Monthly Newsletter – August 2016

Excalibur Aims

International Convention

Judges and Competition Training

Dates for your Diary

EXCALIBUR AIMS

We have shared our Mission and Vision for the year to move Excalibur into a ‘Club of Excellence’.   We will do this through CHALLENGE, QUALITY and VARIETY.  We will :

·      stretch ourselves whenever we speak and the goals we set ourselves

·      aim for quality in everything we do

·   vary the roles we take on so we speak, we evaluate and we do a functionary role, ideally Toast Master (TM) and /or Table Topics Master (TTM)

At every meeting we will have stretched TT’s, for example, where we have to provide a monologue, humour and a twist at the end. 

Every evaluation, be it for TT or for prepared speeches, will have Commendations (what was done well and why) and Recommendations (what could be even better, why and most importantly how to).

Speakers will be have effective introductions by the TM, building their credibility on their chosen topic.

We will continue to vary the agenda to add in mini workshops whenever we can to help develop every members speaking ability, so far we have had open feedback to evaluate the evaluators, a mini session on evaluations and a grammarian. 

Join us as we tap into the wealth of knowledge, skill and experience of advanced members and national and international champions.  The support, advice and guidance will help us all to develop and grow.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION

Don’t miss Toastmasters 85^th International Convention, on now til  20^th August in Washington DC.  If you couldn’t make it there in person you can watch all the action on demand with a virtual ticket.  At a cost of $124.99  you can always get a few people together and share the experience.  We wish District 91’s winner, Thien Trang Nguyen Phan, the very very best of luck. 

(Just been notified that Thien today won her semifinal so will be in this Saturday's finals!)

JUDGES & COMPETITION PREPARATION TRAINING

With competition time just ahead this is excellent news: Andy O’ Sullivan will be running two education workshops in London in September: ‘How to be a Chief Judge’ and ‘How to run a Competition‘.  Provisional dates of 1 and 8 September. Look out for further details. Andy is also looking to run these sessions virtually for those members who cannot attend in person. Members of Excalibur often get called upon to be a judge/chief judge so this will be a great workshop to hone our skills.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests:-

·      Club Contest – Wednesday 14^th September

o   Sign up to compete, for either or both

·      Area Contest – Thursday 29^th September

·      Division Contest – Saturday 15^th October

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

o   Sneak preview: ‘Bob Ferguson will be facilitating what will be a fabulous workshop: ‘So, you want to be the World Champion of Public Speaking, eh?’

Next Excalibur Meeting Wednesday 24^th August 7pm prompt.  

For this meeting, instead of Table Topics we will be running a short improvisation workshop followed by  an improvisation session, so do be sure to attend.

NOTE: VENUE CHANGE.  For this meeting only the venue will be upstairs at the Lukin Pub, 4 Conway Street, London, W1T, 6BB. 

See you all there,

Best regards

Lynne

Lynne Cantor

Excalibur President 2016/17

Meeting Report 10th August 2016

Lynne Cantor, President, introduced our first August Excalibur meeting sharing the importance of Table Topics, the value of quality evaluations and the power of effective introductions and how they impacted on her everyday life.

 

She welcomed guests Andy O’Sullivan, Mustapha and Arnold.

 

As the Toastmaster Errol Williamson reminded us of Excalibur club’s mission:

“We challenge the skills and abilities of our members and guests, stepping out of our comfort zones in a safe environment where we learn to develop and discover new ideas to the mutual benefits of ourselves and each other”.

 

During Table Topics Paul Andreas encouraged us to play the board game Rhetoric (interestingly the only public speaking game; partly conceived by John Zimmer who will be delivering a workshop at the TI Convention in Washington DC next month!).  

 

The Table Topics winners were Daniel Broadhead, who moved us with the power of his words, and guest Arnold who shared a personal story about his neighbours. Considering Arnold only attends Toastmasters once a year when visiting his daughter that’s pretty good going!

 

Giovanna Vasaturo delivered “To be or not to be…” project 2 Speaking to Entertain speech from The Professional Speaker manual, about having a purpose in life versus living with purposeless. 

 

In her Technical Presentation Project 2 The Proposal, Odile Facih put forward a well thought through and colourful case for changing the capital of France to Lyon – ooh la la! 

 

Both speeches were ably evaluated by Tony Winyard and Freddie Daniells respectively.

 

These were followed by our Open Feedback session led by Daniel Broadhead, Irene Bradshaw’s agile Grammarian’s report, Katja van Koten fed back on our timings, and then Andy O’Sullivan gave a General Evaluation – who was rather surprised by Errol’s admission about having his picture over his mantelpiece!

