New year, new speeches with Toastmasters

On Wednesday 20th January, we had another amazing Toastmaster’s meeting. Key takeaways of the meeting are as follows:

  • One of the surprises for the Toastmaster of the meeting (similar to chair person or master of ceremonies) is that they never know what to expect in people’s prepared speeches!
  • The best speaker of the evening was our member Judith – her task was to deliver a social speech.  Judith chose to do one imagining she was accepting the Nobel prize for literature.  We could really believe this could be true because we already know that Judith is brilliant with words from previous speeches and this was no different. 
Photo by Ariel on Unsplash
  • It was so easy to imagine Judith actually delivering an acceptance speech and a joy to hear and see.  This was another very memorable speech where her ability to engage our emotions and use of the dramatic pause was used to great effect. 
  • We had a very different and entertaining speech from Mike, who gave us a very amusing speech about the lifecycle of bees.
  • Our president Lynne brought to life communication styles illustrated with the use of four characters she created and described.  This really had us chuckling at points recognising elements of ourselves in the characters.
  • The club continues to respond to our members’ needs in our online format and is always looking for ways to improve.  We are enjoying more social time to get to know each other in smaller groups in break out rooms, which are proving very popular with members.
  • The table topics section of the evening led by club founder John Kendall was great fun as speakers revealed ‘the worst thing was….’ about various scenarios.  This gave license for a lot of story telling, which members enjoyed.
  • All in all, a well attended and very enjoyable meeting.