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.

​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!

Gina was the Toastmaster for our third meeting of the month and had set a theme of new opportunities.  Troy was busy behind the scenes as SAA and Zoom Master.

I was on Timekeeper duty, for the second time in two days having performed the role at neighbouring club Purley Speakers the previous evening!

Matt led the warm-up session by asking everyone to select two items from their 'bucket lists'. Matt revealed one of his was an ambition to do a TED talk, and another was to leave a £100 tip at a restaurant! 
Travelling was by far the most popular answer with almost every other person in the meeting having that as one of their two items.

Our first speaker of the evening was Stephen, delivering once again his mental health related speech "Is lockdown an introvert's paradise?" with the objective of incorporating some or all of the feedback he had received from his first presentation of this speech.

Our second speaker was Sandra with her speech "Fear-less" which was all about overcoming fear, where she explained how 'FEAR' could stand for False Evidence Appearing Real, and that for her 'LESS' was an acronym for Love, Encouragement, Sureness and Satisfaction.
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​With only two speakers this evening we moved on to speech evaluations, and two of the club's experienced members Florence and Afia took the stage to deliver some excellent feedback on Stephen's and Sandra's speeches respectively.

A session of impromptu speaking and impromptu evaluating followed the break as Table Topic Master Aminat posed some challenging questions/topics for our participants and then called for immediate feedback. It was great to see guest Fontaine take on a table topic, and then impress us all by agreeing to give an evaluation of Gina's table topic when called on by Aminat.

With club elections just around the corner, committee members Aminat, Florence, Afia, Troy, Sandra and I explained our club leadership roles, and encouraged members to think about serving.

Afia was voted best table topic speaker, and the President's award went to our guest Fontaine for her table topic speech and evaluation. A special mention for Troy who as Zoom Master was in the running for the President's award but for Fontaine's topic evaluation! 

There is the District 91 Conference to look forward to this weekend, and then our next meeting on 13th May where it's election night!

Another Thursday night at Croydon Communicators and another reminder of what a truly wonderful club this is.

Rupa, having recently joined, at our last meeting (and in her first club meeting role) delivered a fantastic warm-up session. Incredibly at this evening's meeting, in only her second role, she stepped forward as Toastmaster!

The theme of the meeting set by our Toastmaster was 'success' and Rupa talked about what that meant to her, and also asked us to think about what the word meant to us.

"Time is of the essence" were the words used by timekeeper Aminat to remind us of the importance of keeping to time, as she demonstrated the visual signals she would use, and warned us that her finger would be on the mute button should we overrun our allotted times!

Our first speaker was Florence with her inspiring speech "The Power of Giving" that focused on her family and giving back.

In her speech "Reflection of a Table Talk" Loreen revealed insights from a panel discussion she had hosted for over 200 HR professionals on topics of minorities and diversity.

In his informative speech "The Middle Man Is No More" Matt gave us an introduction to 'Blockchain' technology and how it had the potential to be transformational in the way we live our lives. 

Our final speaker was Gina who shared her experience of communicating change in an organisation she worked for, in her speech titled "There is nothing permanent except change".

After the prepared speeches and before moving onto speech evaluations, we squeezed in a late warm-up session, led by Afia who asked everyone to reveal things they were grateful for.

Having listened to four really strong prepared speeches, it was time to find out what evaluators Norma, Susan, Amy, and Pearl thought of them as they each took to the stage and provided their observations, commendations and recommendations.

Approaching the network break, with so much packed into the agenda already, there was plenty still to look forward to in the second half of the meeting.

The meeting resumed with a brand new segment that I was really looking forward to: Knowing Me Knowing You! (inspired by the Alan Partridge TV series of the same name). We invited to the stage one member to take the role of a talk-show host (interviewer) and one member the role of their guest (interviewee).

Our very first Knowing Me, Knowing You featured Gina Rocque Drayton interviewing Paul Imm, and wow, this pairing did not disappoint. 

Gina was a natural in the host's chair, and masterful in her questioning, I could definitely see her fronting a late night chat show of her own.
The interview was delightful, we got to know more about Paul as he shared his Toastmaster experiences, hobbies, dreams, and some memorable moments involving peas, a guitar, brewing beer, and even a birth on stage!

You can catch the interview and all the speeches on a replay of our meeting - as usual recordings are on YouTube and a link is available to members.

I was Table Topic Master and the meeting transitioned from a talk show to a game show as I injected some familiar music and sounds from "Who wants to be a millionaire?" into our impromptu speaking section of the meeting.

To round off a hugely enjoyable evening, we heard from our guests: former member Gertrude, our neighbours from Liberty Speakers  Carol and Pearl, and Amy who is Area Director for H32 and a member of Worthing Speakers, Gatwick Communicators, and a new club she has launched Sussex Online Speakers!

I got to spin the Knowing Me, Knowing You wheel and it landed on Dan as the interviewee, and Aminat as the interviewer for next time. I'm looking forward to a fascinating chat between our Immediate Past President and our VP of Education!

A Level 3 Pathway completion was announced for Aminat. Meeting awards went to Norma (best table topic), Amy and Pearl (tied for best evaluator), Loreen for (best speaker), and of course the President's Award had to go to the remarkable Rupa for taking on the Toastmaster role so early in her Toastmaster's journey and doing a fantastic job.

As there is a fifth Thursday this month, we have another meeting next week 29th April. See you then!