Tim warmed up the audience with a woolly joke, followed by Valentine topics by Ashley, evaluated by Jim.

Victor talked about his dating disaster, Louise talked about the best valentines gift, a song from her son, Dan said he hated being single and won topics, whilst Carla, simply needed a hug.

There were many more hugs in the evening as the speeches progressed.

Paul told us about love, joy and anger, including bold body language, evaluated by Yiorgos (best speech). Nils led us through 4 heads of personality, with Daniel evaluating.

Atul and Hemant both broke the ice, evaluated by Tim and Jim.

Maissa was grammarian, Laura grunt counter and Victor multitasked doing the timer role and reading a newspaper at the same time.

Louise pulled the meeting together with a general evaluation, before Jim cajoled people into the competition.

Looking forward to our next meeting on Wednesday 22^nd February, back in our usual venue, the L&D Room, Bldg 33 at 6pm. This next meeting will be our club contest and although we now have enough speakers, we’re still looking for volunteers to be officials. Contact Jim or Paul for further info.

Evaluations and contests
Having won an evaluation contest, there are a few tips to consider:

• First of all, do read the judging criteria, found on the D71 website.
• Look for all the things you normally look for, such as triads, alliteration and good use of grammar.
• Be aware of pace and volume.
• When you feed back, imagination often pays off, as well as being demonstrative.
• Ask experienced evaluators how they do it.

Your club mentors are Louise and Tim.

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Nils kept time and Paul took on the role of grammarian, introducing the word ‘frangible’ as the word of the day.

Kala counted grunts and Yiorgos outlined the Toastmasters Leadership programme. Jim told a tasteful joke about how the angel got to be put on the top of the Christmas tree.

Mikael was Table Topics Master for the evening (with Louise evaluating) and invited participants to play the game ‘reverse jeopardy’, where he gave each participant a simple question to answer:

Tim told us who Rocketman is; Tom let us know which are the most dangerous animals in the world; Atul explained that the world’s toughest race was swimming; and Yiorgos described what colours are.

In the first of the prepared speeches, Becky (evaluated by Paul) gave her 5th speech entitled ‘Nifty Negotiating’ in which she highlighted the importance of engaging, understanding and co-creating.

Andy followed (evaluated by Yiorgos) with his 5th presentation ‘Don’t just listen, watch’, where he gave examples of how our body language has an impact on the message being conveyed.

Third speaker was Laura (evaluated by Tim) who delivered her 2nd speech about the difference between airlines and how low-cost airlines are able to offer their more affordable prices.

Finally, Victor (evaluated by Louise) educated us all with ‘What are dark pools?’ in his 2nd speech.

In his role as General Evaluator Yiorgos gave evaluations of the three evaluators, the meeting officials and the meeting as a whole.

On general club matters, Jim reminded members about the upcoming special event for all clubs within our Area – the International Speech and Evaluation Contest, which will be held on Wednesday 7th March.

In preparation for this contest, Cranfield will hold its own contest on Wednesday 22nd February. Members are invited to volunteer for the evaluation contest, where they will competitively evaluate a target speaker. Members are also welcome to volunteer to be the target speaker in order to gain valuable feedback from a variety of perspectives. Please contact Jim for more information.

Cranfield members are also welcome to attend the North Bucks club contest on 16th February at the Well at Willen and also their Tall Tales evening on 7th February at the Slug and Lettuce in Milton Keynes.

Please note change of venue for the next Cranfield meeting – 8th February meeting will be held in the CMRI (Bldg 38). The meeting on 22nd February will be back at our normal venue, the L&D Room in Bldg 33.

17 attended including 2 guests.

Awards:
Best Speech – Victor
Best Evaluator – Louise
Best Table Topics – Yiorgos
Best Humour – Andy
The meeting closed on time at 8pm.

Looking forward to our next meeting on Wednesday 8th February at 6pm.
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Andy kept time and Becky took on the role of grammarian, introducing the word ‘resolve’ as the word of the day.

Yiorgos outlined the Toastmasters Leadership programme and Nils told a tasteful joke.

Viktor was Table Topics Master for the evening (with Jenny evaluating) and gave each participant a fictitious person’s name, of differing nationality, to speak about:
Becky spoke about her tennis playing school friend, Ashley spoke about her client with the unpronounceable name, Tom spoke about someone looking for oil at Cranfield and Paul spoke about his distant relation, John Johnny!

