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The Bachelor and The Rottweiler

31/1/2020

written by dan magill

Club President Croydon Communicators

We welcomed in the Year of the Rat at Croydon Communicators on Thursday evening, but it was the Bachelor and the Rottweiler who stole the show on an evening of superb entertainment in Croydon.

A Stella Performance

Our Toastmaster for the meeting was Estela. It was Estela’s first time in the role but you wouldn’t have known it, as she led us through the evening professionally, with bags of confidence.

The Rottweiler

Our Grammarian for the evening was visiting Toastmaster from Battle Speakers, Dorothy. Known as, The Rottweiler for her no-nonsense approach to filler word counting, Dorothy made it clear from the moment she stepped on stage that she’d be counting every single filler word used and providing everybody with a full report at the end of the evening. Although she did promise to be gracious enough not to count any of the many filler words we’d already used up to that point! (Erm… thanks, Dorothy!)

Black Belt Troy

Fresh from a run, our VPM, Kevin stepped up at the last minute to give us a quick warm-up based around things others would not know about us. There were some very interesting answers but surely non more fascinating than to learn that our Club Treasurer, Troy is a Black Belt in Karate.
Maybe something all members should remember when it comes to renewal fees – get them paid quickly!!!

Fun, Family and Flowers

We then moved into our prepared speeches portion of the meeting.

Matt was first up with his icebreaker speech, The Epilogue. Matt had clearly taken some time to really work on the structure and message within the speech, which for a first-time speaker was highly impressive. A slightly controversial opening left us wondering where Matt might be heading with the speech, but he brought things around superbly to deliver a powerful message.

Our next speaker was former Bachelor, Dec Cluskey, visiting from Battle Speakers. Dec’s intriguing title, She Sent Me Flowers, along with a vase of flowers sat centre-stage, had us all excited for where this speech might be going. We weren’t let down. Dec took us on a journey through some very difficult moments in his life but managed to deliver his story gently and with some humour. It was pleasure to have such an experienced speaker join us for the evening.

Our final prepared speech was given by Gertrude. Blood Is Thicker Than Water was only a 4-minute speech but was delivered with enough impact, humour and life-lessons to ensure we all got our money’s worth. As ever, Gertrude playfully toyed with the audience, giving us
lessons in language and ensuring we left with a message too.

Entertained Evaluators

Before the break, the three speeches were evaluated by myself, Viv and Aseem. All three evaluators were impressed with the themes the speakers had developed and the entertainment they’d provided with their speeches. There were some useful recommendations for both the speakers and the audience alike.

Viv gave a particularly outstanding evaluation of Dec’s speech, focussing in on the originality of the story and how much audience members were able to take from it. Aseem also gave a great evaluation of Gertrude’s speech but confessed he was just glad that enough of it was in English for him to be able to evaluate.

Masterful Marcia

After the break, Marcia took on the role of Table Topics Master and she had a fantastic mix of questions on hand for our participants.

As ever, it was so encouraging to see first-time guests and brand-new members come up and have a go. Rashed, who’d been keeping us on time all evening came up and spoke confidently about London, Simon wished he’d had any question other than the rattish one he was given and our return guest, Aminat gave an outstanding response to her consumer-based question.

Well done to all our Topics speakers!

Gertroy

Our Table Topics evaluators for the evening were double-act, Gertrude and Troy.

As ever, Gertrude gave a note-free performance with some detailed feedback for each speaker, packed with commendations and recommendations.

This was Troy’s first time as an evaluator and it’s incredible to see his confidence growing before our eyes. Troy gave a very considered and comprehensive review of each speaker and nobody was going to argue with his recommendations – not now that we knew about the Black Belt thing!

The Epilogue

The evening was rounded off with a first-class General Evaluation from our very own Paul Rhys-Taylor. Paul took on the ultimate challenge of a General Evaluation with no notes but plenty of value. Each of the evening’s role players were given feedback on how they’d done and we all got to enjoy a bit of playful banter between Dorothy and Paul which went on long after the evaluation had finished.

President’s Award

It was an evening where so many people could have bagged the coveted, President’s Award and for the first time in Croydon Communicator’s history, the award was shared between two outstanding contributors.

