Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | Monday 28th July 2014

General Evaluator’s Report | 28th July 2014 | By Shelagh Jones

“Commonwealth”

The most interesting themes for a Toastmasters meeting are often  topical, especially if they take a sideways look at what is going on.  Andrew Miller chose the Commonwealth as his theme for the meeting on Monday July 28th and gave a fascinating insight into the origin of the word and how the Toastmasters ethos of working for our mutual good and wellbeing and the good of the organisation is comparable.

Grammarian Bridget Pearson (our newest member who is stretching herself at every meeting!) chose UNITE as her word of the day –both in its meaning related to the Commonwealth theme, but also as a noun meaning an old English coin worth 20 shillings which was then equal to one pound. Some members had great fun with this use of the word!

Commonwealth Unite
Image: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Richard Bluck took on the challenge to research a topic and speak about it by demonstrating the Triz problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature, which was created by Genrich Atlshuller in the late 1940s.

Richard managed to explain this complicated idea very clearly – and I for one have already gone online to read more!

Triz problem-solving, analysis and forecasting
Image: By User:AndriuZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TRIZway.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Derek Badger is working on one of the 15 Advanced Manuals, called Technical Presentations, and his first speech was a Technical Briefing which he chose to make a session about preventing Fire in the workplace. Helped by a stack of visual aids he expertly lead us through the “triangle” of fuel, oxygen and heat that is needed for a fire to take place, and emphasised his points with poignant personal anecdotes.

The new Area 15 Governor Chris Worfolk was warmly welcomed to the meeting and gave us a very informative talk about leadership – applicable to both Toastmasters and the workplace. He identified the five areas against which a potential leader should measure him or herself, and then gave a diagram on which to evaluate ourselves and, as time goes by, measure our progress.

His five areas were:

  • Be the expert  – your team expects you to know
  • Be the role model – lead from the front
  • Learn the patience to teach
  • Become a coach – empower people by delegating to them
  • And finally – be the Manager.

After the break Jean Stewart ran a lively and very enjoyable Table Topics session in which we were invited to choose one of a series of objects from her home. Gail Powell’s tale about why not to buy people a mug and Bridget Pearson’s sad story of what happened to her cuddly toys were joint Winners.

The evening ended with the evaluations, showing contributors to the evening where they performed particularly well and where they could improve.

Alison Kitchman was Ah Counter and she decided to challenge herself by not simply pointing out crutch words but also offering ways to reduce their use.

She started off by saying that Filler words are not written into a speech. She then explained how using crutch words weakens our credibility and authenticity.

In general, she suggested we should:

  • Raise the level of preparation of role introductions etc
  • Slow down (allow mouth to catch up with brain!)
  • Embrace the pause. Give yourself time to think.

She then gave detailed feedback to participants.

This resulted in her going way over her allotted time (and she had more to offer if people wanted to talk to her afterwards) and therefore could not be included in vote for Best Evaluator.

In the Q and A session at the end of the meeting Alison made an impassioned plea for the same  amount of time to be allocated to the Ah counter as to the Grammarian.  After a lively discussion it was decided to do this in future meetings.

At the end of the meeting, Andrew resumed his role as Club President and awarded Mark Powell with his certificates and pins for achieving the two Awards Competent Communicator and Competent Leader.

Competent Leader | Competent Communicator | Toastmasters International | Doncaster Speakers
Andrew Miller presents CC and CL awards to Mark Powell July 28 2014

He also awarded the Best Evaluator to Derek Lucian, Best Table Topics to Gail Powell and Bridget Pearson and Best Speaker to Richard Bluck.

This meeting was held, unusually, in the Earl of Doncaster Hotel. All future meetings will revert to the Regent Hotel in Doncaster. The next two meetings are on Monday August 11th and Monday August 18th, and the Club Speech competitions will be held on Monday September 8th. All meetings start at 7pm.

