Meeting Report 9th August

Our meeting on 9th of August was a bit on the fly! Or at least Freddie Daniells convinced us to that truth in his energetic introduction! He also helped us imagine the agendas that were stuck in the traffic with our President Katja van Koten, and therefore, slightly late.

Then, our SaA Brian Skelton explained the logistics and introduced the guests: Andrew, Dmitri and Branko.

Branko was visiting us for the second time, and this night he volunteered to help us by being a Timekeeper. And what a great job he did providing us with detailed, yet concise, reports of the timings.

The next part of the meeting was Table Topics run by Monika Swiderska. The theme was inspired by her not-so-lucky adventure, when her backpack was stolen a couple of days earlier. The first speaker was David West who was asked what would he do if his bag was stolen. However, David has an incident of his own as he fell on the slippery steps just before the meeting and he told us about that. Marcin Tolysz evaluated David and suggested that he could focus more on the story. Then we had Carol West telling us about one object she can’t live without. She explained us how she needs to monitor her insulin levels and that her medical monitoring device helps her with that. Carol was evaluated by Brian Skelton. Our third speaker was Lynne Cantor, who tried to convince the audience (a board of managers) that the missing laptop and missing data is not a big issue as everything was backed up in the cloud. Bob Fergusson commented that he loved how Lynne lead this table topic with dialogue. The next speaker was Tadija Popovic telling us that if he had had something stolen, he would probably drink vodka. Evaluation for Tadija came from our VPE Hannah Van Der Deijl. The fifth speaker was Cat Kipling who was asked about the form of punishment for the thief. Cat explained that he or she should rebuild the stolen laptop. She was evaluated by Ian Brown. The final table topics speaker was our guest Dmitri. Dmitri told us that we should not put all eggs in one basket if we want to avoid having all belongings stolen. The evaluation came from Chinkata Opara, who commended Dmitri on doing a table topic during his very first Toastmasters meeting.

The first speech was delivered by Ian Brown. It was a mesmerising story about Julius Caesar entitled “Roman Candle”. We learned a lot about Cesar’s life and re-lived the history. Ian brilliantly brought this story to life and completed project 5 from Storytelling manual.

Then, we took part in a workshop by Brian Skelton, who taught us how to make our party special by making fantastic and unusual fruit decorations. Master Chef Brian invited our President Katja to try making the decorations herself, which turned out to be less easy than we all thought!

The evaluation of the first speech was given by Bob Fergusson. Bob commended Ian for his changes of pace that helped to deliver a story, but suggested he should start with more action. After a very lively and powerful evaluation deliver by Bob, we listened to Chinkata Opara who commented on Brian’s speech. Chinkata said that the room was enthralled by this very interesting and unusual speech. Chinkata recommended that Brain could lifted the food up, so everyone could see it and perhaps explain more why certain things are so difficult to do.

Next, we had a fantastic and very insightful Open Feedback session led by our VPE Hannah Van Der Deijl. She not only facilitated it smoothly, but also provided a lot of observant and helpful comments herself.

The role of General Evaluator was filled by our Area Director Cat Kipling. She mentioned that it was her third Toastmasters meeting on the day, but she also highlighted that all the meetings were really good. Then, she evaluated all the roles of the evening.

Lastly, Hannah gave us a bit of an update on VPE housekeeping with the hint that she would like to explain her plans for this year in a speech.

Finally, it was handed over to Katja, who called Lynne to the stage to hand in the best table topic speaker award. And after that, we went to the pub 

Meeting Report 26th July

26th of July was yet another exciting meeting! It started with warm words from Katja van Koten, our President who then handed over to the Toastmaster Brian Skelton. The theme that Brian chose was very thought provoking as he asked a question what are we aspiring to this Toastmasters year...

Nick Westall was the Timekeeper and did a brilliant job measuring the times of table topics, speeches and evaluations.

