Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report|Monday 25th April 2016

General Evaluator’s Report by Sean Gordon

The theme for this evening’s meeting was celebrating achievements.
Jean Stewart opened the evening as Sgt at Arms, dealing with housekeeping arrangements before handing over to our Toastmaster for the evening, Alison Turner. As Toastmaster, Alison made sure the evening ran smoothly. In her opening speech, Alison presented some facts and figures about Toastmasters before going on to talk about how our own club, Doncaster Speakers, operates.

Shakespeare photo sourced from Pixabay
Shakespeare

We had two speeches this evening, the first by Stephanie Bisby. This was Stephanie’s speech number 4 from the Competent Communications Manual which centres on, ‘how you say it,’ through the use of voice and entitled ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’. An excellent speech by Stephanie and as expected a great use and command of the English language and I know the club will look forward to hearing more from Stephanie as she works through her Competent Communicator projects.
Shelagh Jones was the evaluator for Stephanie’s speech. In methodical style, Shelagh’s evaluation was a balance of highlighting the positive and making recommendations to Stephanie to help her develop her speaking skills.
The second speech of the evening was by Jean Stewart. This speech is from the Humorously Speaking Manual, part of the Advanced Communication Series, entitled, ‘On-off switch only, please’. As always Jean can make me laugh and so it was with the rest of the audience. Well done Jean.
Julie Gordon was the evaluator for Jean’s speech. Julie has an eye and an ear for detail and gave a good balance of positives, but not forgetting the recommendations for improvements we all like to hear.
The Education Session was led by Bridget Pearson with a focus on, ‘Reducing stress for speaking. This evening Bridget explained how one should prepare well their speech allowing natural pauses to BREATHE! And speak naturally with good use of voice and body. Sean Gordon was then invited to the floor to demonstrate how not to do it (and believe me that is hard), followed by the same short speech of how to do it. I can tell you that I received great feedback from the audience, especially from our visitors, who said they thought that it could not be the same speech as they were so different. This is positive proof that when it comes to public speaking, Toastmasters works!
Table Topics was run by Richard Bluck and and the topic of the evening was, ‘Quotes from Shakespeare’, a great, but challenging topic, which had everyone thinking.
The session was evaluated by Derek Lucian who gave interesting feedback to everyone, but touching on different areas with each individual. I great evaluation, well done.
Andrew Miller was the Ah Counter for the evening. Andrew gave us some really good ideas about how to avoid using filler words and presented the group with very detailed and individual feedback that will certainly help speakers to work on avoiding those ‘ums’ and ‘errs’.
We were kept to time throughout the meeting by our timekeeper Steven Bisby. Steven as usual brought his own style of humour, which I love, when he explained the role of timekeeper.
Catherine Winfield did a fantastic job as Grammarian. Catherine gave a wonderful word of the day and provided some great examples of its use.
As always the meeting was full of energy and fun and our next meeting is on 9th May 16 – guest are always welcome, and there is no requirement to book in advance.

 

Congratulations Andrew Miller

Congratulations to Andrew Miller, who will go on to compete at Limerick in Ireland after winning the Division E Speech contest in Leeds on 24th April.  This followed his success at the area contest in Sheffield on 20th March, where he won both the Speech Contest and the Evaluation Contest.  Congratulations Andrew, and best of luck in Limerick!

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Andrew Miller receives his certificate

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | Monday 23rd February 2016

Meeting report by Alison Turner

With a theme of “Make a Difference” set by our Toastmaster for this evening Sean Gordon Doncaster Speakers met on 23 February at the Regent for its usual fortnightly meeting. The theme was extremely apt as we were treated to a meeting which really did Make A Difference with ample opportunities to learn and hone our public speaking and management skills.

We learnt that Steven Bisby is “a funny man”. Steven was brave enough to deliver his ice breaker speech entitled “Me and Musicals” with tales from his time in the old Civic Theatre and the Odeon Cinema to trips to see his favourite musical Phantom of the Opera. We learnt more about Steven and with his natural humour were transported to the world of musicals with funny stories throughout. Derek Lucian gave a very insightful evaluation of Steven’s speech and easily picked up on the structure, humour and storytelling. Well done Steven and we cannot wait to hear more in your next speech.

Our Grammarian for the evening was Andrew Miller who explained the rhetorical devices he would be looking out for and set us the challenge of using “Affect” as the word for the day. Andrew gave good examples of its use in everyday language and sure enough after a hesitant start in the second half of the meeting we were all using it to great effect.

Unfortunately our second speaker for the evening Andy Howell was unable to deliver his speech due to unforeseen personal circumstances. This was managed very well by Sean, our Toastmaster, with the educational slot being brought forward to the first half of the meeting. Phil Heath was our guest for this evening and he gave us some invaluable tips with a speech entitled “Give your Voice a Voice”. On a subject which Phil is clearly passionate about we learnt to take a deep breath before we speak, exercise the facial muscles, use powerful pauses, vocal variety and tone. He reminded us that the audience is left with an impression of our speech which is often formed not so much by what we say or the words we use but by how we deliver them.

