We might have had a few last minute changes and been short on the ground but that didn’t stop us from having an enjoyable and entertaining meeting with enthusiastic Excaliburgers!
Our President Katja van Koten “the show must go on”, opened the meeting reminding us to “aspire to excellence”.
Timekeeper Tadija Popovic shared the importance of respecting time in a personal story about his wife being very late for a christening, and promised to keep us to time with tribal noises but “chickened out” when it came to it!
Our 4 guests from Taiwan, WIBF, Epsom and First London Speakers were all recognised on stage at the beginning of the meeting. No hiding in the shadows for our guests here at Excalibur!
Toastmaster of the evening, Freddie Daniells was his normal exuberant self and effortlessly led us through the different components that makes up an Excalibur meeting.
Our Table Topics session was run by Ian Brown who had apparently come all the way from Wales to be with us!
Suzi Fish explained that she was more of a night owl rather than a morning lark and was instantly evaluated by Giovanna Vasaturo who liked her energy, enthusiasm and rhythm.
Guest Eva explained the Taiwanese culture towards charity giving and came to the conclusion that giving 1p per email at work was actually a good idea. Cat Kipling was her instant evaluator and loved her enthusiasm and passion.
Simon Bucknall shared his three steps to heaven or was that the stars?!: be true to yourself, develop and nurture relationships, and have fun. Our “not so good at multi-tasking” Timer Tadija Popovic was called upon unexpectedly to evaluate but still managed to give a recommendation which was to repeat the three steps in the conclusion so he would have heard them all!
Guest Nadine Wagner then explored which of the six nations rugby countries she would like to live in but decided on Germany! Freddie was her evaluator.
Guest Frank shared his idea of an act of bravery and was evaluated by Katja.
Finally, Chinkata Okpara shared his favourite of the seven sins: gluttony!, and was ably evaluated by guest Charlie.
On with the prepared speeches!
Katja then explored the importance of taking control of our self-talk with the model “Stop, Observe, Shift” in S.O.S. ‘Self Talk’ #5: ‘The Motivational Speech’ from The Professional Speaker manual, reminding us that “every problem has a solution”.
Giovanna gave her second evaluation of the evening, recommending the imagined fruit should have been a peach because it’s so much nicer than an orange!
Cat Kipling then ‘Presented The Results’ #2 from her High Performance Leadership manual. She was pleased to achieve her mission of “smiley happy faces” here at Excalibur! Chinkata was her insightful evaluator.
Second in the World Championships of Public Speaking (will it ever get old saying that!) Simon Bucknall clearly and succinctly guided us through the Open Feedback session (for the very first time!) with commendations and recommendations for both speakers.
Our guest from WIBF Nadine Wagner generally evaluated us and liked our strong online presence, meeting structure and great energy.
Congratulations to Simon, the winner of Best Table Topic.
Cat was winner of the Best Evaluator.
With just two speeches we did not vote for best speech
Katja summarised the meeting as “low in numbers but high in spirit”, and keeping to Excaliburger tradition, we then continued down the pub!
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Dates not to be missed!
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 11th October, 6:45 for 7pm prompt start at The Fitzrovia Community Centre, 2 Foley Street, W1W 6DL.
To make our VPE’s job easier, kindly confirm your attendance on Easyspeak or via excaliburspeakers@gmail.com. Thank you.
Members from other clubs are welcome to experience Excalibur at any time and we are always seeking guest GEs. Contact us at excaliburspeakers@gmail.com.
The Division L Contest will be on Saturday 14th October 1:30-5:30pm at the London Business School, NW1 4SA. Last year’s D91 Humorous Speech winner Dallas Leigh Martene, and our Simon Bucknall, Second Place Winner in The World Championship of Public Speaking 2017 will be the keynote speakers.
The District 91 Autumn 2017 Conference “Let Your Speaking Fly”, which includes the Humorous Speech and Table Topics Finals, will be at the Hilton London Gatwick Airport, South Terminal, RH6 0LL on Saturday 4th November 2017.
Regular price tickets at £59 can be booked until Monday 30th October, with ‘Late Booker’ tickets available thereafter. Limited tickets will be available for purchase on the door.
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