Meeting Report for 22nd April, 2020

Twenty-five Excalibur members attended our Zoom meeting, with Sarah acting as Toastmaster and Rembrandt performing the ZoomMaster role.

Andrew kept everyone on their toes with his Table Topics session. 
The formal speeches were:
Lynne: "Go Forth and Lead" (Strategic Relationships #2-1 - Understanding Your Leadership Style.)
Sonia: "Six Degrees of Separation" (Interpretive Reading #4 - The Play).
Sue: "Yearbook" (Presentation Mastery #2-3 - Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring).
The speeches were evaluated by Ian, Cat and Flemming before Simon hosted the Open Feedback session. This session invited everyone present to add 2 mins more commendations and one minute more of recommendations.
Thanks to Excalibur club member Simon, who delivered the Open Feedback report.
The awards for the evening were:
Best Speaker: Lynne
Best Table Topic: Ken
Best Evaluator: Cat

Our next meeting is on 29th April - courtesy of an extra Wednesday in the month. This will be a speakathon, with six speakers delivering high quality and very different speeches. Guests are most welcome - please see our EasySpeak page for meeting-joining details.

In Other News...
Huge congratulations to Excalibur members Cat and Latifa, who recently conquered all in the Division L Speech Evaluations and International Speech Competition. And congratulations also to Excalibur member Flemming, who also performed superbly. Cat and Latifa now advance to the District level competition. Good luck to both of them!

Meeting Report for 14th April 2020

Excalibur enjoyed its second online Zoom meeting. Members are already on top of the new technology; Zoom will continue to be used until the COVID-19 lockdown is lifted.
Toastmaster Melanie negotiated us smoothly and efficiently through the evening. Guests were introduced by Anne; then Ian headed a thought-provoking Table Topics session.

Three very different speeches were delivered. Freddie amused us with "An Ode to Brian Skelton" (Special Occasion Speeches #3 - The Roast - 3:00-5:00 mins ); Flemming practised his Area-winning speech "Step by Step" (Competent Communication Manual #9 - Persuade With Power - 5:00-7:00 mins) in preparation for his inevitable win at Division; Ilaria provided very useful advice for virtual meetings with "On Air" (Strategic Relationships #2-1 - Understanding Your leadership Style - 5:00 - 7:0 mins). 

Eugene, Cat and Andrew then evaluated the speeches, before Errol took the Open Feedback session, in which members and guests are invited to add additional commendations and recommendations.

Our thanks to Karthik - a former member - who was the meeting's General Evaluator. He told us what he liked and gave suggestions as to what might be improved for future meetings.

Thank you to Sarah who did an excellent job as Zoom Master.  

Nick, our President, then announced the awards. The Best Speaker award went to Freddie; Sonia was judged best Table Topic contestant; and Cat, once again, demonstrated her prowess as a speech evaluator - taking that award, despite strong competition.

Our next online Zoom meeting is at 19:00 on 22 April. Guests are very welcome - the meeting link will be available on easySPEAK. For security reasons, the meeting will be password-protected. Please inform the Excalibur VPE or Zoom Master in advance if you would like to attend.