Spring is in the air

Spring was in the air for our first meeting of March with three totally different prepared speeches. Each one had something relevant about careers, very appropriate for the time of year we think about renewal. 

First off we had a speech by Bev who has recently rejoined the club after a break.  She was re-introducing herself to club members and we learned about the doors she has opened to different opportunities in her life.  We learned about she opened up to City life from her early years in rural Derbyshire and then she told us about her career transition from the corporate world to freelancer.  It was a really fascinating glimpse into how she has made the most of these change and a delight to get to know her all over again and some things we hadn’t up to now.

Rossana followed this with a wonderful speech about her experience moving jobs. She used a very clever metaphor comparing moving jobs to dating and telling the story of a job application in times of Covid-19 and salary negotiation as if it were a dating saga.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

President Lynne gave us some very helpful tips on how to be preparing for interviews, making using of her 20 years’ experience in recruitment.  It turned out we should be doing that all the time, not just the night before or even when we start looking for a job.  Lynne explained how this helps because we never know when we might be approached about a career opportunity. She told us more about the kind of information that is useful to prepare.  Very helpful for anyone thinking of a career move.

Our impromptu ‘table topics’ speech section for the evening run by Anna were on a World Book Day theme.  We learned about Helen’s favourite first book (Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson), Robert inspired us to want to read The Best and The Brightest by David Halberstam about the origins of the Vietnam War and finally experienced speaker Dorothy tackled ‘can you judge a book by its cover’ and had us all laughing and smiling at her ideas.

Another great evening enjoyed by all as we start to dare to hope about returning to face to face meetings when we can.  We’re making the most of the online medium for a while yet and always enjoy the joke at the end as we close with ‘have a safe journey home’.

Our next meeting is on the 17th March when members will be taking part in our Club Contest to see who will be our best evaluator of speeches (we will have a ‘test speaker’ and contestants all have to give the best review of the same speech).  We will also be deciding our best speaker who will get the chance to go further through different levels of contests from Area to Division to District and so on until finally in August the Word Champion of Public Speaking will be decided at the Toastmasters International Convention – every single winner of that award has won a club contests.  You’re welcome to come and enjoy the spectacle, contests brings out the very best speeches you’ll hear in clubs. 

If you would like to visit – please email us: info@northhertsspeakers.org

https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/North-Herts-Speakers-Public-Speaking-Meetup/events/nwszdsyccfbwb/