Another fun-filled meeting!

Excalibur Meeting Report for 22nd August, 2018

The fourth Wednesday of the month brought us another excellent Excalibur meeting at the Fitzrovia Community Centre (2 Foley street, London W1W 6DN). A location selected for numerous reasons including the adjacent King and Queen public house, where (factoid alert) music legend Bob Dylan made his first European appearance.

Lukasz met and greeted our three guests: Tomasz, Paul and Aydin (who was GE for the evening) before Cat (recently awarded her DTM - so many congratulations to her!) called us to order.

With our club president Monika delivering a speech later that evening, the President's role was temporarily assigned to Robin, who inspired us with a (literally) delicious take on toast-making and how this skill is the (short)bread and butter of the accomplished speaker. Maybe you had to be there...

It was then time for Robin to hand over to Paul, our experienced Toastmaster for the evening, who brought experience and enthusiasm to the role.

Marcin then explained the Timekeeper role before the Toastmaster handed over to Ian, our Table Topics Master, who chose a thought-provoking back-to-school theme for the session. 

Participants included Cat, Lukasz, Tomasz, Robin, Chinkata and David who were evaluated by Lynne, Ben, Paul, Freddy, Marcin and Monika. 

It was then time for the prepared speeches. Monika began with a compelling speech titled "Project Atlas" (High Performance Leadership - 1 - Sharing Your Vision) which proposed a better way in which Toastmasters might display club distribution information. 

Eva then amused us with "Unexpected London" - a cultural examination of some of the major differences (of a largely liquid nature) between the UK and Taiwan (Humorously Speaking - 2 - Leave them with a Smile). Indeed Eva did leave us with a smile...as we bid her farewell as she returns to her native Taiwan. Investigations are underway to establish whether she will be travelling via her country's eponymous airline. 

Freddie then presented "How to Build Long Term Relationships through Sales" (The Professional Speaker - 3 - The Sales Training Speech). This twenty minute masterclass included an original insight that compared the sales methodology with the storyteller's hero's journey. 

The speeches were evaluated by Alfredo, Ben and Lynne which was followed by the Open Feedback session, facilitated by Chinkata. As an advanced Toastmasters club, Excalibur puts special emphasis on feedback, and this nine minute session allows members of the audience to add to what the previous speech evaluators have proposed, in the traditional commend-recommend-commend format. 

It was then time for the General Evaluator, Aydin to present his report on the club before we moved to the prize giving. Results were as follows:

Table Topics Winner: Robin

Best Evaluator(s): Lynne and Alfredo (Ben, who came dead last, will be attempting to employ the Freddy Daniells' evaluation technique next time. Details on request.)

Best Speech: Freddy

The next meeting will start at 7pm on Wednesday 12th September at the Fitzrovia Community Centre, W1W 6DN. 

     

Another Wonderful Excalibur Meeting...

EXCALIBUR SPEAKERS MEETING REPORT FOR 8^TH AUGUST, 2018

We enjoyed another fantastic meeting in the Fitzrovia Community Centre, with Ben calling the meeting to order before he handed over to club president Monika, who opened the meeting. She then introduced our Toastmaster for the evening, Alfredo, who took command.

Robin—who was performing the role of Meet and Greet—then invited our three guests on stage: Marti, Thomas and Edmund, who all told us a little about themselves and explained why they were visiting Excalibur, which is an advanced Toastmasters club.

Our Timekeeper was Nick, who explained his role before effortlessly keeping things on track throughout the evening.

Table Topics Master was Ian, whose topic was stupidity (!) though his questions were anything but. Ben, Thomas, David, Robin, Monika and Edmund all found something interesting to say, though members of the audience in general and Marcin in particular voiced doubts about the veracity of Ben’s claims to have punched (later to become) Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on the nose, back in the day. Evaluators were Marcin, Eva, Freddie, Cat, Simon and Errol.

 

The first prepared speech was delivered by Chinkata (Interpretive Reading 5 – The Oratorical Speech). He chose President Kennedy’s 1961 powerful inauguration address, written by Ted Sorensen. This is often considered one of the very greatest speeches and Chinkata did it justice with his flawless delivery.

Our second speaker, Lukasz (The Entertaining Speaker – 1 – The Entertaining Speech) was titled “How to Meet the Queen”. Not, as it turned out, QE2, but a damsel in his coffee shop! The audience shared his pain when it was revealed his carefully crafted advance was not entirely successful.

In our third speech, Cat (Storytelling – 5 – Bringing History to Life) recounted the mystery of the ten day disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. From a car abandoned at a quarry to denials of her identity, Cat kept us enthralled not just by the narrative, but also by her expert use of pauses.