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | Monday 14th July 2014

General Evaluator’s Report | 14th July 2014 | By Andrew Miller

“Security Blankets”

Lisa Johnson, Toastmaster for the evening, found an excellent way of theming the meeting.

The concept of the security blanket, something we hide behind that helps us or stops us from stepping outside our comfort zone, was nicely tied into the fears we feel when we stand up and speak in front of an audience. That we need to step out from behind our shields and face our fears if we want to progress in anything we do.

Baby Comfort Blanket
Image Credit: Granny strippe baby blanket by marenlm, on Flickr

Additionally, however, Lisa had made erstwhile contact with a number of the people taking on roles and inveigled them to provide personal stories about their own security blankets or cuddly toys that they possessed as a child.

Lisa would then introduce each one with a little insight into their childhood pecadillos, before they came up to the lectern.

Consequently, we found out about thumb suckers who cured their habit by playing cat’s cradle, the violence that can be bestowed by a small boy and his toy cat and we even had an actual toy sheep brought in to show.

Not only did this put an additional gloss on some of the more formal procedures in place, it also helped us all to get to know these people a little better and enabled us to connect with them at a deeper level.

As for the meeting itself, we had two speakers tonight, both of whom had completed the initial 10 speeches contained in the first manual we tackle, officially designating them Competent Communicators.

Derek Lucian delivered us an advanced speech from the Entertaining Speaker Manual, and entertain us he did. Entitled “Three Little Words”, Derek went on to reveal that the three words in question were “Pull. My. Finger”. And yes, described precisely how that old trick works and the consequences. With mimes and sound effects! Somehow, he managed to keep it decent and family friendly, which was an art in itself.

He then shared with us his confusion when a doctor appeared to be using this method to check for trapped nerve in his neck and how everything was finally resolved when he went to visit a bizarre alternative therapist. But not in the way that you might think.

Up against Derek we had Jean Stewart. This speech was a bonus one, stored at the back of the first manual to keep you going until the advanced ones arrive and is on the theme of the Entertaining Speaker. Similar to Derek, but a slight shift in focus on the individual over the actual content.

“The End of a Promising Career” allowed us to find out a little bit more about Jean and her drinking habits at boring social events. A few too many drinks and a lack of attention to the actual words coming out of her mouth, and the career of her recently acquired husband was brought to a crashing halt.

A speech perfectly suited for Jean and delivered with fantastic humour and pacing, it was with no disrespect to Derek that she walked away with the Best Speaker ribbon for the evening.

 

To round off the first half we had the formal handover to the new committee. Gail Powell, last year’s President, kicked things off by passing on the ribbon of power to Andrew Miller, the incumbent for 2014/2015. The other members of the committee then came up, receiving their pins and giving a brief view on what they want to bring to the role this year.

The ambitions this year include to making meetings easier to run and ensure that members get the most out of their membership. This means increasing the size of the club, bringing in helpful procedures and processes to make it easier to organise meetings and take on roles and step up the education and mentoring elements of the club.

Doncaster Speakers Committee 2014-2015
The 2014-2015 Committee, L-R: Lisa Johnson (Sgt at Arms), Gail Powell (Immediate Past President), Sean Gordon (VP Membership), Jean Stewart (VP PR), Richard Bluck (Secretary), Andrew Miller (President & Treasurer), Frederika Roberts (Webmaster), Shelagh Jones (VP Education)

For the record, the new committee are:

President – Andrew Miller

VP of Education – Shelagh Jones

VP for Membership – Sean Gordon

VP for PR – Jean Stewart (returning)

Webmaster – Fred Roberts (returning)

Treasurer – Andrew Miller (returning)

Sgt at Arms – Lisa Johnson

Secretary – Richard Bluck (returning)

This section was concluded with a formal thanking of Gail for her work in the previous year followed by the traditional presentation of a bunch of flowers. Gail supplied the equally traditional “shocked” expression it is customary to adopt in these circumstances.

