Paul Andreas called our first meeting of the new year to order.
Lynne “Our Great Leader” Cantor told us that a new year brings new opportunities, and Reminded us of our individual goals we set at the beginning of the Toastmaster year in July, which we then Reviewed and Revitalised to help us “achieve, develop and grow”.
Our 9 guests introduced themselves to the club and were warmly welcomed.
Freddie “wit and wisdom…. sometimes!” Daniells was our energetic and exuberant Toastmaster of the evening and continued the meeting theme of fun goals. Freddie shared a way to reach our goals is to put a system in place, such as turning up regularly and participating in meetings. And explained that part of his role was to get us to the King and Queen in time for “a quick pint… or three”!
Karthik Venugopal explained in his Timekeeper role that he expected us to keep to time, although he was well over time himself in his Table Topics evaluation!
Monika Swiderska was our Table Topics mistress. She told us that her first Toastmasters club was in Aberdeen where they had a love/hate relationship with Table Topics but how at Excalibur we love them! I’m not sure about that!! We then continued the theme with new year resolutions. Anne Bingham, Cat Kipling, Suzi Fish, Katya van Koten and guests Branko and Fedor talked about what to study at university, bad habits and giving up coffee or chocolate and not going to the pub (a difficult one for Excalibur!), a new year resolution for Trump, and the weirdest new year resolution of “eating more bacon!”
All the topics were instantly evaluated by Giovanna Vasaturo, Odile Facih, Paul Andreas, Hannah Van Der Deijl, Tony Winyard and Karthik Venugopal.
Our first prepared speaker was David Lennon, speaking on “Progress not Pessimism” repeating project #3 Get to the Point from the Competent Communicator manual. He reminded us that life isn’t so bad after all and apologised for helping us to focus on the negative rather than optimism in his work as journalist! This was ably evaluated by Hannah “Pokemon level 26” Van Der Deijl.
Our second speaker was Errol Williamson, speaking from The Professional Speaker manual and #5 The Motivational Speech. Errol helped us on how to turn our goals from ink to reality with his ”You’ve Got To Feel It” 3-step system. Tony “9th in the UK’s spaghetti eating contest!” Winyard was the evaluator.
Lynne Cantor facilitated the Open Feedback session on the two speeches and still didn’t let anyone off the hook with giving specific examples on how to improve!
The general evaluation was ably delivered by guest Armelle “likes playing with the rules” Cressent. She enjoyed our structure and interaction. She raised a good point about introducing ourselves as well as each other as effective introductions are important in our club.
Congratulations to our guest Fedor, for winning the Best Table Topic.
Karthik was finally presented with his Excalibur committee Secretary pin!
Freddie ended the meeting reminding us to “fall in love with process and systems but not goals!” and to have small goals for every day, week, month and year.
Future Meetings:
Get a head start on your New Year's resolution to triumph at the International Speech Contest and sign up now for our "5 Steps to Take Giant Strides in Competition Speaking" workshop, presented by our members and previous UK & Ireland winners Bob Ferguson and Simon Bucknall. Wednesday 18 January, 6.45pm for 7pm, Grange Langham Court Hotel. Get your tickets and further details here. £4 for Excalibur Members, £8 for non-members (plus fees).
Our next club meeting will be on 25th January 2017. Freddie, our VPE, appreciates knowing if you are attending so he can plan the agenda in advance, so kindly request and accept roles via Easyspeak. Thank you.
Visitors are welcome to experience Excalibur at any time and we are always seeking guest GEs. Contact us at excaliburspeakers@gmail.com.
The District 91 2017 Spring Conference for the International Speech and Evaluation Finals will be at The Grand Harbour Hotel in Southampton on 5-7th May 2017. Put the date in your diaries and book your Earlybird ticket now!
Lynne has loved with passion being President of Excalibur and is really inspired by our club. She asked all members to consider taking on a committee role for next year and to let her know as it is a wonderful opportunity to “achieve, develop and grow”.
Social Media:
Please like, comment, tag photos and share our posts on our Facebook Excalibur Advanced Speakers London page, and follow us on Twitter @ExcaliburSpeak, thank you.
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