h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yesterday ... in Greenwich ... was our first meeting. I did the Timekeeper's role and had three little presentations. I felt they went well and felt really comfortable doing them.

Little told three jokes just before the second half (33 seconds in total) and said a little speech at the end, when there was a Q&A session. He got a round of applause and a couple of chaps came to tell me what a star I had in the making. Unfortunately, due to my cold, I couldn't hear everything they said!

Feeling really good about its prospects for the future. I reckon there were at least 30 people there. It was a smallish room and it was full.

Traveller in Time
"Congratulations, must have been a great event, organising for the first time. "

It had a real buzz about it. I was really happy.

Great news! 30 is a good number. I'm really interested in how this is going! We had the district gov. over a couple of weeks ago from London. If you need any help or advice I'll be happy to talk about it.

Well done! Little certainly has what it takes - are there any other children in the club? Is there a "discipline" for the under 14s?

Woodpigeon - are you talking about David Thompson? He's been instrumental in getting this club started. Did I say that I'm doing my Icebreaker speech in two weeks time. Bad timing really, as it's Roy's birthday that day. I'm probably going to talk about my trip to Tanzania with the British Experiment in International Living.

TC - strictly speaking, there shouldn't be children at Toastmasters, however Croydon have a child who regularly comes and the challenge with little is to keep him quiet when others are speaking and for him to listen to what's going on. Yesterday, we gave him the job of putting leaflets on people's chairs and holding up the traffic light cards (signalling the speakers about how they're doing time-wise in their speeches). That seemed to work, but it was still a challenge.

At the end in the Q&A session, little said he wanted to go to the front, 'where he was most comfortable'. Most people aren't comfortable stood in front of an audience.

Yes, it was David Thompson - actually it's a bit funny - I mentioned to him that I knew someone in London who was working on setting up a club, and he said to me "oh, do you know her name?" - and I went "it's Zarq.. oh, I don't actually know what her name is, come to think about it".

I'm quite happy for you to tell him about Zarquon's Singing Fish! I'll mention it to him at the next meeting. I'm giving my icebreaker speech at that one and the one after, I'm Grammarian.

Best of luck! I'm working on a speech for the speech competition, and I also have just given a speech to another club. It was a fantastic experience.

Oh yes, I've seen something about that from the Tubetalk e-mails I get. Did I tell yo(Citicriers) and I met a lovely Irish chap there. Can't remember his name, but he was really nice. What's your speech called - or is it a secret? Mine's going to be 'My Peak Experience' and will be about my trip to Tanzania with the British Experiment in International Living.

Oops, part of that message didn't come out. I was saying that my first experience of Toastmasters was at a competition held in Canary Wharf hosted by CitiCriers. There were over 90 people in the audience.

I gave my Icebreaker speech yesterday. I started with a bit of early stuff at school and then told part of the story of my trip to Tanzania. I had to *really* prune it down to get it into the 6 minutes allowed (OK, I ran 6 minutess 45 seconds) and I started three threads (open loops) that I tied off later in the speech. I was really pleased with myself and I got some great feedback. I'd put my speech onto three cards, which I put on a stand and only looked at at the beginning. The only areas I was given for improvement were to move about a bit more (although my evaluator said that I used gestures very well and this compensated for the lack of legwork) and to display a bit more energy. Having been quite nervous before speaking, it flowed very well. A good start, I thought.

Well done! I'd love to have seen it. Icebreaker speeches are some of the most important speeches you could make in a Toastmasters club.

I am doing a speech in the speech competition tonight. Nervous as anything. It's titled "True Heroes" and it focuses on carers and how their efforts are not appreciated in society. I'm also entered for the evaluation contest tonight. Tonight should be ok, it's the area competition that is utterly nerve-wracking.

Oh, , Woodpigeon! Do let me know how you get on. I think I'd agree with you that carers are not sufficiently appreciated, nor for that matter are children and parents, although the position is improving, I think.

I think I was nervous because of timing, not remembering what I'd left in and cut out and whether it would be interesting. If you see David Thompson, he could tell you about it - my title was 'My Peak Experience'. I'm now going to look at the objectives for the second speech. Shame I can't give the same one - I think I would have met the objectives in the Icebreaker. I'll have to think of a topic which would interest the audience. I could do something about t'ai chi or qigong, or road safety (although I may leave that to one of the later ones, such as 'research your topic' or 'persuade with power'), or maybe something about the Greek myths. Hmm, not sure what sort of topic would work best. What did you do?

My second speech had to be about something I had strong feelings about. I did it on loneliness. I blew them away, because I was going through it in a rather bad way at the time. If you pick a subject that's close to your heart it's always a heck of a lot easier.

I might do it about breathing. I can get my audience to experience what I'm postulating for themselves - the effect of holding your breath on attention, for instance. Should be fun. 'Control your breathing; control your life' maybe?

That sound's like a great idea - the foundation stone of a good speech get the content right. Organisation and delivery also need attention but if the content is all wrong you will never be able to make the impression you want to make.

I didn't win last night, but I was very happy with the speech I gave. It was a personal speech which talked about my mum and the care she gave to my dad in the years before he passed away. I compared her efforts, and the efforts of all carers to a well-known hero in Ireland. The person who won put a lot more effort into delivery than I could manage with the time available. My hat goes off to people who can speak completely without notes - I have done it a few times but it's nerve wracking.

I did win the evaluation contest however! My time in Peer Review is paying off for me .

I'm very happy with the night overall.

Well done, Woodpigeon! - that's brilliant! I've never been an evaluator and this is something I think I will need to work on. I think you're right about getting the content right. I'm going to do some mind-mapping around it.

When I was thinking about my Icebreaker, I remember my first speech ever without notes - which was as a 15 year old, speaking in German at a reception. My German was not that brilliant and someone else wrote the speech for me and I practiced it over and over again with my penfriend until it was work-perfect. I can still remember parts of it today! (And a few years ago, even more) I was surrounded by the German children at the end of it, all saying how good it was, and I my language skills weren't good enough to reply properly and I felt a bit of a fraud. After school, it was a l-o-n-g time before I spoke in public again.

Do you go through to the next round as you won the evaluation?

Yep - the area competition is on April 10th. We will be given a speech to evaluate, and I will have 5 minutes afterwards to write up an evaluation on it. It's a kind of mini-speech - beginning, middle, end, what was good, what could be improved, and a catchy, memorable ending. The evaluation itself can be no longer than 3 minutes 30 secs.

There's a speech there on how you were able to give a speech in German! What an achievement!

I have noticed that there can be a big difference in the quality of people's evaluations. I assume that the skills include listening, good note-taking, selection of things to report back on and delivery and structure of the feedback. That's quite a menu of skills to master.

Do you know, I don't remember anything about that speech apart from a tiny bit of it and the mebarrassment of not being able to respond appropriately to the kids who were talking to me (all at once it seemed) afterwards. I do remember standing against a tree in my pen-friend's back garden practising - with a small child chatting to me - again, not fully understanding what she was saying. My Turkish friend who helped me to buy my car has the same trouble with little - kids don't understand that people whose shills aren't completely solid need to be spoken to clearly and in simple language. Maybe there's a table topic in it, though. Again, another area for improvement for me - being able to speak on my feet. How do you do at it?