The table topic session was prepared by our Immediate Past President Lynne Cantor. Her choice for the table topic session was to move away from direct questions and challenge us with themes. The speakers were presented with an object and tasked to describe it without using its name or words closely associated with it. The first one to try this innovative game was Suzi Fish who was talking about dental floss without actually using the phrases “dental floss” or “teeth”. She was evaluated by David West. The next speaker was Arnold Mannering talking about a “creature” and jumping on a stage as he was trying to portrait a rabbit! Arnold was evaluated by Simon Cooper. The 3rd speaker was Marc, a guest to our club. He spoke about wonderful Christmas time trying to link it with his key word “snowflake”. Carol West was asked to give comments on this table topic. Last but not least was our guest Lin who spoke about smart and athletic animals- dolphins. She was evaluated by Marcin Tolysz.

There were 3 prepared speeches that night.

The first speaker was Monika who presented her Master’s project. The speech was from Technical Presentations manual and was about 3D Environmental Impact Assessement. Monika tried to explain how 3D maps can help to communicate environmental data to the wider audience.

The next speaker was Freddie Daniells. In an amusing speech entitled “Below the belt” he told us about the complexities a gentleman faces in choosing the appropriate underwear for the right occasion. It was a 1st project from Humorously Speaking manual.

Then we heard from Chinkata Opara who told us a story about a man and his 3 wives. The story was about how the traditional way of living can clash with the modern ones. The moral was very thought-provoking and perfectly met the objectives of the project as it was project 3 The Moral of the Story.

In the evaluations part, Monika got a very detailed and insightful feedback from Cat Kipling. Cat mentioned that Monika understands the subject, but suggested that she should work on better structure and presentation to help convey the message.

The second evaluator Marc Lottig pointed that Freddie used slightly absurd observational humour and funny exaggerated stories that worked very well for this project. He recommended that Freddie should spend more time on preparation.

Chinkata was evaluated by Ian Brown. Ian commended Chinkata for his complete storytelling, humour and rich stream of narrative. As a recommendation, he mentioned that Chinakata could use more facial expressions.

Our usual Open Feedback session was led by Sue Mannering. Sue brilliantly gave the audience the opportunity to comment on the given speeches and for the speakers to benefit from the feedback of the wider audience!

General Evaluation was done by Sonia Araujo. She has summarised the performance of all roles that have not been yet evaluated giving them constructive feedback to allow their futher development.

Then, our President Katja handed out the awards:
Best Speaker: Chinkata Opara
Best Table Topic Speaker: Arnold Mannering
Best Evaluator: Marc Lottig

The last part of the meeting was a speech from Simon Cooper to celebrate Lynne’s DTM. Well done Lynne! :)

:)

Meeting Report 12th July

12th of July was the very first meeting with Katja van Koten as the President of Excalibur. She told us a story about her mum’s recent stroke to remind us how lucky we are to have our voice and how we should aspire to excellence in communication.

After this powerful introduction, our SaA Brian Skelton explained logistics of the venue and introduced guests.

The night was led by Marcin Tolysz who was Excalibur’s Toastmaster for the first time. He chose a word of the day “Why” which related to the theme of the meeting:: Why are we Toastmasters? The question was truly thought provoking! Well done, Marcin!

Our Timekeeper was Brian Skelton and his reason for joining Excalibur was to become a better speaker in order to deliver an amazing TED talk and help his other club Kings Speakers.

Table Topics were prepared by David Lennon and this time we spoke about the weather. What a British topic it was! The first table topics speaker was Hannah with one word to describe British weather, evaluated by Chinkata Opara. Then, we had Monika Swiderska who advised that if you are tired of the weather in your current place, you should move out. She was evaluated by Simon Cooper. David West spoke about the difference between accuracy and forecasting and was evaluated by our guest Jayanthiny Kangatharan. Then, we listened to Siergei who described how weather affected his mood and his evaluator was Freddie Daniells. We also heard from Suzi Fish who loves hot weather. Irene Bradshaw evaluated Suzi. Finally, Carol West told us why she likes wind and rain with some evaluation comments from Tony Winyard.