Doncaster Speakers | Flowers for Immediate Past President Gail Powell

 

In the second half, following the evaluations of the speeches, we enjoyed a round of impromptu speaking turns with Table Topics. Richard Bluck picked up the theme of Security Blankets and tasked each contestant to consider the security blankets that might be adopted by various celebrities. These ranged from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Angela Merkel.

In the President’s wrap up, the award for best Table Topic went to himself (greedy git) and best evaluator went to the Table Topics Evaluator, Frederika Roberts. A special “First Timer” ribbon went to Jay, visiting from the Sheffield club. These ribbons are normally reserved for people who have never been to Toastmasters before, but as visits between clubs should be encouraged, it was deemed appropriate to issue one in this case.

In his closing comments, Andrew announced the dates of the Humorous Speech and Table Topics competition. The Club Competition will replace our normal Monday meeting on 8 September. Doncaster will also be hosting the next round, the Area Competition, on 21st September.

We will need both competitors and people to assist in the organising of these two events. No experience is actually needed, either for competing or assisting. Early volunteers would be appreciated.

Guests will be more than welcome to come along as well.

The next meeting will be held on 28th July.

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | Monday 23rd June 2014

General Evaluator’s Report | 23rd June 2014 | By Alison Kitchman

Competition!

Excellence, energy and excitement exuded from our Monday night Toastmasters meeting at Doncaster Speakers.
Julie Gordon,our Sargeant at Arms,got us out of the starting blocks on time and with all the right equipment and facilities to enable our Toastmaster for the evening, Jean Stewart,to run with the theme of “Competition”. England might be coming home but there are lots of competitions- sporting and otherwise- going on around the world right now. Jean brings great energy and humour to our meetings and dealt seamlessly with a last minute sub as Shelagh Jones took over the role of Grammarian in place of Richard Bluck.  Shelagh pulled out the stops by choosing “excellence” as the word of the day, meaning not “to be perfect” but to “do your best” which is all we can ask of ourselves when we compete with ourselves in striving to speak better.
Our Timekeeper, Michel Ediele, set the goals urging that our speakers would be disqualified if they ran over time with their speech.
One of our newest members, Bridget Pearson, got stuck in to the role of Ah Counter with great enthusiasm urging us to breath, pause and slow down to avoid using the unnecessary crutch words that litter our speech – the “ums”,”ahs”,”you know”… Bridget kept a tally and reported back on the scores in reverse order declaring a tie for the joint winners, Sean Gordon and me with no crutch words at all – result!
Frederika Roberts excelled delivering the only formal speech of the evening – Speech 7 – Research Your Topic entitled “Well-healed”. In a very powerful start, Fred told us she wanted to share with us her “guilty pleasure”. She then whipped off a sheet covering a fantastic display of “to die for” high heeled shoes! Fred’s speech oozed with passion, historical facts and anecdotes.  Did you know men used to wear high heels before women?
well-heeled | Doncaster Speakers | Public Speaking | Toastmasters International
Lisa Johnson, our past President, followed with a fantastic presentation on Evaluation which truly is the “Powerhouse of Toastmasters”. Used safely, feedback motivates and inspires. Lisa suggested – don’t just say “your introduction was boring…” instead suggest ” your introduction could be made livelier with…”! I only wish I had heard Lisa’s tips before this meeting as I was evaluating Fred’s speech, Lisa’s Education slot and the whole meeting as General Evaluator! Oh well – I did my best!
Our table topics session was as funny as ever thanks to Shelagh who also took on the role of Table Topics Master spinning a tale which started “Once upon a time there were 6 men and 4 animals…” Each of our table topic speakers had 2 minutes to continue the story, leaving a “cliff-hanger” for the next speaker. By the time Jean, Sean, Fred, Lisa, Bridget and I had spoken we had an ark stinking of manure with 6 vegetarians, a horse, dog and hens laying eggs, in distress at the thunder, which were fed to the Indians who had come over the hill to kill the men who were trying to defend themselves with a pitchfork! How I won the Best Table Topics Speaker Award I will never know!
 
