Our first meeting of 2021, happy new year to all! 

Now the formalities are out of the way, in terms of the Toastmasters calendar we find we are already half way through the year, so let's focus on achieving those educational goals we set ourselves in July, or better yet adding even more!

It's been five weeks since Croydon Communicators last met, back in early December, but our members have returned looking rested, reinvigorated, and raring to go.

Florence led the way by taking on Zoom Master responsibilities for the first time (and doing a great job!), as well as opening the meeting in her role as Sergeant at Arms.

While we are still meeting on Zoom, I encourage every single member to take the opportunity of enhancing their digital skills, and add the experience of managing (at least) one of our online meetings.
Those of us that have been doing the role will be happy to show you the ropes!

Our Toastmaster for the first meeting of 2021 was the ever genial Norma who explained her theme of 'Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda' and introduced each role player.

Pamela, taking on the Timekeeper role for the first time, in fact her very first role at the club, did a brilliant job, skillfully managing her virtual backgrounds to signal our speakers. 
During the post meeting chat, Pamela even checked if she should submit her timer's report - now there is an idea, should we keep an official record of which members overrun the most often!

Luqman was Grammarian, introducing us to the word-of-the-day 'Copacetic', so commonly heard across the pond in the USA, but not so much here in the UK, so a great choice to expand our vocabulary.

Following his memorable 'guess the lie' exercise in the last meeting, Stephen once again took on the warm-up role and got us thinking about our goals for the year.

​Our first speaker Matt shared his fascinating concept of working in teams that have cognitive diversity (and its benefits), with his speech titled "Harnessing diverse thinking".

Our next speaker Aminat beginning a second educational path (Strategic Relationships) gave us a sequel to her icebreaker with a speech titled "The Malachite part II" ... will there be a part three ... if there is I think Aminat will have to get us all to practise saying the word 'malachite'!

Our third speaker was Gina, who like Aminat was beginning yet another educational path (Presentation Mastery) which meant another ice breaker speech, and we found out how Gina first discovered Toastmasters in her speech titled "It is not the mountains we conquer but ourselves"!

All three speeches are well worth watching back - look out for a link to the recording on our WhatsApp group.

Roz, Loreen and Kamontip showed they had been paying close attention as they stepped up to provide their thoughts on each speaker they had been assigned to evaluate.

Following a short comfort break, Florence reconvened the meeting and handed over to our Table Topics Master Dan.

Drawing on Norma's theme for inspiration, Dan pulled out a list of pop songs that had reached number one in the charts in 2002, asking us to use them as titles for topics speeches to be developed around. 
Not the best year for pop music based on Dan's sample, but that didn't affect our table topics speakers!

Pamela once again took the stage to confirm timings of the table topics, and Luqman followed confirming the meeting had been 'copacetic' and delivering a detailed Grammarian's report on the language used this evening.

Matthew Robertson VPE at Bloomsbury Speakers was our General Evaluator, and proceeded to give his thoughts on the meeting providing feedback to everyone that had not been evaluated.

Thanks to everyone that joined a very festive meeting and the last one of the year for Croydon Communicators!
It was wonderful to see so many with 'Christmassy' backgrounds and/or wearing our Christmas hats and jumpers, thanks to Aminat for encouraging us all to get into the festive spirit.

Immediate Past President Dan Magill took the role of Toastmaster for the evening, supported by Timekeeper Troy.  We were joined by visiting Toastmasters, the wonderful Pearl and Carol Cadogan, our friends from neighbouring Area H15 club Liberty Speakers!

Highlights of the evening included:

• Stephen's "Guess the Lie!" warm-up game
• Four inspiring and motivating speeches from Norma, Florence, Aminat and Luqman
• Insightful feedback from evaluators Gina, Afia, Pearl and Susan
• Festive table topics session run by Gina

Remember, members can access our Zoom meeting records archived on our YouTube channel, to listen to speeches if you missed the meeting, or as an educational resource. 

Recent education awards were announced: Pathways Level 1 for Sandra, Luqman, Mustafa and Aseem; Pathways Level 2 award for Matt. Congratulations to all!

Well done to our meeting awards winners who were:

Best Speaker: Aminat Omotosho
Best Evaluator: Pearl Cadogan
Best Table Topics: Aseem Kapoor
President's Award: Dan Magill

Was great to finally honour Dan with a President's award (that he invented!) - not just for stepping up to fill the role of Toastmaster at short notice for this meeting, but also for the example he sets us all by engaging in Toastmasters, competing and winning speaking awards across the world, and raising the bar.
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So that's it for another calendar year here at Croydon Communicators, to all our members, fellow Toastmasters and guests, have a great Christmas and see you again in the New Year.

​I'll leave you with this ...

​Best wishes for 2021!

"Hope" was the theme of our zoom meeting on Thursday.
"Bumfuzzle" was the word of the day!

It was a remarkable evening with a mixture of learning, encouragement and being motivated.

The Toastmaster, Susan Harris led the entire meeting with excellence. Her team included the Timer (Troy Udall) & Grammarian (Aminat Omotosho)

We had 4 Inspiring prepared speeches which were all evaluated.
Anushka Rajapakse was the best speaker and Aseem Kapoor was the best evaluator.

The second part of the meeting was led by the Table Topics Master, Florence Nakkozi. In line with the theme of the meeting table topic questions were;
............................
1- Describe the word HOPE to someone who has lost their job or who has been made redudant during the covid 19 crisis?
2-If you were asked to give a speech about having HOPE in 2021. Could you tell us 3 things that you will talk about?
3-What advise would you give to a single person who has lost HOPE in finding the right partner?
4-What does HOPE mean to you?
5-Do you think we need to have HOPE in order to achieve our goals?
6-How do you exercise having HOPE if you want to start a podcast or show and you have never done it before?
7-What is the one thing you want to achieve through this Toastmasters program?
...........................
Gina Rocque- Drayton was the best table speaker.
The President Aseem Kapoor closed the meeting with the award ceremony.
Troy Udall received the President award.

Congratulations to the winners.

We honour our visiting Toastmasters, Carol Cadogan from Liberty Speakers & Jose Fernandes from Purley Speakers.

Big thank you to all our speakers and role players.