one vision

written by aseem kapoor

Club President Croydon Communicators

The first club meeting in May, which in accordance with the Club Constitution for all clubs of Toastmasters International means elections night! But before we get to that we have our usual packed agenda.

A late agenda change saw Aminat step in for Susan as our Toastmaster. Susan had set a meeting theme of 'vision' and Aminat asked us all to think about our vision for the next Toastmaster year and our goals.

Rupa was our Timekeeper and in her explanation of the role shared a story of how a disaster could have been averted by keeping to time!

Paul Rhys-Taylor as Grammarian had chosen 'envisage' as the word-of-the-day in line with the meeting theme, encouraged speakers to try and use it, and also reminded us that he would also be looking out for usage of language, and reliance on filler words during the meeting.

During the warm-up Aminat asked all meeting attendees to share what they envisaged themselves doing this summer. Unsurprisingly with an end to lockdowns and social distancing in sight many were looking forward to being outdoors, travelling, and visiting friends and family.

Our first speaker of the evening was Gina, with a project from the 'Presentation Mastery' path and her speech titled 'The Art of Communication'. After a fascinating opening about how babies and toddlers communicate, Gina explained how she would employ different communication styles.

Roz (recently crowned District Champion after winning the Evaluation Speech contest!) was our second speaker and presented her speech 'Walking In Rhythm'. Amazing as always, opening with a reference to Homer's Odyssey and finishing with a reference to Lao Tzo while explaining the value of mentoring.

Our third speaker Matt currently on Level 4 of the 'Visionary Communication' path was completing a project that required him to create a podcast. After his introduction we got to hear a 5 minute snippet from the second episode of his podcast 'On Balance'!

​After three very different speech projects and styles, it was over to our evaluators Aseem, Maureen and Pearl to provide feedback to the speakers, and stealing a line from Matt's podcast, to "find a balance" between commendations and recommendations that would help the speaker, and also benefit the audience.

After a short break it was time to reconvene the meeting with another one of our 'Knowing Me, Knowing You!' interview segments this time with Aminat posing the questions to our Immediate Past President (and former District Champion!) Dan.

Table Topics Master Stephen led the impromptu speaking session having prepared a variety of fun questions to ask his randomly selected participants. Topics included questions about desert islands,  zombie apocalypses, aliens!

Meeting reports followed from Rupa with a final timer's report, and then Paul with a thorough Grammarian's report, announcing how well the word-of-the-day had been used, and highlighting numerous examples of good language, phrases and rhetorical devices used throughout the evening.

Finally it was time for club elections, the task of running them fell to Dan as Immediate Past President. For each office a nomination was made, seconded and then voted in.
Four club members put themselves forward for nomination, congratulations to Aminat, Sandra, Troy and Luqman for volunteering to serve your club!

President - Aminat Omotosho
VP Education - ?
VP Membership - Sandra Fallon
VP Public Relations - ?
Secretary - Troy Udall
Treasurer - ?
Sergeant-at-Arms - Luqman Dawud

The new executive committee led by incoming President Aminat will take office on 1st July 2021, and hopefully our members will step up and fill the three remaining vacant leadership positions by then.

​Finally, it was over to me to close out the meeting starting with another spin of the 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' wheel which selected Luqman to be interviewed by Paul Rhys-Taylor!

Meeting awards were presented to guest Adawu for best table topic, to me Aseem for best evaluator, and to Roz for best speaker.
For stepping in to cover the Toastmaster role and doubling up as the warm-up, and for being so dedicated to join tonight's club meeting on Eid, it was an easy decision for the President's award to go to Aminat.

Thanks to all our guests who joined the meeting, including visiting Toastmasters Maureen, Roz, Carol and Pearl and last but not least Debbie our awesome Area Director!