Our Best Speaker Award went to Fred and our Best Evaulator Award went to Shelagh.
We were all winners following another great evening. Join us?

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | 9th June 2014

General Evaluator’s Report | 9th June 2014 | By Lisa Johnson

Change is Good!

Evolution | Change | Doncaster Speakers | Toastmasters International
Credit: Human Evolution by Bryan Wright on Flickr

This was a meeting brimming with possibility and it did not disappoint! Andrew Miller led the proceedings masterfully as Toastmaster of the Evening and introduced the guests followed by his theme; “Change is Good.” He kicked off with a slightly tongue in cheek analogy to evolution reminding us all that we’d still be slithering around on the ground on our bellies were it not for change (or was that afterwards in the bar?!)

The “main course” of any Toastmasters meeting is the prepared speeches and tonight we were graced with the gourmet feast of not one, but two, speech 10 contestants! Every member of Toastmasters is encouraged to work through the Competent Communicators manual and this involves completing ten types of speeches. Speech 10 is the culmination of many hours of practice over many months / years and whilst it’s theme is “To Inspire” it is a showcase of skills learnt in the previous 9 speeches, so body language, vocal variety, structure, stagecraft etc are all important in this speech whilst delivering a powerful, inspiring message.

Mark Powell’s speech entitled “The Letter” told the tale of 2 incidents that occurred in his role as a police officer and was a reminder to us that reward and praise often does not come to us from the sources we expect (i.e. from his bosses when he pulled out all the stops to solve an “unsolveable” hit and run case (the only clue from a 10 year old witness being that it was “a bald man in blue or black car”) and that actually inspiration came from a handwritten letter from the little girl who had been knocked down thanking him for catching the man that hurt her. There were a few misty eyes in the house when the tatty letter was produced – a simple but highly effective visual aid as Shelagh Jones pointed out in her evaluation of the speech.

Jamie Godfrey’s speech “Take a Walk on the Child Side” invited us to revisit some of our childhood pleasures. His touching tale of his twin son and daughter being delighted anew every morning by “THE BIRDIES!!” in the garden, together with a pivotal movie moment from The Lego Movie “EVERYTHING IS AWESOME” had inspired him to think about reintroducing some of the things that he had enjoyed as a child, just for fun! As we approach middle age life can become about work, paying the mortgage, juggling appointments… so why not do something that used to make you happy, be it trampolining, pogo-sticking or just collecting Panini stickers JUST FOR FUN! Richard Bluck evaluated Jamie’s speech and gave some useful feedback on volume (i.e. Jamie doesn’t really DO quiet!”). Nevertheless Jamie narrowly pipped Mark to the post in swiping the award for Best Speaker.

We had a short Education slot from our President, Gail Powell where she announced the nominations for next year’s committee and shared the sad news that this meeting would be her last as President as she cannot attend the next meeting and the new committee takes over in July.

After the break our Sergeant-At-Arms, Jean Stewart masterfully banged her gavel to reconvene and our Timekeeper, Bridget Pearson (taking on her first role having only joined as a member that week!) kept us on track for the impromptu part of the evening; Table Topics, flashing her green, yellow and red cards for the 1-2 minute speeches. Mark Powell as Table Topics Master gave us a series of “well known phrases” and asked us to fabricate a story about how the terms came about. All I can say is that he is a brave man asking Jean Stewart to explain the origins of “a cock and bull story!” and as for Richard Bluck’s “blowing hot and cold”..he had us in stitches with his impressions of a glass blower (it could have been a lot worse methinks!). The Table Topics were evaluated by Jean Stewart whose observation skills have come on in leaps and bounds and the award for best Table Topic was shared by Gail Powell and Alison Kitchman.

