Our second meeting of 2015, held on 21st January, opened with our banner and award ribbons prominently and professionally on display in their new location, and our timing light hovering enigmatically at the back of the room, a credit to our handyman/SAA. The meeting, of 23 members and 4 guests, was kicked off warmly by the besuited VPE Paul, deputising for the President. Toastmaster Kathryn, who was battling a cold, ran a very entertaining meeting with some well selected and amusing quotes throughout to help the meeting flow.
Next was the TableTopics session, which is the part of the meeting we all fear most, and guests find most intimidating. A Topicsmaster presents club members a random topic and the member is to try and speak on that topic for up to 2 minutes. [Topics tonight ranged from; What would you use an intelligent robot for? (it's sad that most of us would get it to do the housework - rather than solve work peace or something!); What makes you rate a restaurant well? (desserts obviously!); Where to buy a holiday home?; Recommend a good walk; amongst others]. The idea of Tabletopics is to train ourselves to organise our thoughts more quickly and be able to present them in a clear and organised manner. It may be tough sometimes, but the first time you make it to the 2 minute bell is a very rewarding feeling. As Toastmasters is 'a safe place to fail' we are in good company when we don't make the bell, sometimes getting up to speak for 10 seconds is huge achievement, it’s the effort that leads to improvement and we are all in the same boat, as they say.
We had 4 excellent formal speeches. Mary gave a fantastic Icebreaker (first) speech, using the quote 'feel the fear and do it anyway', which sums up what Toastmasters is all about! Patsy spoke about the dumbbells he reluctantly received for Christmas and his conversion to their benefits. Pat spoke of faking identities to infiltrate subversive groups and finally Paul simplified and demystified the Tarot for us.
They were all very well presented speeches and the speakers were analysed and commended on the things they did well be their evaluators in the second half of the meeting. Each speaker also got some suggestion on an area for improvement from their evaluator. Along with the learning by doing approach, this is the key route for improvement in the Toastmasters system.
It was a classic meeting with fun and learning in equal balance. Our next meeting is on February 4th at 8:15 in the Menlo Park hotel. Visitors are always welcome so feel free to pop in and see what happens; it might just change your life!
