Whose line is it anyway?

WRItten by aseem kapoor

Club President Croydon Communicators

A really enjoyable meeting last night, I loved Aminat's quotable warm-up session in which she asked everyone to replay their favourite line, catchphrase, or even act out a memorable scenes from TV or Film.

Our members gave us some gems including:

Aminat as Joey Tribbiani from Friends: "How you doin'"
Mustafa as Del Boy: "Lovely Jubbly!"
Stephen as Arnie in The Terminator: "I'll be back!"
Anushka with Mind Your Language catchphrases: "Okey cokey", "Santa Maria!"
Susan with a tune: "Don't Worry, Be Happy!"
Shakti Priya doing her best Hermione: "What an idiot!" and also one from Friends "Joey doesn't share food!"
Aseem with a scene from Pulp Fiction: "Do you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?" 
Troy with another classic from Only Fools and Horses: "This time next year we'll be millionaires!"

 It was such a fun way to kick off the meeting and get us warmed up for the three wonderful prepared speeches that followed.

First up was Susan expanding our knowledge on the topic of Meditation and guiding us through some breathing exercises.

Florence was next with a very relatable speech, telling us all about the challenges and victories experienced through her Toastmasters journey since joining in 2017.

Visiting Distinguished Toastmaster Shivpriya Gowri zooming in all the way from India was our third speaker. Her speech 'Always there' featured her sister, and the speech title was apt as we also had the pleasure of welcoming her sister Shakti Priya to the meeting, joining us from the USA!

As we all know, feedback is one of the most important aspects of Toastmasters, not only helping our speakers improve but also benefit everyone at the meeting.
Our speech evaluators were Anushka, Stephen and Mustafa, all providing a good mix of commendations and recommendations. 

An engaging table topics session conducted by Gina kept the momentum going, sticking with our format of an impromptu question followed by an immediate evaluation.

I must congratulate Collins and Matt, first time (unbelievably!) as Toastmaster and General Evaluator respectively, both impressed - providing a template for anyone else looking to take on these roles. 

Don't forget our meeting recordings are archived on YouTube (for members of Toastmasters only) and can be a great educational resource to help prepare for roles, as well as for reviewing with your mentors or seeking further feedback from members.

Sandra our Sergeant at Arms warmly engaged a really wonderful and enthusiastic guest Natalia who is completely new to Toastmasters and can't wait to return. She even volunteered to be a speech evaluator at our next meeting!
We would love to give her the role but sadly only full members are permitted to take on educational meeting roles on the agenda - but table topics are always open to guests! Nevertheless we do hope Natalia considers returning as a guest again, or better still even joining, she would make a great addition to our club!

Finally, a thank you to our old friend Jose previously of Croydon Communicators and now at neighbouring club Purley Speakers, did his best to keep us all to time - and I think this may have been one of those rare meetings where we succeeded!

Well done to our meeting award winners and best of luck to Shivpriya who represents Area H15 in the Division Speech Contest next month.

Best Speaker: Shivpriya Gowri
Best Evaluator: Anushka Rajapakse
Best Table Topics: Florence Nakkozi
President's Award: Matt Clark

See you at our next meeting on 12th November!