The London Speaker

A great idea - themed evenings (thanks London Corinthians!)

Do you ever feel that your regular club meetings could do with an occasional livening up? As President of Holborn Speakers I knew how hard it was to keep things feeling fresh.

Not long after I became an AG, the lovely Kim Horner, President of London Corinthians, came to GE at Holborn Speakers. As part of her recommendation for the club she suggested occasional themed evenings. I thought it an excellent idea.

Kim doesn't just say, she does! At London Corinthians there are regular themed evenings. The last meeting was Spanish themed and yesterday I received a mail about this weeks:

Men’s Night @ London Corinthians – Thursday 31^st January 2008- 7:15pm for 7:30pm

Join us this Thursday for our annual, unique, testosterone-filled meeting, Men’s Night! All roles will be taken by the hairier sex, with men and women doing Table Topics.  It promises to a great evening; a celebration of all things male. But anyone of any sex is very, very welcome.

So why don’t you come along to Victoria and practise those all important public speaking and leadership skills and, at the same time, have lots of fun. Go on. You know that you want to!

Location:

Buckingham Suite, Ground floor, Thistle Westminster Hotel, 49 Buckingham Palace Road (corner of Bressenden Place), London, SW1W 0QT

I think this is great. Their next meeting is the Alternative Valentines night (details here) on February 14th and then the a Women’s Night (with men and women doing Table Topics) on Thursday 28th February. I think it is great to see people play with the format to add interest. Well done Kim!

Let us know at London Speaker Towers of great themed evenings that your club has had. Please drop us a mail or leave a comment below. Maybe other clubs would be keen to adopt these themes for themselves too?

PS Its not me in the mask! ;)

A special night with Excalibur

Many Toastmasters are aware of Excalibur as London's only Advanced Club. I know some feel that it sounds quite a daunting place. I felt this way until I visited recently. However, it was such a warm, friendly atmosphere that I decided to join the club myself. In addition to being great people, there are three things that you should know about Excalibur:

1. The feedback you get is from fellow Advanced Speakers. This may sound daunting, but it shouldn't. It does mean that you will get even better feedback and suggestions for improvement. However, be assured that the club encourage the same supportive atmosphere that we expect from all Toastmasters clubs.

2. Because Excalibur focuses on advanced speakers, their programme can fit in longer special project speeches more easily than in traditional club meetings.

3. All the speeches and projects done at Excalibur can be used for qualifications at your own clubs.

I would encourage all of our Advanced Speakers to give Excalibur a try.

With this in mind, I have just heard from Yvonne Masset, President of Excalibur Speakers. On February 13th, they will hold a special dinner upstairs at their normal venue. It will be in the upstairs room at the Cheshire Cheese, 5, Little Essex Street, London WC2R 3LD.

Feasting, drinking and, they assure me, a certain amount of speaking will be in order.

This sounds like a great way to meet club members and learn about the club in a low pressure way. This event is open to all, including guests from other clubs, partners and non-toastmasters.

Numbers are limited, so please let Bob Nisbet know if you would like to attend. Cost per person is a very reasonable £10 each. You will need to advise him of your menu preference for first and main courses and send a cheque payable to Excalibur Speakers to Bob.  His details are:

Bob Nisbet

43 Cunningham Avenue

Guildford GU1 2PE

Tel: 01483 532429

and the...

evenings menu is here.

Or please email Bob at bob@nisbet99.freeserve.co.uk for further details. Note that cheques will need to be in hand to secure your place.

Some ideas for reading on Public Speaking and Presentations

I am an avid reader of books and web articles on public speaking and presenting in business. As such, people often ask me for good web-sites to visit. It has been my intention to collate these to share here with the readership of The London Speaker. However, I recently came across two lists of web resources more comprehensive than I could manage. I thought it worthwhile to share these with you.

The first is a list of blogs from around the world from the blog Six Minutes - itself an excellent resource on public speaking and presentations.

http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/2008/01/04/public-speaking-blogosphere/

With 77 different blogs listed it gives a comprehensive view of the interest in public speaking on the web. A number of these sites are written by Toastmasters.

I can particularly recommend no.22, Create your Communications Experience by Bert Decker. He runs Decker Communications, one of the pre-eminent communications training firms in the US.

For those interested in learning about presenting with the aid of PowerPoint take a look at no.43. Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen, is widely regarded as one of the best experts on this topic. He has just written a book of the same name. It will, I am sure, get a lot of press over the coming months. As and when my copy arrives I shall review it here.

You will also note no.77 on the list - our very own Jeremy Jacobs from London Corinthians. You should certainly take a look at his site for occasional tips on public speaking.