Three insightful speech evaluations were delivered by Errol, Marcin and Sue.

Freddie then conducted the Open Feedback session—where audience members are invited to make commends and recommends on the evening’s speeches.

Our General Evaluator was Marti. When Marti commented that Nick, the Timekeeper, had performed so faultlessly that he couldn’t think of a single recommend, Nick helpfully volunteered him an extra two minutes to develop the point.

  

Alfredo then handed back to Monika, who announced the evening’s prize winners:

Table Topic Winner: Robin 

Best Evaluator: Errol

Best Speech: Cat

Our next meeting is at 19:00 on 22^nd August, 2018 at the Fitzrovia Community Centre, W1W 6DN. Guests are very welcome!

    

EXCALIBUR NEWS!

EXCALIBUR NEWS!

Excalibur Meeting Report, 25th July 2018

Meeting Report, 26th July 201

😎 Excalibur Speaker = EasySpeak + Website + FaceBook + Twitter + Email + Blog 😎

Excalibur Advanced Speakers Toastmasters Club Meeting Report for Wednesday 25^th July 2018

On a (rather too?) balmy London evening (the mercury hit 31 degrees Celsius/88 degrees Fahrenheit and off-the-scale humidity), our meeting was called to order by Marcin.

The meeting itself was opened by our President, Monika, before she handed over to our Toastmaster, Robin. Robin expertly sailed the good ship Excalibur far from the jagged rocks of boredom and whirlpools or disappointment by giving us a little background information about the role of Toastmaster before introducing the theme of the evening: fairy tales.

Before each person took the stage, their favourite fairy tale was announced, and why it was special for them.

Robin then invited our Meeter and Greeter for the evening, Freddie on stage who introduced our three guests: Moh (who was our GE for the evening), Marti and Thomas. After each had told us a little about themselves, our Toastmaster invited our immediate past president, Chinkata to explain his role as Timekeeper.

Ben was Table Topic Master for the evening and continuing the fairy tale theme, he invited a member of the audience to choose the hero of the evening’s story from a set of twelve carefully selected photos. The room fell silent with anticipation before the face of our protagonist was held up for all to see. There were gasps when (in a possibly slightly rigged vote), people recognised our Prince Charming as none other than club VPE Freddie!

Table Topic participants Cat, Lynne, Nick, Ian and David in turn picked two pictures from a hidden deck which they were invited to incorporate in what became a fast-paced and unpredictable yarn that one audience member was overheard suggesting was good enough to be long-listed for the Booker Prize.

Once the story had reached its riveting denouement, the Table Topic contestants were evaluated by Chinkata, Monika, Noor, Marcin and Lukasz (possibly even in that order). The club followed an atypical Table Topics this evening which brought a nuanced and even challenging variation to one of Toastmasters’ most popular activities. The club’s VPPR (this evening's Table Topic Master) can report that members gallantly rose to the challenge. We await confirmation of this assessment from the VPE.

     

After the Timekeeper’s report, we moved on to the prepared speeches which began with a speech by Lynne titled “Say Anything” (Pathways Strategic Relationships #2 – Evaluation and Feedback). The speech was an expertly delivered and amusing semantic feast that held the audience throughout.

Our second prepared speech, from the Story Telling Manual #2 Let’s Get Personal, was delivered by Noor. “Wisdom from an Outcast” took us on a Tantric journey of self-discovery. 

Our final speech was delivered by Ian (#2 from the Entertaining Speaker manual, “Resources for Entertainment”). Ian introduced us to the concept of “Kakistocracy” which he explained was the all too prevalent system of government in which the worst people gain positions of power. 

Speech evaluators were Ian, Nick and Freddie, all of whom delivered skilful and insightful evaluations.

Excalibur Speakers followed these evaluations with an Open Feedback session—in which the entire audience is invited to make commendations and recommendations on the prepared speeches. Expertly moderated by Cat, this session teased out more valuable suggestions for the speakers and audience to ponder.

Our General Evaluator, Moh, then took the stage to describe what he liked about our club, also making a number of suggestions. Moh demonstrated his experience with his relaxed and thoughtful delivery.
  

The evening wound down with Robin, our accomplished Toastmaster handing back to Monika, our President, who announced the evening's prize winners:

Table Topic Winner: Ian.

Speech Evaluators, Freddie and Nick shared the honours.

Best Speech: Lynne.

   

Despite the tropical heat and oppressive humidity, attendance levels were very good and the evening was a great success. A promising degree of rehydration was achieved in the  neighbouring King and Queen public house immediately afterwards.

Our next meeting is scheduled for 8^th August at the Fitzrovia Community Centre, 2 Foley Street, London W1W 6DN.

Guests are very welcome!