Gill Oglesby, VP PR Croxley Communicators
They may only be in their first year but GBST's corporate club, Croxley Communicators, is not shy of accepting a challenge or two. Two members, Lisa Bowman and Buka Mulwila, have committed themselves to achieving their Competent Communicator award in the club's inaugural year. Both members were well on the way to success until a major obstacle was placed in Buka's way: he was sent to Hong Kong for work at very short notice. 6000 miles was not enough to deter this committed Toastmaster though and on Tuesday 26 February 2013 Buka completed his 7th speech "Eye Opener" via video link from Hong Kong.
The meeting was themed around technology and featured both the hi-tech; a two-way video link to Hong Kong, and the low-tech; timing lights made using a torch beam reflected off green, yellow and pink post-its!
Buka executed his speech wonderfully, not an easy task when, although your audience is only a computer screen away, the club room has been plunged into darkness! So although members could see Buka, he could only make out their silhouetted shapes.
Buka said of the experience I typically feed off the audiences’ expressions but giving a speech to a dark room meant I had to put extra emphasis on clear and understandable content. Giving a speech from a different location means you don’t have much control over things like voice projection, because you are depending on the technology. Fortunately for us the technology worked well on the day.
Equally challenging was the job of evaluating a speaker in Hong Kong from Croxley Green, Watford! But Croxley Communicator Nigel Ashford, who holds the club record of 5 winner's ribbons, rose to the challenge with ease. Nigel effectively opened his evaluation by addressing Buka, bringing him into the room with us, before following the Toastmaster's Commend, Recommend, Commend technique to give feedback to Buka, based on their previous discussions on Buka's aims for his speech.
Nigel said I enjoyed the challenge of taking the discipline of evaluating into a new dimension. Certainly the drama was enhanced by the darkened room and, although the connectivity led to a visually staccato portrayal, the speech came across well and made my job of appraising this fine effort simple.
As Buka will be in Hong Kong for a few more months yet, we're looking forward to rising to the challenge again soon!