There were 2 prepared speeches that evening.

The first one was delivered by Tony Winyard who spoke about his amusing adventures as a DJ in Jakarta. This was a project from the Entertaining Speaker manual. The second speaker was our guest Jayanthiny. She ran a Panel Discussion with Freddie Daniells, Carol West and Irene Bradshaw in it. The questions she asked were about their professional lives and what they learned from their jobs.

Monika Swiderska evaluated Tony’s speech mentioning that his vivid vocabulary and images could be enhanced by more dialogues. Chinkata Opara evaluated Jayanthiny. He mentioned that she could improve the logistics (especially speaking with the Timekeeper in advance), but overall, she asked great questions.

Freddie Daniells run the Open Feedback session, which was full of insightful comments.

Finally, we received constructive comments on the meeting from Simon Cooper, who was General Evaluator.

Then, we enjoyed the rest of the evening in the pub 😊

Excalibur Past Presidents Meeting 14th June 2017

Our resident Lawyer and SAA for the evening, Simon Cooper, called our Excalibur Presidents Meeting to order and introduced our esteemed current President, Lynne Cantor who set the energetic tone for the evening.  Lynne asked what would we say to a 19 year old Excalibur as we celebrated our 19^th birthday with cake! Googled responses included:

1.      Speak less, listen more - the key to a good Evaluator

2.      Be yourself - those who matter will love you, and those that don’t, don’t matter!

3.      Quality reigns over quantity– and quality is what we have focused on all year

Celebrating 19 years of Excalibur

Ten of our Past Presidents were present for the evening;-  Bob Nisbet DTM (2002-3), Rod Sloane (2004-5), Bob Ferguson (2005-6), Simon Bucknall (2008-9), David Adams (2010-11), Carol West DTM (2011-12), Simon Cooper (2012-13), Andrew Bennett DTM (2013-14) who joined us by Skype!, Cat Kipling (2014-15), Immediate Past President Freddie Daniells (2015-16), plus Current President Lynne Cantor (2016-17).  Additionally we welcomed two very notable committee members David West and David Sellman.

From L to R:- David Adams, David West, Simon Bucknall, Andrew Bennett (on screen), Rod Sloane, Bob Ferguson, Carol West, Bob Nisbet, Lynne Cantor, Simon Cooper, Cat Kipling, David Sellman. 

Our 6 guests, including our President’s other half to find out what Lynne had been up to all year!, were warmly welcomed along with our newest member, Ian Brown.

Incoming Area Director Cat Kipling was our superb Toastmaster of the evening seamlessly moving between the different segments and expertly and knowledgeably introducing each speaker.

                                     

Bob Ferguson hosted the ‘Excalibur Shopping Channel’ Table Topics session where speakers were encouraged to persuasively sell us the benefits of different products. Carol West persuaded us to buy Robo-Mow, Guest Tadija Popovic sold us the Belty Automatic Belt, David Sellman sold us the Massage Me Vest, and Rob Sloane sold us an Ice Cream Lock winning the Best Table Topic in the process!

                                   Rod Sloane - Best Table Topic

Bob Ferguson, who during his Presidents reign introduced Instant Evaluations to stop Table Topics overrunning! We all love him for that!! He encouraged David Lennon, Janet Tarasofsky, Ian Brown and David Adams to focus not just on performance skills recommendations, but to also share a tip on how to improve, and to highlight good sales techniques in their feedback.

Our first prepared speaker was Freddie Daniells, speaking from The Humorously Speaking manual #5 The Humorous Speech “My Financial Bailout”, about his time as a Stockbroker when he got arrested in Jersey by 17 policemen …..he claims he had only had one drink!  Yeah right! President Elect Katja van Koten gave a structured evaluation.

Our second speaker was District 91 Speech Contest Winner Simon Bucknall, giving us his second speech for the World Championships in Vancouver “Twelve Sophomores & An Englishman” which led him to be Best Speaker of the evening.   David West was his thoughtful evaluator.