In the first of the prepared speeches, Tom (evaluated by Paul) gave his 3rd speech entitled ‘Innovation management’ in which he delivered different methods of being innovative via 4 envelopes (well, he ran out of time and only delivered 2 but who’s counting?!).

Jim followed (evaluated by John) with a presentation outlining the various roles within a Toastmasters meeting and within a club.

Third speaker was Tim (evaluated by Andy), who broke the ice and introduced himself to the group with his first speech.

Finally, Mick (evaluated by Yiorgos) enlightened us all with ‘The positive power of negative thinking’ in his 6th speech.

In his role as General Evaluator John gave evaluations of the three evaluators, the meeting officials and the meeting as a whole.

On general club matters, Jim informed members about the upcoming special event for all clubs within our Area – the International Speech and Evaluation Contest, which will be held on Wednesday 7th March.

In preparation for this contest, Cranfield will hold its own contest on Wednesday 22nd February. Members are invited to volunteer for the evaluators contest, where they will competitively evaluate a non-Cranfield speaker. Please contact Jim for more information.

Cranfield members are also welcome to attend the North Bucks club contest on 16th February at the Slug and Lettuce in Milton Keynes.

Please note change of venue for the next two Cranfield meetings: 25th January and 8th February meetings will also be held in the CMRI.

17 attended including 1 guest.

Awards:
Best Speech – Tom
Evaluator’s Award – Tim
Best Table Topics – Paul
Best Humour – Mick & John

The meeting closed on time at 8pm.

Looking forward to our next meeting on Wednesday 25th January at 6pm.
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With Jim as Sergeant at Arms and Becky as Contest Chair, we had a special appearance from Santa via the magic of technology – see here so you don’t miss out on seeing the jolly old fellow:
http://youtu.be/J2ypFnt65hg

Whilst Tim kept time, Paul led a seasonal table topics session dishing out gifts here there and everywhere: a clock for Mikael; some straws for Louise; a banana case for Jim; some party bubbles for Tom; an oven glove for Becky; a plastic toaster for Daniel; a Xylophone for Tim; a glow stick for Ashley and some scissors for Karla.

We fed our faces with the delights that members and guests had contributed for the buffet and then resumed for Tall Tales where Louise, Maggie, Daniel, Ashley and Jim all recounted stories in a bid to fool the audience into believing their far-fetched tale was either the truth or a lie.

On club matters, Becky confirmed that the next meeting of Cranfield Toastmasters would be on 11th January and that there would be a change of venue for this and the subsequent 2 meetings. The venue for 11th January, 25th January and 8th February would be CMRI Gallery (Building 38).

Louise invited Cranfield members to attend two local Toastmasters Christmas events – the North Bucks Christmas Pantomime on Thursday 15th Dec. For more information, contact Jim Reynolds (jimreynolds@jrel.biz)

Awards:
Best Table Topic – Ashley
Best Tall Tale – Maggie
Fooled the most people with their Tall Tale – Ashley

Thanks everyone for your various contributions to tonight’s meeting.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Laura time kept and Mikael counted grunts. In her role a grammarian, Rebecca introduced the word of the day as ‘doppelgänger’, meaning a ghostly double or counterpart of a living person.

Yiorgos introduced the Toastmasters Leadership programme and explained the importance of evaluations.

Tim welcomed himself as Table Topics Master for the evening and, continuing the beginners theme, encourages each of the participants to come up and explain what would be their ideal table topic.

Nils and Victor stepped up and explained their backgrounds and how it was they came to be studying at Cranfield.

Run Lin talked about his fascination with the differences between Chinese and Western culture and the obsession for kissing in the West!

Kala recounted a conversation she’d had around ‘what is knowledge?’ And shared a view that it is not just power, but the power to choose.

In the first of the prepared speeches, Paul (evaluated by Yiorgos) gave his 4^th speech entitled ‘Your mind and other planets’ in which he educated us on how to remember all the planets in the solar system in order of their distance from the sun, by framing them within a story.

Victor followed with his first Icebreaker speech (evaluated by Jim) in which, having outlined his business communications background he told us of his desire to give something back to society, be happy and make others proud.

Third speaker was Fiona (evaluated by Andy), who broke the ice with her first speech and, having explained her Italian name but French nationality, guided us away from the French stereotype of beret, baguettes and wine!

In her role as General Evaluator Louise gave evaluations of the three evaluators, the meeting officials and the meeting as a whole.

On Presidential matters, Jim clarified that new members will be expected to pay the initial registration fee of £25 plus a partial 6-monthly subscription in order that all memberships will be due for the full 6-monthly renewal at the end of March 2012.

