It was a delight to be your Toastmaster for the meeting on Monday evening. It was my first time as Toastmaster so it was especially satisfying to oversee an evening filled with such spontaneity and creativity.
Part 1
Our Acting President Alex kicked things off with a short introduction. I then opened the meeting with a short explanation of the structure of the meeting and an introduction to our theme.
The theme was “spontaneity” which I felt was fitting as our evening was built around a Table Topics workshop delivered by Alex.
Unfortunately, our assigned timekeeper for the evening had to drop out at the last moment. Fortunately, one of the guests, Mike, graciously volunteered to take on the role. He really embraced the spirit of the evening and did a fantastic job.
Our grammarian was the stylish Sarah, who liked the theme of the meeting so much that she also made “spontaneous” the word of the evening. Sarah is a great evaluator and she gave a thorough report at the end of the meeting. I especially liked how she split her report into different categories instead of just going through the speakers one by one, which is perhaps a more sensible way to structure the grammarian report.
Our first speaker was Nana whose speech project was to create a podcast episode, introduce the podcast to the audience and then play a snippet for them. This is not an easy task since it ties together so many different skill sets.
Nana, of course, pulled this off brilliantly. He opened with a story of how he first became curious about clinical science as a young boy. He then smoothly introduced a brilliantly produced podcast snippet which contained some personal stories that really highlighted the importance of healthcare science.
Next was the Table Topics workshop led by Alex filled with some really helpful techniques to use when delivering a Table Topic speech. I think Alex also really sold the importance of Table Topics when he said that “life can be a Table Topic”. I think that really struck a chord with many of us who have had to adapt to unexpected changes this year.
Part 2
Straight after the break, we had a Q&A session on Table Topics where Alex responded to some audience questions. I think the bounty of questions we had really showed how much the audience had engaged with everything that Alex had said before the break.
We then had a Table Topics session with some intriguing questions from Hinesh. This was a special, extended Table Topics section with literally everybody in the meeting having the opportunity to deliver an impromptu speech. All told we had a whopping 13 participants.
Alex took on the herculean task of evaluating all these speakers. Of course he was undaunted by this, delivering thorough and precise feedback to everyone, much of which referenced and reinforced the advice he had given in the workshop.
Our Sergeant of Arms also had to drop out, but what kind of Toastmaster would I be if I didn’t spontaneously take on the role myself? We only had two guests, but it would hard to overstate their contribution to the evening:
Mike, as I said earlier, jumped into the role of Timekeeper. He is a longtime member of a Toastmasters club in North Carolina in the US. He had previously visited our club a couple of weeks ago. Evidently, he enjoyed it so much that he decided to return.
Trang Le joined us from another London club, Phoenix Speakers. She acted as General Evaluator for the evening and delivered an incredibly thoughtful report at the end of the evening. It’s always great to have a guest from another club delivering a General Evaluation as I feel like you get such a fresh perspective on things that we may take for granted at 1st London. This one was no different with Trang delivering some gleaming insights and very useful feedback.
Our meeting concluded with our Acting President Alex handing on the awards of the evening. The winners were:
Best Evaluator: Alex
Best Table Topic: Mike
Best Speaker: Nana