                                  Simon Bucknall - Best Speaker 

Lynne Cantor, our final speaker,  fed back the results on her year long High Performance Leadership (HPL) Programme “Excalibur, A Club of Excellence” with specific examples and anecdotes around our members!  Concluding that we are a bigger, stronger more focused club. 

By delivering this speech Lynne completed her HPL and her Advanced Leadership Silver and, having previously completed her Advanced Communicator Gold, has achieved the accolade of Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM).  She also achieves a Triple Crown by completing three awards in one year – congratulations Lynne! 

Cat Kipling Congratulating Lynne Cantor on her DTM and Triple Crown

Andrew Bennett, beamed in via Skype, was Lynne's expert evaluator and won Best Evaluator with his defined criteria of how he was going to evaluate and demonstrated with specific examples.

                     Andrew Bennett, on Skype, winning Best Evaluator

Prepared Suzi Fish facilitated the Open Feedback session for the speeches, expertly managing the commendations and recommendations from the audience and always ending on a positive note.  

Monika Swiderska ably and succinctly kept us to time.

The general evaluation was expertly delivered by Bob Nisbet, who evaluated how the meeting was run as a whole according to a club’s mission statement, rather than just those who hadn’t been evaluated.  And his verdict?  “Bl__dy great!” J  And as the Incoming President for his own club, he’ll be pinching some of our ideas!

Lynne Cantor, DTM!,  thanked all the Past Presidents and hoped to see them again next year. Special thanks to Cat Kipling for not only being Toastmaster but for organising this event for the 2nd year running!  

AND we finished the meeting to time ..........for the first time in Excalibur’s history surely?!!  And here’s the proof…..!!  

Dates not to be missed!

Our next and final meeting of the current year will be on Wednesday 28^th June, 6:45 for 7pm prompt start at The Fitzrovia Community Centre, 2 Foley Street, W1W 6DL. 

To celebrate the end of our year we will have bubbly and nibbles!  Do wear a hat, to celebrate our Incoming President’s love of headgear!

To make our VPE’s job easier, kindly confirm your attendance on Easyspeak or via excaliburspeakers@gmail.com. Thank you.

Don’t forget to book your ticker for “The Road to Vancouver” on Saturday 15^th July where you will have the chance to hear four European District Champions practice their Semi-Final Speeches before they head to the World Championships in Vancouver. 

www.roadtovancouver.com

Members from other clubs who have completed at least seven speeches are welcome to experience Excalibur at any time and we are always seeking guest GEs.  Contact us at excaliburspeakers@gmail.com.

Social Media:

Please like, comment, tag photos and share our posts on our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter, thank you.  

Everyone’s a BuddY or a Mentor

During District 91’s recent Spring Conference our International President, Mike Storkey, gave a presentation on ‘Everyone is a Mentor’ and it seemed timely to share some of those thoughts.

Everyone is a BuddY.  At Excalibur we’ve been calling it BuddY as we look to members to ‘BuddY up’ together.  Principally it is the same as a Mentor programme, just organised a little less formally.   David West has been gently kicking this off for the past few months.  Do tell him you want to be a BuddY or a Mentor to someone.  Do tell him you want to be a BuddEE or a Mentee (ie Buddied by someone else).  Contact David West on: gonewesty@btinternet.com

There is so much value in both being a mentor and a mentee.  Everyone at every level needs a mentor and everyone at every level can be a mentor.  That means YOU. 

·         Who is a mentor?

o   Someone you trust

o   Someone you respect

o   Someone you can confide in

·         What is a mentor?

o   Someone who is knowledgeable

o   Will challenge you

o   An active listener

o   Empathetic

o   An effective evaluator

o   A role model

o   Someone who is never afraid of developing their mentee to exceed their own capabilities

·         What is a mentee?

o   Someone with a thirst for knowledge

o   A desire to improve

o   An ability to learn

o   Has goals

o   Accepts evaluation

·         Types of Mentors

o   New club member mentor

o   Member mentor

o   More advanced member mentor….good for Excalibur members

o   Leadership mentor

o   Specific skills mentor eg humour, evaluation or table topics …..good for Excalibur members

·         Benefits for Mentee

o   Support based

o   Information based

o   Being challenged

·         Benefits for Mentor

o   A new challenge

o   Being part of their Mentees success

o   Involvement

Don’t delay, sign up today.  Be a BuddY or a Mentor AND be a BuddEE or a Mentee.  You won’t regret it.  

