 | | | | Feel free to contact us with any questions, suggestions or feedback. | | | | | | | 21 April 2009 | | | | 21st April 2009
It was a beautiful sunny day and the warmth of the evening was felt in the room. This was reflected in the laughter, chatter, excitement for a returning member, recent new members and guests.
The first speaker Deirdre Hynes got us started by getting us to do a breathing exercise. It was to count the number of breadth we take per minute. Do you know how many you take? Breadth is life and if used correctly can aid relaxation and keep us calm even before a speaking session.
Everything we do has an effect on others around us. We each have a 'PSR' to make the world a better place. Abbi Greene does indeed take Personal Social Responsibility to treat others as how you want them to treat you. One of Abbi's great characteristics is her beaming smile and as she said it doesnt cost and it is only a different way of moving the muscles. Smile more it could brighten up the day for someone!
'Robber of 10 million brains'. When we think of drugs we might assume it to be heroin, cocaine, cannabis or ecstasy. As we read the label on the tin which states best shared, well chilled, enjoy and it only cost about 65p. As Philip Freeman says it is a very deceptive drug. Alcohol is freely available, comes in all shapes, sizes, cheap to buy and easily consumed. Just like tobacco but maybe not just as cheap. On its packaging we read please drink responsibly, smoking will damage your health but we ignore these. Philip advice to us is to 'give it up please it will ruin your life'.
Before we commenced the Table topics we had an apposite and valuable training session given by Sudanta Abeyakoon. The title was
'WHEN GIVING AN IMPROMPTU TALK'
What can we do to not make a fool of ourselves as we stand up to speak.
We should first listen hard to the topic question. Walk slowly and pause to gain as much time as possible.
We can repeat the question and maybe ask is that what you want me to speak about?
Commence into the speech and remember you only have 1 to 1.30 minutes to talk so keep it short.
You are expressing your own opinion. You can address cause and effect. The speech can be broken into components, no more than 3. Discuss the past, present and future.
NEVER DO - do not apologise even if you have nothing to say. You might just say I dont have an opinion on that subject.
Secondly don't ramble, have a structure a focus to your speech and lastly don't invent new stories.
Frank Thatcher used just one word as his topics. There ranged from Springtime, Schooldays, Colour, Travel, Reading and Writing. It was Yetunde first time to the club and her talk on reading deserved the award for best table topics. Congratulations are due to Frank as he became a CC at the last meeting.
The evaluators were Don Grant, David Langworthy Joan Jardine and Sudanta Abeyakoon. The improvements to take heed of were - have a stronger opening, take back control of the speech after the exercise, don't shuffle, paint the outcome rather then the processes......
We had the honour of having our area governor Shegun Olusanya as general evaluator. We are here to improve our speaking and most important our listening skills and he gave us valuable feedback. The toastmaster Vanessa Buck confidently steered the meeting to be fun, educated, excited which matched the warmth of the evening.
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