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Our first meeting in our new venue Ye Olde Watling was a lively affair with three prepared speeches.

David was Toastmaster of the evening, introducing everyone to the stage with their favourite piece of regional slang – from “gurt lush” to “tha’s using yer noggin”.

Andrew was the evening’s timekeeper and Isabelle the grammarian, introducing the word of the day “phenomenal” (a word which speakers then try to fit into their speeches).

Sumit gave the first speech of the evening “Eating Alone” with an interesting and conversational speech looking at choices people make to do things on their own.

Florian gave a speech from the advanced manuals telling an original story. Florian told us an engaging story of how he left home in France for university in the UK.

Mikhail gave a speech from the advanced manuals, a technical briefing titled “HTTP and TCP/IP”, a technical speech that was presented to be understood by non-techies.

After the break came the evaluations, starting with Anne evaluating Sumit’s speech, James evaluating Florian’s, and Dani evaluation Mikhail’s They were all insightful evaluations that looked at the positive aspects of the speeches, as well as areas of improvement.

Charles was the table topics master of the evening, asking a fun and interesting array of accessible questions, starting with “what’s something that you would really like to do in your life but haven’t yet done?! There were some really humorous answers and many of the guests took part.

Then came the final evaluations, with Christopher delivering the table topics evaluations, Isabelle delivering the grammarian report, commenting on interesting word usage, and Peter (from a fellow toastmasters club) gave a very warm and useful general evaluators report on the club as a whole, as well as evaluating everyone who had been on stage who hadn’t been evaluated.

Our next meeting on January 13th will take place at the Loose Cannon bar.

The venue is located near Cannon Street station – Allhallows Lane, London EC4R 3UE. Here is a link to a map to guide you there

In our recent Christmas-themed meeting David was Toastmaster of the evening, introducing speakers to the stage by asking them their favourite food at Christmas (from mince pies to yams, to brussel sprouts). Caroline was the timekeeper and James the grammarian, with the word of the day “Jubilant”

Fahad kicked off the prepared speeches with a speech from the Leadership Excellence Series, looking at what helps build a good team, and the qualities of effective leadership. Fahad effectively used a Powerpoint presentation to deliver a well-structured speech.

Isabelle gave her second toastmasters speech (objective: organisation) titled “Journalism: the good, the bad and the ugly”, giving a well organised speech that was at the same time conversational in manner. Isabelle gave an insight into her experiences as a journalist as well as a wider look at the industry.

Dani’s speech was his third toastmasters speech “Put the phones down”. The aim of the 3rd speech is to structure the speech so as to be clear on what its purpose is. Dani achieved this well, using short and precise sentences and the power of three to convince people to spend less time looking at their phones.

Sumit then introduced the guests, asking them what their favourite part of the year was for them.

In the evaluations, Florian evaluated Isabelle’s speech, and Alan evaluated Dani’s speech.

Andrew was the Table Topics Master with many interesting and fun questions on a Christmas theme, which Michael then evaluated.

Before the evening finished, James delivered the Grammarian’s report, commending members and guests alike for using the word of the day, and Chris gave a very insightful general evaluator’s report.