Tim invited Cranfield members to attend two local Toastmasters Christmas events – The Eldergate Christmas Party and Tall Tales Competition on 7^th Dec and also the North Bucks Christmas event. For more information, contact Jim Reynolds.

It was agreed that Cranfield would host its own international style Christmas event on Wednesday 14^th December, involving tall tales and a ‘global’ seasonal buffet. Members are kindly requested to bring a donation of festive food to add to the international flavor of the night! Festive costumes optional

18 attended including 2 guests.

Awards:

Best Speech – Paul

Best Evaluator – Jim

Best Table Topics – Kala

Best Humour – Victor

The meeting closed on time at 8pm.

Looking forward to our next meeting on Wednesday 23^rd November at 6pm.

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Rebecca explained her role as timekeeper, Daniel introduced the word ‘sensuality’ as the word of the day in his role as grammarian and Yiorgos introduced the leadership programme.

Mikael acted as our Table Topics Master for the evening and, having introduced each of the participants as ghost experts, gave them each a question about their specialist subject.

In explaining his most terrifying ghost experience, Yiorgos told the terrible tale of how, as a child, he had dressed up in a pink cowboy outfit and his brother as a ghost. In answer to his question, Tim explained that the only thing to scare ghosts was the evil Topic Master, but offered them the solution to remember that fear is all in the mind. Stephanie described a see-through, Victorian woman with no feet who floated around re-enacting parts of her life when she wasn’t haunting, but reassured us that it was nothing to be scared of. Niels explained that should we see a ghost, we shouldn’t just run away screaming, we should take a second look and try to get to know it.

In the first of the prepared speeches, Yiorgos (evaluated by Andy) presented the ‘Advanced Leader Silver’ award to Jim (evaluated by Jeremy), who then gave a speech entitled ‘I don’t do humble!’ in response to the award of this highest leadership award available in Toastmasters, explaining how he had got to this level.

Tim then gave an educational speech about how to put a speech together, and outlined the strong, simple steps around subject, content structure, enhancement and delivery, using lots of examples and flight analogies along the way!

Tom (evaluated by Stephanie) gave his second prepared speech aptly entitled ‘The taboo of death’, in which he demonstrated speech organization, as well as a black sense of humour!

In his role as General Evaluator and, in the absence of an evaluator for Tim’s speech, John gave an impressive 90 second evaluation of Tim’s speech. This was followed by evaluations of the three evaluators, the meeting officials and the meeting as a whole. As part of this summary, John offered up the advice that more attention should be paid to the handovers between speakers.

On Presidential matters, Jim reminded all existing members that renewals were now payable – either to himself or Andy.

21 attended including 9 guests.

Awards:

Best Speech – Tom

Best Evaluator – Stephanie

Best Table Topics – Niels

Best Humour – Tom

The meeting closed on time at 8pm.

Looking forward to our next meeting on Wednesday 9^th October at 6pm.

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Maggie and Trisha kept time for the evening and Nicky and Jim counted grunts. Jenny headed up the panel of four judges.

The first contestant for humour was Louise, whose speech ‘Under the Stars’ guided the audience through three types of camping: Festival Camping, highlighting the need for waders and guitars for firewood; Wild Camping, featuring silence, solitude and survival skills; and Glamping, where expectations ride high around the luxury teepee offering.

Second contestant was Daniel, whose speech entitle ‘Seconds of mid-life anyone?’ gave us all an insight into his married, male and middle-aged state – even throwing in the odd mother-in-law joke!

Third up was Rebecca with her speech entitled ‘Starting School’, which included a personality profiling of the audience – using how they engaged with sweets back in their classroom days as the determining factor.

The fourth contestant was Paul, who took us through the three types of people perceived to be living their lives in a state of cliché – management consultants, politicians and society in general with our small talk.

As they entered the room one at a time, Jim advised each table topics contestant of the same topic, which was a definition of the word ‘jobsworth’ followed by the request to recall their most memorable encounter of a jobsworth.

First contestant for table topics was Paul, who recounted his experience within an engine room and a colleague refusing to clean some boiler plates using a toothbrush.

Second contestant was Louise who recalled her experience of returning items to a shop without a receipt.

Third up was Yiorgos, who spoke of petrol park attendants who had ideas above their station.

Fourth contestant was Tom, who observed the jobsworths among ‘Council Waste Executives’, but then pointed out that there is probably a jobsworth in all of us somewhere.

