Welcome back for 2016

Happy new year team! It is the start of a new year and UCanSpeak is gearing up for an exciting one. I hope you have added finishing some manuals or conquering some speeches into your new year resolutions.

This coming Monday the 18th January 2016 we are getting back to some exhilarating speeches and some unexpected announcements.

The time hasn’t changed, still 19:00, at the same location, KE04 in Kirkwood.

*A reminder that the Thursday meeting has been discontinued. Therefore come on down on Monday to get you Toastmasters experience.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Meeting Highlights – November 2nd, 2015

This Monday we had an (WOD) effervescent evening. Using my new found president prowess I shuffled the agenda around, leaving the toastmaster role free for the taking. I was greatly encouraged by the turn out on a warm spring’s evening and that all 16 people had something interesting to contribute to the meeting.

Starting off the evening on time, we had Ross welcoming some expats returning from a long leave of absence. It was great to see Dwayne and Timm back again. I went and put Timm straight to work in evaluating Jamie’s speech. Which he did a fully-fledged job of.

The speeches gave us plenty to mull over. Firstly we were educated about the intricacies of creating animations and the highs and lows of Jamie’s university journey with producing his project.

Next Lisa did a stellar job of transporting us back to our childhood. Some went back further than others but all found ourselves ending the passage at Martha’s Vineyard. We were then entertained of Lisa’s experiences of ice creams, presidential shoulder rubbing and sailing. Tarek stepped up to the plate for the first time to give his evaluation and did well in delivering his praise and improvements.

The anchor leg was fulfilled by Brentan who gave us an insightful speech about the languages of the world and the reach of influences the major ones had. His speech ended on a challenging idea, of the world moving away from being English centric and us as communicators needing to broaden our knowledge of different languages. In Ross’s evaluation he ranked this speech as one of the best he had ever heard in his time at toastmasters. Therefore Brentan’s speech justifiably won the rubber chicken even if the general evaluator (his wife) was accused of being a bias.

Just prior to the meeting starting, I had hospital passed Vaughan the topics masters role. He came to the party superbly. Organising an impromptu debate around the discussion of “do children get enough consideration in the improvement of society?”. Dwayne headed up the affirmative side and Henry for the negative. There was humour used and shot were fired between the teams but Lisa the judge ruled in favour of the affirmative team winning.

Thanks everyone for making it a fun evening and I’m looking forward to the next one!

Becoming Familiar with Easy Speak

A small, but enthusiatic audience took part in another entertaining meeting this Thursday. Jono stepped up to the role of Toastmaster, his warm and cheerful style kept the audience focused throughout the meeting. One of our newest members, Michael did a marvellous job as the Grammarian, identifying language features used in the prepared speeches. He introduced the word of the day: Procedure. Bradley kept track of the time as the meeting proceeded.

Daniel gave an interactive presentation on how to use Easy-speak, the clubs meeting generator. For those wanting to know more, click here.

Jeremy delivered his Ice-Breaker, where he outlined his research interests and the upcoming conference that motivated him to join the club. A highlight of Jeremy’s speech was when he had a life-changing experience during a school trip that made him realise the value of education.

Our second speaker, Joanna completed an advanced project from the Technical Presentations manual. Her presentation focused on the teacher inquiry process, which she made clear with visual aids and some entertaining analogies. Tonight’s evaluators, Sarah and Manu provided encouragement and great feedback!

Ross stepped up to become the Tabletopics master for the meeting, with oceans being the theme. This topic illustrated passionate responses from all of the speakers, with Windyty being used to illustrate the dangers of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race and the issue of waste and pollution accumulating within the ocean. Other speakers proposed dubious approaches to cooking seafood and looking for missing seafarers.

All in all, another great meeting. Roll on next Mondays meeting!

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.

Spontaneous Speaking!

While all U-CAN-SPEAK meetings cover unprepared speaking, Thursday’s meeting theme put the art of impromptu speaking under the microscope. Timm delivered another project from one of the advanced manuals, outlining the strategies required to deliver the perfect speech when you don’t have a chance to prepare. To summarise:

“U-CAN-SPEAK can only be matched. It will never be beaten!”

The feature of tonight’s meeting was the way that our guests got involved. They were made welcome from the outset and their contribution gave our meeting such great diversity. William was wonderful as Table Topics Master. He introduced himself to our guests and got them involved by explaining Table Topics so well.

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.

Entertainment. Cultures. Improvisation.

New visitors, new members, new meeting roles: with a short presentation under the theme “day in history”, Sam took us back to 17th century America and illustrated how an initial massacre triggered a spiral of violence between Englishmen and native Americans, with the latter group being progressively marginalised.

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.