Dorothy and Dec not only took the time to travel up from Eastbourne to come and see us on a cold winter’s night in Croydon, they also took on roles and delivered them with bags of passion and enthusiasm.

We’d love to have them visit us again soon and maybe we’ll organise a club trip down to Battle to visit their club one evening.

The Winners

Icebreaker Award
Matt

Best Speaker
Matt

Best Evaluator
Viv

Best Table Topics
Aminat

President’s Award
Dorothy and Dec

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Hakuna Matata at Croydon Communicators

24/1/2020

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written by dan magill

Club President Croydon Communicators

We had another evening filled with education, inspiration and cake at Croydon Communicators on Thursday evening.

Our Queen of the Jungle

Our Toastmaster for the night was the inimitable Caroline Rainford and from the moment she stepped onto stage, with her theme, Hakuna Matata, our worries disappeared, and we knew we were in for a great couple of hours.

Hot on the heels of giving his icebreaker speech at our last meeting, Andrei took on the role of timekeeper this time around and his frequent, yet well-justified bell ringing showed that he as quickly developed the confidence to make sure members stay in line when it comes to time!

Kevin gave us a very Lion King appropriate word of the day, ‘Nurture’ and Estela led a fantastically innovative warm-up session which had us all parading around the room, chatting and stretching out like we were kings of the jungle!

Let Us Eat Cake

Then, we got into our prepared speeches.

Our guest, Sergey from London Victorians spoke to us about the importance of body language before Gina stepped onto stage holding a chocolate cake which left us all wondering who would be top of the food chain and get the first slice.

Gina spoke to us about her High-Performance Leadership Project which she is about to embark on and brilliantly used her cake as a metaphor for how she intends to carry out the project. It’s always feels nicer when metaphors are edible!

Our final prepared speaker was Estela. Estela arrived at the meeting expecting to only be giving the warm-up but when one of our speakers couldn’t make it, she bravely stepped in to deliver her ice-breaker speech for a second time.

Estela gave the same speech she'd given just a few weeks ago, but this time looking so much more confident and relaxed on stage. It’s a real testament to how quickly the process can work at Toastmasters – and how much effort and time Estela is putting into her speaking.

Afia, Richard and Matt evaluated the three speeches. It was great to see Matt giving his first Toastmasters’ evaluation and all three evaluators provided invaluable feedback for our speakers.

Topics Masters

After the break, and the delicious cake, we regrouped for our impromptu speaking session. Rob posed some thought-provoking questions to our speakers and it was inspiring to have our first-time guest, Steven, come up to give the very first table topic of the evening.

We rounded things off with an invaluable and detailed general evaluation from our VPE, Aseem, before presenting awards and heading home feeling relaxed and worry-free.

Wonderful Wilkie

Special congratulations need to also go to Rob, who became the first member of the club to complete Level 3 of his Pathway. Well done, Rob!

Awards

Best Speaker – Estela
Best Evaluator – Richard
Best Table Topics – Amit
President’s Award – Steven

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2020 Vision at Croydon Communicators

10/1/2020

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written by dan magill

Club President Croydon Communicators

What a fantastic start to 2020 at Croydon Communicators on Thursday night.

Troy confidentially banged down his hammer to officially start a new decade at the club and, as the evening progressed, it was easy to see that the future remains bright and exciting.

We had a Blast with the Past

Ironically, as we moved into the future, it was a Past President who would lead us through the evening, in the shape of 2016-2017 Club President, Gina Roque Drayton.

Gina took command of the evening and led us through the agenda seamlessly, squeezing in the word of the day more than the rest of the room put together – something for us all to ruminate on.

Collins took control of the timing and Matt was our Grammarian for the evening. Both were outstanding.

Supermarket Sweep

Aseem led the warm-up and asked us what three items we would most likely find in your shopping trolley. Most members seem to be observing a Dry January, although there were one or two are still celebrating the new year!

Our luck was in

We then moved into the prepared speeches segment of the evening and we were treated to three thoroughly entertaining, moving and magical speeches from Andrei, Paul and our guest from Society Speakers, Hector.

Andrei gave us his icebreaker speech, The Power of Sounds.