Throughout the evening our Grammarian Alison Kitchman challenged us to use the “Word of the Day”..except tonight to keep us on our toes it was two words of the day. Two words that sound similar but have different meanings are apparently known as an hominism; the two words chosen were “Affect” and “Effect” and they were mainly used correctly! Our Ah-Counter Michel Ediele performed the role brilliantly for the first time, congratulating Gail on “keeping him busy” with her Ah’s and Um’s! The Best Evaluator award was deservedly won by Shelagh Jones.

After Lisa Johnson had evaluated “everything and everyone that had not yet been evaluated” it fell to Gail Powell to present the awards , invite us to a Club BBQ on 24th August and remind us to “save the date” and bring along even more guests for the next meeting on Monday 23rd June!

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | 29th May 2014

General Evaluator’s Report | 19th May 2014

“Lessons Learnt the Hard Way”

So. What did Monday night bring us this time by way of Toastmastery delights?

Hot on the heels of the previous meeting due to the Bank Holidays in May, it was great to see so many people there, as well as a returning visitor giving us a second go.

Sean Ryan was in charge this time, taking on the Toastmaster role with his usual levels of energy and delight, clearly and precisely taking us through what Toastmasters is about and the size of the organisation.

Ever Tried Ever Failed Samuel Beckett
Image Credit: The Happiness Speaker

His theme of the day was “Lessons Learnt the Hard Way”. Based on his personal reflections on the progress he’d made over time and that problems he’d faced were really just things to learn from. That things don’t happen straight away, but you need to keep pushing to see the benefits. He even brought in a fantastic quote from Beckett:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Beautiful.

This inspired Jean Stewart, as grammarian, to provide us with “Persevere”as the word of the day. Along with the promise of a chocolate bar if anyone managed to use it 10 times in the evening. Now there’s a glass and a half of challenge.

There were two planned speeches this evening. Richard Bluck was delivering Speech 6 from the Competent Communications Manual and was titled “Stuck at Work”. The focus of Speech 6 was to bring in vocal variety into the delivery. His story of how he got stuck in America when the Icelandic Ash Cloud went up. Richard has a very calm and measured style of delivery and was concerned that he comes across as monotone. But, whilst the variation may not be as extreme as some others, the subtlety of his intonation and variation, possibly has more impact. A very funny and engaging tale told in a very entertaining way.

The second speaker was Gail Powell and this was Speech number 10 !! This means that Gail has completed all the speeches in the first speech manual and is now able to move onto the more advanced projects. This final speech pulls together all of the lessons learnt from before and requires the speaker to inspire the audience with their message. As it is such a special speech, more time is allowed in which to get the point across, being 10 minutes maximum, instead of the usual 7.

Gail’s speech was titled “Living a Conscious Life”and launched off with another quote, this time from “The Matrix”to set up the theme of looking at things in a different way, especially if you know they aren’t agreeing with you. The specific context was to explain why she had recently turned virtually vegetarian following a number of experiences, including working with a vegan and nearly choking to death on a piece of beef. But Gail didn’t go down the ‘cute animals’route, but the impact that intense animal farming is having on the world. She illustrated the different elements of the carbon footprint created by animal flood production by using giant colour coded paper chains. The most astounding fact of the night was that lamb shipped in from New Zealand has a smaller footprint than home grown lamb, purely down to the type of feed used.

Food for thought and no mistake (or pun intended).

Following the speeches, Shelagh Jones delivered an excellent education session on what is required in the different roles of the Committee members. A useful topic as the new Committee will be voted in very soon.

Moving into the second half, the General Evaluator introduced Jean and Shelagh again who had been evaluating Richard and Gail’s speeches respectively. Andrew gave a great explanation around the importance of evaluation, as well as a comparison between Toastmasters and a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo. It’s nothing without the feedback !! Which successfully produced the biggest groan of the evening from the audience.

Following the very eloquent and well-structured speech evaluations, we moved on the fantastic improvisation round, Table Topics.

Sean Gordon had his first taste of being in charge of this section and, working with the overall theme, pulled together a series of questions around learning, failing and regrets.

Despite some pretty tough questions, everyone pulled out some cracking Table Topics.