During the second half of our meeting Stephanie Bisby set the Table Topics for the night. Carrying on from the theme “Make a Difference” she asked us such questions as what sporting moment made a difference, what bad habits would we drop and what groups or hobbies had made a difference to us. We heard about the momentous moment when Andy Murray won Wimbledon from Shelagh Jones, turning off the TV from Derek Lucian and time travel from Andrew Miller. But the winner of Best Table Topics was one of our newest members Ben Mullins with his passion for Prog Rock and the Canadian Rock Group Rush and in particular drummer Neil Peart.

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Shelagh Jones had a busy evening not only evaluating Table Topics but also being our Ah Counter.  Other roles were taken on by Bridget Pearson as Timekeeper, Jean Stewart as Sergeant at Arms and myself as General Evaluator. And what did I learn in this role?- to be more organised and perhaps move to the front of the room when you are responsible as General Evaluator for introducing all the other evaluators and taking charge of the second half of the meeting. The best evaluator award was jointly won by Derek Lucian and Shelagh Jones – well done to both of them.

A big thank you to everyone who made this meeting the success it was. I do hope everyone attending learnt something that they can incorporate in their future speeches or roles. The next meeting is the Competition night which is to take place at the usual Monday night slot at The Regent on 7th March. See you there.

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | Monday 8th February 2016

Report from Toastmaster Meeting 8th February by Andrew Miller

It was a real pleasure to get back to Doncaster Speakers tonight. Due to a combination of Christmas and holidays (oh, the humanity), this was my first proper Toastmasters meeting since November.

Michael J Clarke was our Toastmaster for the evening and he set a very apt theme of “It’s a Journey”.

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It’s a Journey

As well as our own personal journeys that we go through as we gain experience and learn new things, Toastmasters itself has gone through its own journey. From its humble beginnings back in 1924, it is now a truly global organisation with a membership equivalent to the population of Bradford. Now there’s a fact to chew over.

Bridget Pearson was our Grammarian for the evening and set us a challenging word of the day in “Peregrination”. Tied into our theme, it means a journey, especially a long or meandering one. Amazingly, the word was used quite extensively. I suspect I heard that word more times tonight than I will do for the rest of my life. Even if there was heavy use of the “crow bar” to get it in some times, it was good work by all the members.

It was also good to meet the two visitors this evening. Ben Mullins was back for his second visit and brought with him his business colleague, Simon Taylor. Good to meet the two of you and I look forward to seeing you both again soon.

We had two really great speakers this evening. Jean Stewart and Shelagh Jones, both doing speeches from Advanced Manuals.

Jean was playing to her strengths by delivering a project from the Humorously Speaking manual. “Promoting to the over-50s”, a slightly less than serious insight into the marketing techniques used by Saga holidays, funeral planners and equity release agencies.

With a complete change of pace, Shelagh was working from the Storytelling manual and had to deliver a known Folk Tale. So, we all gathered round her closely in a half circle and pretended to be 8 year olds as she regaled us with her interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood.

Two very different types and styles. How do you decide who to vote for? Well, it turns out we couldn’t as the vote for best speaker ended up being a dead heat, which felt about right.

To wrap up the first half, I facilitated an Education Session around “What Toastmasters has done for me”. I think it’s important to remember why we come to these meetings. The reason isn’t to win ribbons and complete manuals. There is a real world benefit and we heard some of those examples tonight, including being comfortable in doing a presentation to a group of children, becoming a recognised expert on local radio and helping with the rehabilitation of prisoners.

After the break we had Stephanie Bisby and Andy Howell come up and evaluate Jean and Shelagh’s speeches respectively. Both gave really strong and clear presentations, well structured, supportive and useful and I was really impressed with the standard, not having seen either of them evaluate before. Very well done.

In fact, when it came to the vote for Best Evaluator of the evening, the prize went to a very deserving Andy.

In the meantime, he was back at the front to oversee the Table Topics round.

Once again the journey theme was brought to the fore, with questions such as “Your most memorable journey”, “The first holiday you remember” and “If you could travel anywhere in time and space, where would you go?”

Well done our visitor, Simon, for volunteering to make his debut on the Toastmasters stage by taking part in the TT session. He gave a very good mini-speech on his own personal journey of self improvement.

The winner of Table Topics was, very much to my surprise and delight, me !! “Name three people that I would share a journey with on the Orient Express”. After bluffing my way through the first two (including Hercules Poirot. Well you would, wouldn’t you?), I suddenly remembered I’d better add my wife to the list. Otherwise, there would have been a murder that really wouldn’t have taxed Mr Poirot’s little grey cells to any length.

Some extra thanks you’s to Sean Gordon for evaluating the Table Topics and covering the Ah Counter role when Julie lost her voice. Alison Turner did a sterling job as Timekeeper and the whole evening was wrapped up by our President Jean Stewart.

The next meeting is on 22nd February. We have two speakers lined up, including an Ice Breaker from our newest member Steven Bisby. We also have an education slot from a Toastmaster legend, Phil Heath, who has offered to come down and give us tips on how to use our voice effectively.

Should be a really good meeting, so make sure you get yourself down there.

