Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest, 13th September 2017

It was another fantastic night with the long-awaited 2017 Excalibur Speakers Humorous Speech and Table Topics contests! 

Our President, Katja van Koten, opened the meeting with some innovative exercises involving imagining being in various scenarios and clapping hands and shouting. By the end, we were all truly warmed up. 

Then she handed over to the Humorous Speech Contest Chair, Simon Cooper. He confirmed with our Chief Judge (and amazing Area Director) Cat Kipling that the judges had all been briefed and that everyone knew what they were doing.  

Nick and Suzi were timing the meeting. 

And then the Humorous contest was underway! 

First up Marc Lottig told us about his shopping trip and some rather interesting customer experiences he had enjoyed. The 2nd contestant was Lynne who told us a story of her Sicily holidays and 110 mosquito bites. Then, we listened to Freddie who explained to us the importance of gentleman’s underwear. The 4th contestant was David West who had a wonderful time as a salesman for Brexit Motors, while explaining the future of self-driving cars. And the final contestant was Chinkata Okpara, who told us about his love for red wine and all the unexpected places it had taken him. 

Humorous Speech Contestants with Certificates of Participation

After the Humorous Speech Contest, we had a 10 min break when our Chief Judge Cat and ballot counters Monika and Brian counted the votes.

  

After the break, Katja took over responsibilities for being Contest Chair for the Table Topics Contest. Again, we had 5 contestants -  Chinkata Okpara, David Lennon, David West, Lynne Cantor and Freddie Daniells. The question asked was: What is it that you speak passionately about? 

Table Topics Contestants with Certificates of Participation

After the votes were collected and the Chief Judge left the room, Katja ran a quick session of Table Topics.  

Then, Cat announced the winners. They were: 

A very happy David Lennon with Chief Judge Cat

For the Table Topics: 

1st place - David Lennon 

2nd place - Freddie Daniells 

3rd place - Chinkata Okpara 

Young David West wins another Excaliburgers contest!

For the Humorous Speech: 

1st place - David West 

2nd place - Freddie Daniells 

3rd place - Lynne Cantor 

And then, in true Excalibur style, we all went to celebrate in the pub! 

Both 1st and 2nd place winners will be going forward to represent the club at the Area contest. The Area contest will take place on Wednesday 20th September at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, London WC1A. The contest will begin at 7pm Please come along to support our contestants if you can. 

Meeting Report 23rd August

“If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all” by Billie Holiday was the opening line for our meeting on 23^rd of August. Our President Katja used this quote in her introduction and inspired us to find our own strength and aspire to excellence.

Then, our Sergeant at Arms Brian greeted the guests and we proceeded with the meeting.

Our Toastmaster Monika, who is also our VPPR, gave us a little introduction on how quickly it is to find a piece of information on Facebook, LinkedIn or Google and how that can help with getting to know people better.

Then, Monika introduced the Timekeeper who was Marcin. He gave us a very precise overview of his role.

The subsequent part of the meeting was a bit unusual. We welcomed again Brian to run a Table Topics session, but instead of questions, we were requested to tell a story with each Table Topic speaker adding more detail to it. What a great fun it was! And a very bizarre story… 😊😊

Brian started the game with saying that we see elephants on the street. Then, he called Freddie to the stage, who explained that these elephants must be here because of too much alcohol and/or drugs… Freddie’s imagination carried us very far away, and his evaluator Katja mentioned that it was perhaps too much information. Our 2^nd Table Topics speaker was our guest Tom. He spoke about the jet engine. Firstly, it landed on the road, and the next second Tom was in it, flying. Ian commended Tom on taking on the story, especially that the 1^st speaker left it at a turning point. With the jet engine, Lynne ended up in America and admired the Statue of Liberty. Lynne was evaluated by Errol who mentioned that it was a bit theatrical. Then, being in the US, Tadija took us to a visit to Donald Trump. And what a visit it was! Marcin, who evaluated Tadija, really enjoyed the plot. Finally, Marc finished the story by bringing up the LSD drugs mentioned in the beginning. He was evaluated by Giovanna who mentioned that she would like to see more flow to the story.

After the Table Topics session, we moved to the prepared speeches section of the meeting, where we had 3 speaking slots.

Our first speaker was Tadija. His speech was entitled “Paradise” and it was project 2 from the Storytelling manual. Tadija told us about his childhood and how as a little boy he was in a paraside after his dad gave him a box of Swedish chocolates. It was also Tadija’s first speech in our club, so well done! And thank you for sharing this fantastic memory!

The 2^nd speaker was Errol who did a project 2 from Special Occasion Speeches. Error spoke in praise of a very special person- his father. The speech was entitled “The Spirit of a Leader” and was full of beautiful words such as: “the decisions you make as a leader have an effect on those who you lead”. It was a truly heartening and inspiring speech. Thank you!

Our final speaker was Marc who told us “How dangerous it is” to go on holidays to South Africa and watch animals. Marc wanted to teach us that observing animals’ behaviour raises questions about humans. It was a very thought-provoking speech delivered as project 4 from Humorously Speaking manual.

Next, we moved to evaluations!

Our first evaluator was David A. who evaluated Tadija. David mentioned that he loved the stories about childhood and he would like to hear more detail especially about Tadija’s home.

The 2^nd evaluator was Ian. Ian commended Errol on the use of anecdotes, but mentioned that Errol’s voice could have been more powerful in some places.

The final evaluator was Lynne. Lynne said that she liked how Marc’s speech made us think, but she suggested that he should think about rearranging the order of his stories used in the speech.

The open feedback session was led by Giovanna and was not only full of great comments, but also very warm because of Giovanna’s smile!

The last part of the meeting was the general evaluation from our guest from Data Science Speakers Sayara. She gave us a lot of very insightful comments about the meeting.

Finally, Katja handed in the awards for Best Evaluator and Best Table Topic Speaker to Lynne (a double winner!) and for the Best Speaker to Errol. Congratulations!

And then, we went to the pub 😊

PS Next meeting is 13^th Sept and it’s a contest night! Don’t miss it 😉