Special highlights include a sterling performance from Bridget, our visitor of the evening, who was happy to volunteer. Despite only being her second visit, she delivered her topic like a pro, bringing in structure, fluidity and humour.

Then there was Andrew Miller (again) who, when asked to come up with something he’d regretted not asking, realised that he hadn’t taken the opportunity during the break to ask Jean if the promise of chocolate bar was true. Just in case, he shamelessly (but humorously) crowbarred in enough usages of “Persevere”to qualify for any prize, should it exist.

It didn’t!

Moving towards wrap up, Andrew Miller, as General Evaluator, gave the overall picture and then it came to presentation time for the awards.

The award for Best Speech went to Gail Powell whilst Lisa Johnson grabbed the pennant for Best Evaluator. And, in the absence of the promised chocolate bar, Andrew was compensated by getting the award for Best Table Topic.

A really good night and looking forward to the next one on the 9th of June where we will enjoy not one, but TWO speech 10’s plus a speech from one of the advanced manuals. So really high quality to look forward to there.

In addition, we will be voting for the new Committee. So, if you didn’t make it this time – Fail Better – and get along on the 9th.

 

Doncaster Speakers Meeting Report | 12th May 2014

General Evaluator’s Report | 12th May 2014

“Energy and Performance”

Report by Shelagh Jones

President Gail Powell was Toastmaster for the meeting and she set the tone for the evening with the powerful theme “Energy and Performance”

From the moment she introduced the theme the room was abuzz with energy and stayed there right throughout this dynamic meeting.

Doncaster Speakers | Toastmasters International | Energy | Performance
Image Source: http://pixabay.com/en/abstract-line-wave-design-pattern-140898/

The Toastmaster journey starts with 10 speeches, each one designed to teach one aspect of delivering a speech, and culminates with the final objective of inspiring your audience.

Club VP of PR Jean Stewart took on that challenge this evening and inspired us to take a fresh look at the behaviour of our young people, and the part we as adults play in that behaviour, with her speech entitled “Are teenagers out of control?”

Successfully completing that speech gives Jean the title of Competent Communicator (CC) and allows her to proceed along the Communicator path using the Advanced Speech manuals.

Following on from this provocative speech, Gail Powell partnered with Club Social Media officer Fred Roberts in an interactive Education session called “Elevate Your Speech to the Next Level” which they accompanied with a very useful hand-out packed full of tips. The whole audience contributed to a lively and valuable discussion, and many lessons were learnt eg the vital importance of preparation and practice, and the ways different people get that practice.

After the break Derek Badger used the metaphor of a Black Forest Gateau to shape his evaluation of Jean’s speech, which, unusually, was the sole prepared speech of the evening.

Club Treasurer Andrew Miller took up Gail’s theme with a round of impromptu Table Topics dealing with different types of energy eg Solar energy. As always we all took part with gusto (I am not quite sure how I ended up demonstrating ballet steps but it was something to do with kinetic energy….! ) but I particularly liked the part in Andrew’s introduction when he said that, in mastering these impromptu speeches, we are in fact mastering public speaking, as all speeches are just a series of short impromptu speeches.

What sets Toastmasters apart (and above!) many speaking clubs is the focus on Evaluation, where helpful feedback is given in a supportive and non-judgemental environment.

Fred Roberts evaluated all the Table Topics speeches; Jean Stewart was Aah counter and Sean Gordon as Grammarian gave us the word Virtuous to incorporate as often as possible during the meeting, and also pointed out the best uses of grammar and vocabulary.

After my final Evaluation of the whole meeting, Gail recognised Jean Stewart as Best Speaker, Fred Roberts as Best Evaluator, and me, Sean Gordon and Derek Lucian for Best Table Topics speeches – the second three-way draw in as many meetings!

There is barely time to draw breath before the next meeting on Monday May 19th, when we look forward to another great evening with members and anyone who would like to come and see just what is this thing called Toastmasters!