Mystery Toastmaster here, reporting on our zoom meeting on Wednesday 16 July.
We had another very enjoyable evening on Zoom with lots of inventiveness on show. Lynne our new Club President welcomed everyone in her debut meeting in that role 💥
Oliver, VP Education, stepped into our Grammarian role at the last minute and displayed his word for the day “Ominous” on a sign around his neck – made a nice change from a virtual background.
We had two great prepared speeches from Dorothy and Maria from whom we learned even more about mentoring and how to get the best out of it – an area we are keen on developing further at North Herts Speakers. They offered different perspectives about mentoring which proved very insightful and entertaining.
Then for something really different, we had a speech from Enroy about Musca Domestica (otherwise known as the Common Housefly) given in his inimitable and entertaining style – none of us will ever look at cheesecake in the same way now!
Unusually, we had a few technical hitches with Zoom but as good Toastmasters -especially, in social distancing times- we have learned to keep calm and carry on, especially Maria who re-started her speech with aplomb and charm ⭐
The Star of the night was Pat, Lynne’s guest, who visited us for the first time and delivered a textbook impromptu speech in our table topic round – she regaled us with a true story about the antics of baboons on a trip to India. A deserved winner of best Table Topic speech of the evening.
We are delighted to welcome Mike to our Club Officer Committee as our new VP of Membership.
Well done to Dorothy for completing Level 2 of her Pathways education programme and Enroy who has completed his speeches for his Level 1 Award.
Table Topics are a great way to test your ability to speak on the spot in any situation. Table Topics are definitely a marmite part of the meeting. Generally speaking, if it’s an easy question, toastmasters will love them but if no answer comes to mind, toastmasters will not be so keen.
Some toastmasters like table topics as it challenges everyone to get involved in the program. Toastmasters is about learning by doing! Some have grown to like the challenge and enjoy the thrill of doing table topics. Plus toastmasters don’t need to prepare for a table topic speech!
Those who love to be prepared may not like table topics. BUT table topics are a good thing to do, because in life sometimes we don’t have time to get as prepared as we’d like. So what do we do when we can’t prepare as much as we’d like? We can link table topics to a personal story. That would be the first step to love table topics💕
It is a journey to love table topics, some of us used to hate them. As time has gone on and we have got more confident, however, we begin to like them, even love them. Table topics are exciting and a thing we like is the way it brings out people’s creativity and things you’d never hear about any other way!
Some people like them from a skills perspective. Table topics are something we can all master. Table topics are a good way of feeling mildly uncomfortable and getting used to that. Table topics make you think and get you out of your comfort zone.
Those who love adrenaline and adventure love table topics, because you have to think fast and react, it’s like an extreme sport for words! The truth is that table topics give you an opportunity to speak spontaneously with no time to be nervous. What a great experience to do. Bring it on! 👍
With massive thanks to all North Hearts Speakers who contributed to write this blog.