Have a good couple of weeks and I’ll see you on the 22nd

Andrew Miller
General Evaluator

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | Monday 25th January 2016

Report from Toastmaster Meeting 25th January by Michael J Clarke

The meeting on 25th January 2016 was rather unusual for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the hotel seems to have misplaced our box and banner (unless someone lets us know they have it) and secondly there were almost as many visitors as members at the meeting.

It was great to meet seven visitors and some taking part in the Table Topics challenge. They all said they enjoyed the evening and would be returning to another meeting.

Jean Stewart, our President, was Toastmaster for the evening and introduced what Toastmasters was all about in her own inimitable style with lots of humour and welcomes. Her theme for the evening was ‘Enhancement’ and how Toastmasters can help everyone do that in their lives.

Because we didn’t have the box this caused a couple of challenges, particularly for the Timekeeper. Richard Bluck took the role and with not having the three coloured cards he had to improvise. Instead of the green card he presented a green pen. For the yellow card he presented an orange! And for the red card he presented a nice looking red handbag!!

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Toastmasters teaches many skills including improvisation!

Sean Gordon took the role of Grammarian and explained how he would be looking for good vocabulary and also gave us the Word of the Day – Enrichment.

We had one speaker, Stephanie Bisby, who was introduced by her evaluator Bridget Pearson. Bridget did a fine job introducing Stephanie’s speech entitled “How (not) to write a bestseller”. It was a speech with humour and some practical tips and was engrossing.

Following Stephanie’s speech there was a break, which provided an opportunity for members to get to know the visitors and answer any questions they may have had.

The second half started with the Grammarian reminding us of the Word of the Day, followed by the General Evaluator, me, then totally abusing the Word of the Day by getting it in every sentence of the introduction to his role. I explained the ‘power’ of evaluations and explained how the role had two parts.

The first was to introduce the speech evaluator, Bridget Pearson, who did an excellent evaluation of Stephanie’s speech. I did suggest trying future evaluations in the third person as the points are of value to everyone at the meeting.

The meeting then moved to the third core part – Table Topics. Our Table Topics Master was Julie Gordon. Julie had a number of topics all within the theme of Enhancement. We were all challenged to speak about how we would enhance all sorts of things. Many of the speakers were able to speak for over two minutes which showed these were great topics to work with – well done Julie. A couple of the visitors got involved and one, Ben, clearly won the Best Table Topics Speaker vote.

Shelagh Jones gave a detailed evaluation of the Table Topics Master and the speakers. In fact that detailed she went somewhat over time – an unfortunate theme of the evening. Sean Gordon gave feedback as Grammarian and along with our speech evaluator went over time. In other words everyone was disqualified from the Best Evaluator vote.

My evaluation of the meeting went over as well but I claim mitigating circumstances – I always speak to the cards and the timekeeper didn’t time me so I just went on and on and on until I felt I was well past my time and asked. Ooops.

My main point is that members should be proud of their club and proud of what they contribute, and this was reflected in the number of visitors – most of whom attended following a recommendation from someone they knew.

Thoroughly enjoyed the meeting – so much signed up to be Toastmaster next time. Hope that doesn’t put off those who weren’t there last night from returning at the next meeting. Hope to see you all there.

The next meeting is on Monday 8th February and you can find the dates of all our future meetings at https://doncasterspeakers.org.uk/our-meetings/.

 

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | Monday 11th January 2016

Report from Toastmaster meeting 11th January by Shelagh Jones

Our Toastmaster of the Day (and also our President), Jean Stewart, chose the very appropriate Theme of Goal Setting for the first meeting of the New Year.

Grammarian Alison Turner built on the Theme with “Determination” as her Word of the Day which was reasonably well used during the ensuing speeches.

Goal!
Determination is needed to achieve goals

Table Topics Master Sean Gordon created a clutch of questions centred on New Year Resolutions past, present and imagined which were, as always, taken up very enthusiastically and effectively. In fact, so effective were the speeches that for the first time “in living memory” there were equal votes for every participant – until the one person who had not voted completed their ballot and Stephanie Bisby was declared as Table Topics winner.

David Allen “broke his duck” as Table Topics Evaluator, acquitted himself well for a first attempt, and learned some valuable lessons for next time.

There was no vote for best Evaluator as David fell short of his allotted time and Alison was giving so much feedback as Grammarian that she ran way over her time. We certainly get plenty of opportunity to practice keeping to time at Toastmaster meetings!

The final part of the meeting was devoted to an informal “workshop” about ways to spread the word about Toastmasters in the area and bring more members to the club. Jean Stewart led the discussion and it was really helpful to have the input of all members present and, most importantly, a guest who was seeing the club from a different viewpoint.

There were some excellent suggestions which will be implemented over the second half of the Toastmasters year.

Those of us who are members know just how much there is to be gained from being involved with Doncaster Speakers. We really owe it to others to let them know too!

The meeting ended on a positive and upbeat note with everyone buzzing about what they themselves are going to do.

Next meeting is on 25th January at the Regent Hotel at 7pm and, as always, guests are welcome.