3, 2, 1, Celebrate!

Our members and guests braved the cold weather to take part in the Thursday meeting, which had the theme  of “The Final Countdown” in anticipation of next week’s 20^th anniversary celebration. John filled the role of Grammarian. For the word of the day, he gave us “Holiday”; something that will soon be on the minds of our student members! William stepped up to perform the role of timer. He was a precise and uncompromising timer, striking fear into the hearts of our many talkative speakers!

Challenges and Achievements

The meeting on Monday 4th March both challenged and entertained all those present.

It began with John Bascand’s icebreaker speech, in which he gave us a background to his studies and sporting interests (playing cricket at St Albans), before he regaled us with a brief account of a recent family wedding in Japan.

What a meeting!

What a night! This posting will be a long list of commendations for everyone 🙂

Chairing the meeting with energy, enthusiasm and microphone!

Our newest member receiving his Competent Communication and Competent Leadership manuals

No martial arts. This is how perfectly Tian used to line up his shoes!

Celebrities among our new members

What a fantastic session we had at Toastmasters tonight! As usual Stephanie opened the meeting with an interesting anecdote sprinkled with humour and enthusiasm. Then Vivek took over the stage with the role of Toastmaster. After talking about the sad week that he had due to the defeat of India and New Zealand in the recently held cricket world cup, he moved on with the proceedings of the meetings.

Survival training in chairing and debating

I survived chairing my first meeting! It flowed smoother than I had expected and I rather enjoyed the role and its challenges. These are some highlights from last night’s meeting.

First time chairing a Toastmasters meeting: Joanna.

Manu delivering his third speech at U-CAN-SPEAK Toastmasters.

What a performance! William demonstrating excellent speaking skills in his Ice Breaker speech.

Girls vs boys: should reality TV be banned? It was a great challenge that chair Daniel had prepared for us.

Vigorous Body Language

A very warm welcome to our numerous guests tonight! We were treated with two Ice Breaker speeches from some of our newest members, Richard and Rory. I was amazed to hear what both of them had already experienced in their lives, be it foreign countries and cultures, accidents or challenges at school. Our evaluators Ross and Vivek were right saying that both Richard and Rory displayed great talent and vast potential as speakers.

Conveying Confidence with Body Language

Advait, once called a “curry muncher”

How can we optimise our body language?

In teams of two, we experimented with powerful poses.

What gestures are suitable for introducing ourselves or our research? Our members came up with fabulous ideas.

As always, our members support each other to create our uniquely encouraging club atmosphere.

Congratulations to Andy! VP Education Timm presents an Advanced Spirit of Success Certificate for the completed manual on technical presentations

Europe: Home of the Polyglot

Despite the Biting Cold, we had a great turn out for tonight’s meeting!

Our Grammarian Rachel introduced the word of meeting, Polyglot and challenged us all to use it liberally. Our timer and new member Matt introduced his role with his sense of humour, making a quip about the use of his disco lights and his rubber chicken.

What Makes U-CAN-SPEAK the Best Toastmasters Club

The meeting was outstanding from start to finish. So much packed into a busy schedule and we kept to time.

Congratulations to Jessica and Robin who made great starts to their Toastmasters careers with well presented Ice Breakers.

Moving House and Moving Forward After the CC

Monday’s meeting had a lot of new faces and it was great to hear so many members bravely giving their first speech AKA the Ice Breaker!

The theme of the week was ‘moving house’; something almost all of the members have had past experiences with. We heard stories from moving out of home, to moving across the world! (All equally unpleasant in my opinion!)