We Did The Monster Mash!

It was Halloween at Croydon Communicators and our president kept us on our claws by announcing at the start of the meeting that the agenda was as meaningful as a ‘meaningful vote’ in Parliament.
 
What better night to get everyone out of their comfort zone and feeling the fear than Halloween itself. 

Random Role-Play

Dan selected a Toastmaster on the spot and Past-President, Mike Majuru, who was expecting to be the timekeeper for the evening, suddenly found himself leading the meeting.
 
The prepared speakers would remain as they were but every other role was up for grabs and member names were selected from a spooky sack.
 
Alison was the first name out of the bag, which meant she stepped into the now vacated Timekeeper role. Alison came up with zero preparation to give us a comprehensive description of her role. And, she set the tone for what was a highly impressive evening, as member after member came forward to take on impromptu roles.
 
Next out the bag was Sandra, who was asked to cover the Grammarian role. Another great description of the role and a nice baton-collection of the Word of the Day, which had been pre-prepared by Gina who had arrived at the meeting expecting to be our Grammarian.

​Spookily, Gina had chosen the word,  ‘Kerfuffle’  which seemed very appropriate for a meeting with no agenda.
 
Then we had Matt. Still a very new member, Matt was given all of 3 seconds to come up with an activity that would get us all warmed up. Matt strode confidently onto the stage, picked up a random monster mask and one-by-one we were asked to put it on and give everyone our best monster scream. It was an inspired idea and really got everyone relaxed and into the spirit of the meeting – especially after such a stressful start. Well done Matt!

​Spooky Speakers

And then we settled into some normality with three prepared speeches. Each speaker would give their speech and after they finished, they pulled a name out of the bag to find out who would be evaluating them. This meant everyone was watching each speech knowing it could be them asked to come up and evaluate. It created a real sense of energy and focus around each speech.
 
First up was Caroline with an appropriately titled speech for Halloween, ‘Devil in a Black Dress’. Caroline used a childhood story to emphasise the fear of public performance she’d experienced in the past before eloquently transitioning into a message for everyone in the room. Caroline’s main point was that we can’t be experts at something when we first start doing it, but that doesn’t mean we should never start doing things.

It was a brilliant message which summed up beautifully what we do at Toastmasters and inspired a couple of our guests into joining.

Caroline has just one speech left now to complete her Competent Communication journey. Nobody will want to miss that one.
 
Next, we had our guest, Mo Salih. Mo treated us to his first project from the advanced Humorous Speech manual and his speech, Teenage Years was a joy for us all.

There were some great laughs contained within a well-structured format and everything was greatly enhanced with effective use of gestures and eye-contact. Mo even got involved with our Table Topics session later in the evening.

It was a pleasure to have such an experienced speaker along as our guest for the evening and we’d love to see him visit us again soon.
 
And finally, we had our VPE, Aseem, with his themed speech, Ghostbusters.

Aseem took us on a bloodcurdling trip around the world, starting in his own Harrow home where an old, bearded man would watch him through the window.

​Aseem’s task was to use visual aids effectively and he certainly achieved his objective there. In fact, his final slide drew gasps and even screams from the audience.
 
After three such engaging and well-delivered speeches, it was a tough-ask for the audience to choose their favourite, but in the end it was Aseem’s superb Halloween horror which won the vote.

Aseem is now just one speech behind Caroline, with two more to complete before achieving his Competent Communicator award.
 

Eerie Evaluators

At the end of each speech an evaluator was selected at random and it was Tereza, Richard and our Area Director, Adenola who were asked to provide feedback.
 
We were all blown away by how well they did.

The standard of evaluations from these three experienced speakers is always high, but if anything, these evaluations seemed to be even better than usual. Maybe it was the Halloween-infused adrenaline which brought out the very best in them. All 3 delivered masterful evaluations which were jam-packed with valuable insights on the techniques the speakers used well and recommendations on what they could do to improve next time. 
​

Terrifying Table Topics 

Ahead of the break, we pulled out three more names from the bag. We needed a Topics Master, a Topics Evaluator and a General Evaluator.
 
Yes, our General Evaluator for the evening would only know they were our General Evaluator halfway through the meeting.
 
Gina found out she’d be Topics Master, Gertrude Topics Evaluator and Troy our GE.
 
If anything, the second half was even more fun than the first.
 
Gina put together a fabulous Halloween themed Table Topics session which she ran smoothly and effectively. Some of our fist-time guests got involved too and Roz arrived fresh from the Halloween tailbacks to tell us how President Trump should be locked in a room with some female chimps.
 
As ever, Roz delivered her speech with such energy and vigour that we were all swept along with her. Her table topics always feel like something she has spent weeks preparing and there’s always plenty to inspire and educate us within.
 
Best of luck to Roz and our very own Afia in the Area Table Topics Contest this coming Saturday.
 
Gertrude then came up to give us another note-free evaluation. Again, it was stunning and bulging with great advice and well-judged observations.

If you missed our review of how Gertrude stole the show last week, you can catch up on it here.

Or,  read our interview with Gertrude, here. 

Far From A 'General' Evaluator ​

And then, we had our General Evaluator.
 
This is probably the most daunting role anybody can take on at Toastmasters. Evaluate the entire meeting.
 
Now, imagine if you’ve never done the role before and you only find out that you’re going to be doing it halfway through the meeting.
 
Troy rose to the challenge magnificently.

The second he knew he’d drawn the ‘short-straw’, Troy began diligently taking notes and he stepped up to confidently and carefully give us all feedback on the meeting.

There was even some humour in there about how fond he was of the Club President at that particular moment in time.
 
Well done, Troy. The entire room were beaming as Troy spoke and it raised what was already a great night to even higher levels.
 
We’re really looking forward to Troy giving us his Icebreaker speech on November 14th.
 
Our Area Director, Ade, kindly came up at the end to speak to us for a few minutes and tell us about all the fun events coming up in the Area over the next few months. Starting this Saturday at the Area contest in Croydon. 

The  Results

Best Spooky Speaker                   
Aseem

Best Eerie Evaluator                    
Richard

Best Terrifying Table Topics    
Roz

President's Award                        
Troy

Best Creepy Costume                 
Mike
​