Meeting Report for 25th March 2020

Never shy of a new challenge, thirty Excalibur members took part in the club's first virtual meeting, via Zoom. Members were soon joining in, (and with growing confidence), thanks in part to the tireless efforts of our dedicated and excellent VPE, Ilaria, who is very familiar with Zoom, and took the time to demonstrate the tech to some of the members before the meeting. For a number of our members, the challenges and rewards that lie ahead offer a whole new dimension to public speaking.

The meeting followed our familiar format, and the prize winners were:

Best Speaker: Ian Brown
Best table Topics: David Lennon
Best Evaluator: Lynne Cantor

Our next meeting, which will also be online, is on 8th April at 19:00.
Guests are very welcome - you can find the next Zoom meeting link on the Excalibur easySpeak page.

Excalibur 2020 International Speech and Evaluation Competitions

11th March found Excalibur members and guests in a spacious lecture theatre, generously provided by University College London, for the club's annual International Speech and Evaluation contests.
Entrants in the Speech Contest were: Flemming, Simon, Ben, Ian and Sonia, with Jill kindly stepping in as Chief Judge, at short notice. Monika was Competition Chairperson.

Contestants in the Evaluation contest were Cat, Sarah, Ian E, Andrew, Ian B, and Eugene. Ken performed the Chairperson role.

The quality of the speeches and evaluations was high, but there could be only one winner in both categories (who will go on to represent Excalibur at the Areal Level). The results were as follows:

International Speech Competition
Winner: Flemming
Second Place: Simon
Third Place: Ben

Evaluation Competition
Winner: Cat
Second Place: Andrew
Third Place: Ian E

It was a great evening - and many thanks to everyone who attended, competed or performed a role - with the coronavirus threat hanging over us. And of course, many congratulations to our winners!
Our next meeting will be at 19:00 on 25th March, but due to the spread of the virus, this will not be at our usual Fitzrovia venue. Instead we will be trialling our first online meeting, via Zoom. Watch this space!

Meeting Report for 26th February, 2020

Flemming welcomed guests at the door, before Brian called us to order. President Nick then introduced the evening before handing over to our Toastmaster, Ian.
Our Time Keeper was Eugene.
Melanie was our Table Topics Master, and she delivered a challenging but very entertaining theme: define the (obscure) word. Each TT contestant was, as is the Excalibur way, immediately evaluated for up to 45 seconds - that evaluation must include a recommendation.

We then settled back to enjoy three prepared speeches. Nick delivered "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" (Humorously Speaking #5 - The Humorous Speech).
This was followed by Ken, with "Broken Childhood Dreams" (The Entertaining Speaker #2 - Resources for Entertainment).
Finally, Carolina delivered "Unmatched Socks" (Her Centurion TM Club International Speech Winner).

The speeches were evaluated by Desi, Ian and Lynne.
Freddie then took the Open Feedback session, in which audience members are invited to add three more minutes of feedback per speech (2 mins commendations, one min recommendations).

Our General Evaluator for the evening was Rembrandt, who spent nine minutes analysing what people with roles had got right, and what could be improved.

Our prize winners were:
Best Evaluator: Lynne
Best Table Topic: Julie
Best Speaker: Carolina

Our next meeting is om 11th March. It will be the Excalibur Club International Speech Competition. We start at the earlier time of 18:30, and the venue will be University College London. Guests are very welcome but you must sign up on Eventbrite.