Stepping in at the last moment to give a speech is brave at the best of times, but to do it with an icebreaker speech is quite something. And, what’s more, is the speech showed thorough preparation with bags of confidence and plenty of entertainment for the audience.

This really was a fantastic ice-breaker speech from one of our newest members.

Another Past President then took to the stage in the shape of Paul Rhys-Taylor.

Paul delivered an entertaining speech on an epic scale.

We moved from snowy mountains, to scorching deserts, but it was the contrasting emotions we felt as we travelled with Paul which were the real heartbeat of this terrific tale.
There was an important message for everybody in the audience to take away, along with the feeling that we’d already seen one of 2020’s best speeches, in our very first meeting of the year.

Finally, Hector came up and delivered his speech, Choosing Lucky.

Following Paul was going to be a tough ask for anybody, especially for a guest to the club.

But Hector didn’t put a foot wrong. He used magical storytelling, humour, a strong stage presence and another powerful message to really deliver a memorable speech.

In fact, across the rest of the evening, members ‘called back’ to Hector’s speech more than any other since I’ve been at the club.

It was a pleasure to have Hector along and we hope he visits us often.

Fabulous Feedback

Our speech evaluators were Sandra, Alison and Paul Imm.

Sandra showed bags of empathy in her very personal response to Andrei’s ice-breaker speech. It must have been fantastic for Andrei to have his very first speech evaluated in such a thoughtful and positive way.

Sandra has quickly gone from a club newbie to a confident, engaging and highly valued member.

Our regular visitor, Alison, came along to evaluate Paul’s speech and her note-free, tour-de-force evaluation was a joy to behold.

Alison’s evaluation was packed full of commendations and recommendations for Paul to take away and work with.

Alison’s evaluations are a prime example of how we can push our own personal development at Toastmasters, whilst still providing outstanding value and service to club members.

Finally, Paul Imm evaluated Hector’s speech.

Paul is a highly experienced Toastmaster and it was great to see him calling on that experience and know-how to give Hector a really thorough evaluation.

Everything Paul does at Toastmasters, both on stage and off, is done with an infectious smile and the standard of our meetings is always higher when he’s around.

The WA Cup

With a little time to spare before the break, we decided to hold the inaugural Croydon Communicators, Word Association Cup.

Members were called up in pairs to compete in a battle of words. Winners made it through to the next round and losers sat back down with nothing more than the prospect of licking their wounds for the next 12 months ahead of them.

The highlight of the first round was an epic battle between Afia and Aseem, which saw Afia eventually progress, after a drawn-out word frenzy.

Troy also impressed with his ‘turn-on-a-sixpence’ performance, booking himself a place in the next round.

The highlight of the semi-finals saw a ‘Paul-off’ with Imm facing Rhys-Taylor in what some described as a, ‘Paul man’s Rap Battle’.

But it was Matt, in his very first appearance at the WA Cup, (it was everybody’s first appearance) who bagged himself the President’s Award and a place in Croydon Communicators' history.

Afia hits a century

There was still time before the break to present Croydon Communicators’ 100th official award to Afia, who recently completed her Competent Leader journey.

Well done to Afia and congratulations to all past and present members who’ve contributed to our fabulous 100 achievements.

After the break

It was always going to be tough to maintain the fun and excitement of the first half of the evening after the break, but Afia managed to make sure this happened with a fun-filled, New Year themed table topics session which saw, Hector repeat his prepared speech, Caroline have a little one-on-one chat with Matt and Paul admit that every New Year’s Resolution he ever made has ended in failure. (We didn’t believe him)

2020 Word Association Champion, Matt gave a fantastic Grammarian report and 2019, Ice-Breaker of the Year, award winner, (unofficial but true) Collins kept us up to date on how we were doing for time.

Caroline, who couldn’t be with us, then could be with us, then was with us, gave a marvellous run down of the evening as our General Evaluator before we handed out awards and headed home filled with excitement and anticipation of another brilliant year ahead at Croydon Communicators.

The Awards

Best Speaker - Paul Rhys-Taylor

Best Evaluator - Alison Morris

Best Table Topics - Caroline Rainford

Icebreaker Ribbon - Andrei Lapusneanu

2020 Croydon Communicators Word Association Cup Winner - Matt Clark