Meeting Report 24th May 2017

What a warm meeting it was! Freddie Daniells called the meeting to order with his usual energy and handed over to the acting President Monika Swiderska.

Monika told us about us how she hoped to have some time free from her studies, but it never happened. She also used the quote from Woody Allen “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans” to highlight how challenging time management can be. Then, Monika greeted our guests and handed over to Odile Facih, who was our Toastmaster of the Night.

Odile introduced a theme of the night- meanings of names and a word of the day, which was “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, a truly challenging one! Our Toastmaster suggested that “superb” is an easier synonym, but as we are Excalibur, a club of excellence, and we like a challenge, we should try to use “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

Then, Odile introduced Prakash Patel, our Timekeeper, whose name comes from Sanskrit and means “bright light”.

Mustapha Hanafi, in Arabic “the chosen one”, was our Table Topics Master. He asked a variety of questions based loosely on transferable skills. Freddie Daniells told us what Disney character he would like to be and was evaluated by Irene. Then, Monika Swiderska was to think outside the box by answering (or not answering!) the question which celebrities she would like to invite for a dinner. She was evaluated by Hannah can der Deijl. Our guest Rhona told us about porridge in Tenerife and was evaluated by Tony Winyard. Adam explained why he would take a laptop, flipchart and pen to the island and was then evaluated by Marcin. David Lennon told us what a lovely child he was and got some comments from Chinkata Okpara. Finally, AJ explained why he is the best person to play in the movie. He was evaluated by Katja van Koten.

We heard 3 speeches this time. Our 1^st speaker was Tony Winyard who told us about his trip to Norway and how a snowbank saved him from falling off the cliff. It was project 1 from The Entertaining Speaker manual.

Our next speaker was Marcin Tolysz who gave his 1^st speech at Excalibur! Marcin was telling us about his experiences from Toastmaster conferences, trying to convince us that these events are brilliant. It was project 4 from Speaking to Inform manual.

Our last speaker was Brian Skelton, who was a very effective Bank Training Manager for the night. He was introducing us, bank employees, to Toastmasters and Persuaded with Power that we should all join the new club.

Irene Bradshaw gave Tony commendations on how effectively he achieved the objectives of his speech by telling us an entertaining personal story. She also liked his fluidity and the use of humour, especially the information about a town named Hell. However, she noted that Tony’s gestures were a bit tense and he tended to be static. She suggested he should use the stage more.

Hannah van der Deijl evaluated Marcin. She spotted that he owned the stage and was very confident. She also liked the information he presented. Her suggestions for improvements were to work on the structure to make it clearer, make sure that visual aids completely support the message and maybe focus on more technical information.

Katja van Koten commended Brian on his knowledge about Toastmasters and his credibility. She also felt that he was very passionate about this project and he sold the idea very effectively. Katja recommended that Brian could have used less information. She also suggested that he could pause more after asking questions.

Open feedback session was led by Chinkata Okpara. Our Toastmaster of the Night confessed that she couldn’t find the meaning of Chinkata’s name in Google, but there are 9 people in the world with this name.

The meeting was General Evaluated by the very efficient Andy O’Sullivan, Past Division B Governor, and current District Chief Judge.

The winners of the competition were: David Lennon for Best Table Topic, Tony Winyard for Best Speaker and Katja van Koten for Best Evaluator.

Monika then mentioned the dates to save in the calendars:

14^th June – Past Presidents meeting & 28^th June – the last meeting of TM year with a bit of a party! With hats!

Finally, we made our way to the corner pub!