Jenny presented the Certificates of Participation for Humourous Speech 2011 and then announced 2nd place to Louise and 1st place to Paul.

Certificates of Participation for Table topics were given out, and 2nd place awarded to Paul, and 1st place awarded to Louise.

As winners from our club competition, Paul and Louise will go on to compete in the Beds and Bucks Area Contest, which Cranfield is hosting next Wednesday, 5th October, in the CMRI (Bldg 38) at 8pm. All members are warmly encouraged to attend this special Area event.

17 attended including 2 guests: Carla and Sam.

Carla commented on how clever people were to get up and talk on table topics and hopes one day to be able to do the same.
Sam expressed how impressed he was and would like to spread the word amongst his course mates.

A thoroughly entertaining meeting – thanks to all!

The meeting closed on time 7.55pm

80s nostalgia

Following a 7-minute delay as people continued to arrive, the evening kicked off with Tim opening the meeting in his role as Toastmaster for the evening.

Rebecca explained her role as Timekeeper and, in her very impromptu role as Grammarian, multi-tasking Louise introduced ‘discombobulation’ (meaning confusion) as her word for the day.

Jim took up the challenge of telling a tasteful joke, which involved a foul-mouthed parrot, a freezer and a frozen chicken.

Alison acted as our Table Topics Master for the evening and gave each of the participants a colour to speak about.

Paul talked about grey and battleships and how better colours can make things much more exciting.

Adrian approached his topic of green by linking it to nature and science.

Yiorgos was given the colour pink, which, he explained to the group, reminded him of ties and Athens.

John came up and talked about yellow, relating it to waking up. John also talked about colour perception, recounting a story where yellow had been specifically chosen for a presentation to designers.

First speaker Yiorgos gave his eighth speech ‘80s lifestyle… proud to have been there?’ and demonstrated the skill of being comfortable with visual aids. Yiorgos took us all on a journey back to shoulder pads, big hair and The Karate Kid.

Evaluated by Paul, who commended the clarity of delivery and content and use of slides but also noted the issue of crossing in front of the projector to click to the next slide.

Second speaker Daniel broke the ice with his first speech ‘A slice of mid life’ and introduced himself to the group by talking about his three degrees, wife and three children, whilst simultaneously demonstrating his sharp statistical analysis skills.

Evaluated by Jim, who commended the humour, use of triads and vocabulary. Recommendations were to consider the timing, prepare a 20 second close and to avoid looking down at notes.

Third speaker John gave a speech entitled ‘Explain like I’m 5’, informing us of his addiction to the internet and to one particular website – ELI5. This aim of this speech was to demonstrate the key skill of writing and delivering a speech at short notice.

Evaluated by Tim, who commended John’s subject, opening and delivery. A recommendation was made to consider the length of time the prop (a phone) was used for in order to avoid distraction.

In the gloom...

With lighting proving to be an issue and the darkness looming, General Evaluator Louise explained (with the aid of a torch) the value of giving feedback and the importance of allocating time for each speaker when evaluating table topics. This was followed by evaluations of the three evaluators, the meeting officials and the meeting as a whole.

On Presidential matters Jim reminded everyone that the 28th September is the Club’s Humorous Speech and Impromptu Speaking Contests and we now have some competitors. Please let Jim know if you would be interested in taking part.

Winners from our club competition will go on to compete in the Beds and Bucks Area Contest, which Cranfield is hosting the following Wednesday, 5th October, in the CMRI (Bldg 38) at 8pm. All members are warmly encouraged to attend this special Area event.

14 attended including 5 guests: Adrian, Carla, Jay, Chris and Wilson.

Carla commented on the amount of energy, even in the darkness and is keen to come again.

Jay explained that he didn’t know what to expect, but he was impressed with the fact that so many people got the chance to present and practice and is looking forward to attending again.

Adrian, having had previous experience of a Toastmasters Club, commented that it is a good example of a dynamic Toastmasters group, which is well structured with a lot of experience in the room, benefitting the club as a whole.

Chris explained that he thought the meeting might be more formal and was pleased to find that, although well structured and organised, it was fun and lively and provided good training for presentations and leading meetings.

Wilson highlighted the importance of developing these key skills and was impressed with the friendliness of the club and felt very welcome.

Awards:

Best Speech – John

Best Evaluator – Tim

Best Table Topics – Paul

Best Humour – Daniel

Another hugely enjoyable meeting – thanks to all!

The meeting closed on time 8.00pm

The next meeting on Monday, 26 September will be at The National Badminton Centre.