I also came across the following article that mixes examples of great presentation examples, good blogs and web-sites and some humorous examples too

http://meryl.net/2008/01/10/70-powerpoint-and-presentation-resources-and-great-examples/

I shall occasionally review any further good books or web-sites here. If you know of good articles, web-sites or books on public speaking or presentations, please let us know and we can highlight them here. Either email me or leave a comment below.

Ooops - a correction! Amend your diaries!

A couple of days ago I posted here about some of the events in Division B coming up over the next few months. Unfortunately, I managed to mix up the dates for the Andrew Brammer and Simon Bucknall workshops. Bad boy!

So, the proper dates for the two workshops are:

February 28th - Simon Bucknall workshop - Sex, Politics and Religion

March 5th - Andrew Brammer workshop - Storytelling

Consider me suitably chastened!

PS Note I have now changed the dates in the original post.

An Alternative Valentines Night at London Corinthians

I have just received notification of a special evening for the love lorn (or those avoiding their partners!) - an Alternative Valentines evening at London Corinthians. I'll let Kim Horner, President of London Corinthians, explain:

The Alternative Valentine’s Night @ London Corinthians – Meeting held on Thursday 14^th February 2008 – 7:00pm for 7:30pm

At a loose end on Valentine’s Day?

If so, do you want to:

• Practise those all important public speaking and leadership skills?
• Have fun?

If the answer to the above questions is ‘yes’, then London Corinthians would like to hear from you!

Join us at our club meeting on Thursday 14^th February to escape Valentine’s Day, do a role or take part in Table Topics (to develop those key impromptu speaking skills).

Fancy it? If so, get in touch with the club’s Vice President Education (VPE), Amy Jackson NOW! Go on. You know that you want to. Have fun that is.

London Corinthians, Buckingham Suite, Thistle Hotel Westminster, 49-75 Buckingham Palace Road (entrance in Bressenden Place), London, SW1W 0QT (Nearest tube/rail = Victoria)

So why not go along? The chance to spend a Valentines evening with the wonderful Kim and fab Amy should ensure a huge male turnout anyhow!! ;)

Welcome back

Welcome to 2008! London Speakers Towers has now caught up with its holiday email, logged its outstanding tasks and now faces a ponderous mountain of resolutions for the new year. Even my liver feels a little more relaxed that than it did just a few short weeks ago! Yes, I think normal posts at The London Speaker can now resume!

This year promises to be a cracker for Division B. There is a lot on the horizon.

Firstly, Iain Duthie, our man responsible for Training and Education in London, has been slaving away to bring you two Division B sponsored workshops in the first part of the year.

The first workshop is entitled Sex, Politics and Religion and is to be given by Simon Bucknall on February 28th. Simon is a two times UK and Ireland Champion and he will talk about the lessons learned on the way to competing twice in the world finals . Simon is a member of our very own London Cardinals club.

The second is a workshop on Storytelling to be given by Andrew Brammer on March 5th. Storytelling is one of the most powerful weapons in the speakers arsenal and Andrew will show us how to master this important skill. He is a DTM (the highest award at Toastmasters) and a leading light at two clubs in Norfolk.

Both of these workshops will be based on speeches given at the recent Harrogate conference. Both were brilliant. People of all abilities will benefit from both of these events so please try to attend. Please put these in to your diaries. Further details will follow shortly!

Another date for your diary is the Division B (London) final for the International Speech and Evaluation Contests on April 24th. We had over 130 people at the Autumn contest - it would be great to have at least this number again. It is a brilliant event and we encourage everyone to support these contests at your Club, Area and London levels.

Which brings me neatly onto the Spring Conference, this year held at Killarney in Ireland on the 9th-11th of May. The conference will host the UK finals for the International Speech and Evaluation contest as well as all the usual cavorting that Toastmasters conferences are famous for. If you haven't been to a Toasties conference then maybe make this your first one?

Secondly, we hope to have plenty of new developments here at The London Speaker. We will continue the same coverage that you have received to date but hope to also include articles on improving speaking, tips on roles at Toastmasters and some linking to interesting articles and books on public speaking. To help me, I hope to add new authors. Please come forward if you have something you would like to share with the community! Hopefully we can continue to grow readership and page views and truly make this the place to come to learn about Toastmasters in London.

Finally, it is an exciting time in terms of new clubs. At the end of last year we had news that a new London club has been successfully chartered - NZICA Bank Speakers. Congratulations to Justin Ryan and all the folks there on such a quick success. They meet at the Association of British Insurers, 51 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HQ every second Thursday morning at 7.30 am. Please come along and give them your support.

There are also six other clubs that are currently being incubated in London to add to the current 26 chartered clubs. This is great growth and hopefully we can see a few of these get chartered before the end of the Toastmasters year in June. Please again offer any support that you can.

Overall, it promises to be a fabulous Division B Toastmasters year. We hope that  you are all able to get involved. Happy New Year!