 

Lynn concluded the meeting by reminding us all to sign up for roles and notify our attendance or not at future meetings via Easyspeak.

 

Our next meeting and improv workshop on 24^th August at 6:45 for a prompt 7pm start will be at a different venue:

The Lukin Pub, 4 Conway Street, London W1T 6BB

 

Other dates to get in your diary include:

 

14^th September – Club Contest – we encourage all members to enter the Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest by notifying Freddie Daniells, VPE.

29^th September – Area Contest

15^th October - Division Contest

 

And don’t forget to pay your dues by the end of September – there will be no grace period this time! Either pay by bank transfer or contact Chinkata Okpara to arrange payment.

Meeting Report 27th July 2016

Did you know as Toastmasters we are Artists….Speaking Artists, so said Lynne our President as she used the analogy comparing Toastmasters to famous painting artists such as David Hockney.  Artists have many different and complimenting skills, as do Toastmasters………….speeches, storytelling, table topics plus evaluations and functionary roles.

We welcomed (back) a new Speaking Artist, a former president of the club, Simon Bucknall, who has recently re-joined. 

Our artistic Toastmaster of the night was Giovanna Vasaturo, who attacks everything she does with a Mediterranean passion for excellence.

Tony Winyard did an interesting Table Topics session which was won by David West on the subject of eating bugs, as long as they were covered in chocolate!

It was good to hear all the TT evaluations had a recommendation.  (Which pleased Lynne no end!)

Our Speakers were Paul Andreas doing ‘Reading out loud from the Speciality Speech manual, project 4. His Story was called ‘Oh Modoc’, the story of a circus elephant who had to escape a fire.   Energetically read by Paul bringing the story to life. 

Lynne Cantor did a speech for her High Performance Leadership, part of her Advanced Leadership Silver, sharing her vision for the coming year, ‘Excalibur, a Club of Excellence’. This won her the best Speaker of the night. 

Karthik Venugopal who is on a quest to complete as many speeches as he can, did ‘ Bringing history to life from the Story telling manual, project 5.  His speech shared with us the darker side of Winston Churchill, a well researched piece of work. 

Three comprehensive evaluations followed by Katja Van Koten, Simon Bucknall and Errol Williamson. With Errol winning the best evaluator of the night.  Which fits in nicely with his goal to win the 2017 District Evaluation Contest.

The Open Feedback session, allowing the audience to give their commendations and recommendations to the speakers was facilitated by George Chieser.  This session, plus three different speeches from 3 different manuals is what Excalibur is all about……..PLUS there was a mini workshop by Simon Bucknall, a past District Evaluation winner, which focused on evaluations. 

His three key tips were - 

Recommendations - Give some - as they are an opportunity to drive change.  Sometimes it is a case of how to be even better versus doing something differently, especially when it comes to more experienced speakers.

Recommendations cover three main areas, Delivery, Structure and Content.  Focus on Structure.  With more advanced speeches this is often the best way to help them improve.

Stop writing – yes, stop taking notes.  Scary, maybe, but it forces you to just listen versus trying to multi task and take notes at the same time.

Some great ideas for us all to try.

Carol West then spoke for two minutes advising us that Prince Charles, through the Princes Trust, is involved in Toastmasters.  The Princes Trust and Toastmasters get together and help young people, some in care, to improve their speaking.  Carol and David West do this twice a year and most recently in Eastbourne. How wonderful. 

The meeting was rounded off with a reminder to set your Toastmaster goal for the year yet.  Write it down and share it.  You are 50% more likely to achieve it. 

The club Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest is on Wed 14^th Sept ….so start preparing your Humorous speeches and practicing your TT’s now.  We need a good turnout and a strong competition. 

Area contest is 29th September, Division Contest on Thursday15^th October and District contests on Saturday and Sunday 5^th and 6^th November.

Next meeting is on Wednesday 10^th August.  See you all there.

Please note that the meeting after, on the 24^th August, will be at a different venue…to be advised. It will include an impromptu session in readiness to help us all with our TT & humour …….ready for the contest. 

In readiness for our next meeting please sign up on easyspeak so we know you are attending.  Please do sign up for roles especially Toastmaster and Table Topics Master so you have time to prepare.

Do bring your friends from your clubs along to experience Excalibur, we had Ayse, Glenn and Shaun joining us this week.  Shaun was visiting from overseas and we were his 4^th foreign club he had attended.  Toastmasters really is international.