metaphor for the passage of time, it moved on to the passage of the sun as a metaphor for human life and then personified Time as giving and taking the gift of time. The couplet is a reversal or confirmation of the despair felt about finite life, depending on how you look at it. The poet can overcome finite life and leave a legacy only by writing poems. This offers hope but also points to the futility of the effort. I put my project in context with the final soliloquy, where Macbeth laments life as ‘a tale told by an idiot ... signifying nothing’.

Up next, Jane opted for the "Triple D". Forget the gym and the healthy foods – why not get adventurous and sample tons of DELICIOUS chocolate, fortified with your five-a-day and other healthy foods instead; wine may be DANGEROUS, but made from grapes – healthy fruits again. But watch it! You may get DELIRIOUS if you over indulge.

George supported the Triple D with his analysis of the "Average Bra Size" from the Entertaining Speaker manual – Project 3. He opined that ‘averages’ are sometimes not representative of the samples – as clearly the average bra size would give an erroneous bra size for men!  George explained basic averages, and via statistical expected value, brought us to the "40 million quid bet of the day". For example, the average age has less variance that the average income. Averages are however useful, in some cases, as probabilistic expected values.

Ken delivered an educational speech from the Leadership Excellence Series – ‘Giving Effective Feedback’. As part of the performance management cycle, Ken explained the requirements to set clear and concise objectives for your team from the start, observe team members’ performance, provide immediate feedback and acknowledge positive performance too.

The open feedback session provided an opportunity to evaluate each speaker, with good, constructive feedback all round.

All smartly done and the Speak Out meeting wrapped up on time!

Next meeting

Our next regular meeting is on Wednesday, 8^th October at the Fitzrovia Community Centre. Arrive from 6:45pm for a prompt 7pm start.

Also, don't forget to go along and support our representatives, Chinkata, David J and David W at the Area 45 Humorous Speech & Table Topics contests this Thursday, 2^nd October at the Freemasons' Hall, Covent Garden.