how we laughed

written by aseem kapoor

Club President Croydon Communicators

The meeting opened with some quick housekeeping and online meeting rules from Aminat before she handed over to me, and my first order of business was to welcome back Caroline! After taking a break from Toastmasters we're thrilled to have her back as a club member again.

After I had extolled the benefits of Toastmasters as is customary in the President's address, I handed control of the meeting to our Toastmaster for the evening (the meeting host) Matt.

Matt had set a meeting theme of 'move' to encourage everyone to keep moving, whether that was to get up and do some exercise, or move forward with projects and goals.

Caroline in her first meeting since rejoining was in the role of Timekeeper, and proceeded to expertly demonstrate the timing signals by changing her background, then offered up the quote "Time is free but it's priceless, you can't own it but you can use it." before advising all speakers to use their time wisely!

Sandra took the stage to lead a really fun warm-up session which she opened by demonstrating the joyous way her father used to laugh. She went round the group asking everyone to share a memorable or distinctive laugh, either their own or someone they knew. 
I don't think I was prepared for all the giggling, chuckling, witch-like cackling, tittering, belly laughs and all the other kinds of laugh that were served up by our members and guests! 

With everyone smiling it was the perfect time to move onto the prepared speeches.

Our first speaker was Rupa delivering her icebreaker (first speech at the club) titled 'Mental Toughness: Go get what you want!'.
Rupa was very persuasive as she shared her experiences of completing the 75 Hard Challenge recently and how the programme impacted her.

Florence was our second speaker, and in her speech 'The Power of Mentoring' shared doubts she had faced as a speaker, and how her mentor Tereza Groth-Andersen (a former club member and Past President) was influential in guiding her by passing on wisdom that helped her overcome many challenges.

Our third speaker of the evening was Aminat offering up a potential competition speech titled 'Punishing Exercise'. 
We were entertained with a tale that introduced a 'lockdown baby' and ended with the message that certain experiences designed to punish you were also actually building you.

Assigned to evaluate our speakers were Gina, Afia, and first time visitor to our club Toastmaster Manasseh.
Gina and Afia we know are excellent evaluators and provided valuable feedback to their speakers, and Manasseh showed once again the talent at our neighbours Liberty Speakers by using the official judging ballot criteria in his feedback to Aminat. 

Following the break and we were treated to a wonderful interview conducted by Past President Paul Rhys-Taylor (sporting the perfect Zoom background) as he engaged Luqman Dawud (our SAA on the next committee) in our Knowing Me Knowing You segment.

Among all the probing questions from Paul that elicited some great responses, Luqman shared some great news about a recent new arrival for him and his wife, and the club joined in to offer their congratulations! 

We moved on to an innovative Table Topics session run by Loreen, who asked each speaker to choose a number between 1 and 10. Each number had a corresponding image related to our meeting theme 'move' that would be revealed by Loreen, and would form the basis of the speaker's table topic!

It's been a while since we've had a General Evaluator on the agenda, so it was great to have visiting Toastmaster Jessica Guzzetta-King President of St Paul's Speaker observing our meeting and providing valuable feedback to all role players and the club.

A really enjoyable meeting was moving towards its end so before presenting awards, the Knowing Me Knowing You wheel decided that Rupa would be interviewing Afia next time, should be another fascinating insight into one of our members!

Matt was congratulated for completing his Level 4 of the Visionary Communication path, which also gave Croydon Communicators its ninth DCP (Distinguished Club Programme) point thereby once again achieving President's Distinguished status, the highest level of recognition from Toastmasters International.
A huge well done to the club, that's eight years in a row and I have no doubt we will do it again next year!

Rupa was presented with her ice breaker ribbon for delivering a fantastic first speech and we look forward to many more to come.  Afia was voted best table topics speaker and best evaluator, and Florence was voted best speaker. The President's award went to Luqman, despite the arrival of his baby last week he joined our meeting just to  take part in Knowing Me Knowing You.

After stepping up to volunteer to serve the club as Treasurer, Rupa was officially voted onto next year's committee. Thank you and congratulations to Rupa. The VPE and VPPR positions are still waiting to be filled!

Aminat announced that our next meeting would be 'Movie Night' always a popular theme, it's our third one (this time it's online!) looking forward to some amazing outfits.
You can watch a trailer for the meeting featuring images from the past two Movie Nights below - see you on 10 June, don't forget the popcorn!