Regular Meeting Report for 14th October 2015

Wow! What a great Excaliburgers session!

Our President, Freddie, kicked off the meeting. He suggested that, as aspiring speakers, we could learn so much from both professional speakers and comedians. They devote so much time to craft their work, knowing exactly where the laughs and other reactions will come from. We, as speakers, should follow their example by repeating and recording our speeches to hone our work too.

Francesca then had us all going “I like to move it, move it!” and move it she certainly did as our Toastmaster for the evening. She cajoled, entertained and kept things moving perfectly!

Cat, as timekeeper, kept us to time before we shot onto David who, as Table Topics Master, played with the meeting theme of Autumn. As a well read man, David came up with sources from far and wide to challenge us. The winning Table Topic of the day was Lynne Cantor.

Sue’s prepared speech had us all laughing about her dating exploits. This speech was speech 3 from the Entertaining Speaker manual. It was also the speech Sue was using when she competed just a few days later in the Division L finals of the Humorous Speaking contest.

George undertook a project called Diffusing Verbal Criticism from the Interpersonal Communication manual.  This was as much an exercise in listening as it is in making your point. As the person chosen to ‘criticise’ George, Freddie said he felt truly listened to as well as understanding George’s points.

Evaluations from Lynne and David met their usual amazingly high standards and with open feedback led by Kate, both our speakers will have had plenty of feedback to chew on.

Jakub, a popular Toastie and past Division B Governor, was our GE and (without notes) made sure that everyone got excellent ideas to improve further. Indeed his only recommendation to the club was to get even more people along to benefit from the amazing Excalibur experience.

Finally we had our very own Lynne, explain some early details about the new education programme due to come to Toastmasters between 2017 and 2019. She will ensure to keep Excalibur is one of the most up-to-date clubs in London!

Our President finished by telling us how exciting it was to say for the first time “See you in 2 weeks time!” as the club moves to two meetings a month. See you on the 28^th October for the next exciting instalment of Excalibur Speakers.