Past meetings - a summary of Windsor Speakers' activities  

Monday 19th September 2005

Another great meeting, with four speeches from Shabbir, Ian, Monica and Yiru, each one very thought provoking in their own different way. Yiru reminded some us of previous travels, Ian made us think about what success in life really is, and Shabbir, with a colourful description of life at a top business school, also made us think about ambition, success and whether one should go back to re-visit the past.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Sheila, who won praise from our general evaluator, Janet, for her calm authority. And Johanne gave an excellent round-up of people's quirkier phrases in her role as grammarian. Our President Ed, called on all members to participate in the club competition on 27th September, with the added carrot that the winners have to go and do it again at an area contest! Good luck to everyone who has a go!

Monday 5th September 2005

Our first meeting as an official Toastmasters Club - having started in February this year as an affiliate, we needed to achieve a quorum of paying members before we received the official Toastmasters club number - we are pleased to announce that this has now happened.

An illuminating Educational talk from Sheila explained to us the first course of the Toastmasters programme - taking members up to the point where they becoome a competent 'Toastmaster'. We heard Icebreaker speeches from new members Ian and Caroline, and a well-put-together speech from Sue, plus a guest speech by Steve from the Maidenhead club.

Our president, Ed, asked us to think about entering the competition on 26th September, and we hope that a few volunteers will emerge! Finally, we had a very competent evaluation of the evening from Sarah, before we wrapped up, a little later than usual, but with a very positive feeling that we have created a friendly and enjoyable club.

Monday 15th August

A very packed meeting, with four speakers, plus special guest, Jacqui Hogan, who suggested an unusual way to think of speaking without notes, based on her martial arts training! Two of our guests from the previous meeting ventured back again, and are getting ever closer to attaining our Chartered status. Mireia has been acting President whilst Ed is on holiday, and has kept things running smoothly. Colin did a great job as first-time Toastmaster, and we wish him luck with his forthcoming speeches at the wedding in Brisbane ( where it appears that the guests will be rugby supporters, so his public speaking skills may be put to the test! ). Lottie, one of our newest members, stepped in at the last minute as the 'gruntmaster', and rigorously counted all our 'ums' and 'aahs' - we've noticed that the more experienced members hardly do this at all, and the most guilty are the newer speakers, so we can see that it just takes practice.  

Monday 1st August  

We are now into our seventh month and getting ever closer to Chartered status, which will give us the full trappings of a Toastmasters' club. We welcomed 7 guests, whom we hope will decide to stay on and join us.

Gay did an exemplary job as Toastmaster for the evening, and showed all of us who are newer how it should be done. Several of us are working our way fast through the manual, and also getting closer to becoming "competent Toastmasters" - as witnessed by Nina, Jean and Colin who all gave excellent speeches. Sheila did a great job as TopicsMaster, getting several of us to speak 'impromptu' on action-related subjects.

Monday 16th May  

Well it seemed like a very long gap since the last meeting. Curse these Bank Holidays!

Tonight was special in that for the first time the chair was a new Windsor member. Jean did a fine job keeping us all organised and kept up the club's unique style.

We welcomed 3 guests, Abhijit, Shabir and Chris Cox. Chris gave us an training session on his "Top Ten Tips for Terrific Table Topics" based on a workshop he ran at last week's national conference. We all picked up some great ideas.

Many of us had the chance to put some of these tips to work in the topics session run by Sarah who used the theme of fairground attractions to set some great topics. Janet, Trish, Monica and myself all had plenty to say and in the vote Janet came out on top, thanks to a fluent story with superb gestures.

Nick delivered a humorous icebreaker speech with plenty of good body language. Next up was a very polished performance from Nina which showed she already has a wealth of talent. Finally Joyce had everybody rolling in the aisles with one of her trademark, wry looks at the world- this time targeting the cult of celebrity.

The icebreakers were given feedback in our unique group fashion and Angelika gave a formal evaluation of Joyce's speech.

Gay gave an overall evaluation of the evening which reminded us that we could do a great deal to tighten up our administration. Trish pointed about the worst offenders in the umms & errs stakes in her role as grammarian.

It almost made me forget that Norwich city got relegated yesterday.

At the end of the evening Shabir & Gay became our newest members.

Monday 18th April

The fun goes on.

On a warm Spring evening, 17 warm-hearted individuals gathered together and created a fine evening of speaking and positive support.

We were joined by visitors Alan and Sheila and were delighted to welcome Nina as our newest member.

The evening was chaired by Angelika and we had an impromptu talk about the origins of the Toastmaster organisation by Janet Rose, our Division Governor. Keeping it in the family, her son Chris lead the table topics session with great flair and humour. The lucky participants were Paul, Mike, Sarah, Monica & Joyce who spoke with no prior notice of their subjects.  Joyce was voted the best speaker for the second time.

We had two icebreakers from Sheila Davies & Jean, who both made a great start with tales of friendship and the joy of following through on your resolutions. Trish became the first Windsor member to move into the realms of the second manual speech and warned of the threat posed by and to the tradition of the Punch & Judy show.

In Windsor tradition, we all gave feedback on the icebreakers. Then Janet gave an individual appraisal for Trish's speech, demonstrating what good evaluation is all about and why Janet has previously won the UK & Ireland's highest title. In the coming meetings we'll all be taking on wider meeting roles and individual feedback tasks.

With a month until our next meeting, many said they would visiting one of the two meetings at Maidenhead speakers in the interim (see link on the homepage).

Missing you already, as they say in the finest burger bars.

Monday 4th April

Another wonderful experience.

18 of us got together and shared a fascinating evening of speeches, feedback and conversation. There were first-time visits from Steve, Sheila, Jasmine, Yiru & Nina. 

It was my turn to chair the evening and it was lovely to see everybody making a real contribution. Janet Rose lead the impromptu speaking section (aka Table Topics) and we had some great examples from Jean, Sarah, Sheila D, Trish & Sheila H-A. In the vote Jean came out on top with her tales from the North East. We decided that as everyone is getting so good at this, we'd move to true off-the-cuff speeches from our next meeting (with the exception of new guests). Throughout, Janet helped everyone to spot the best aspects of each speech.

The prepared speeches were all outstanding first-time (Icebreakers) from members who had only ever witnessed the 3 previous meetings of our club. Joyce had us all laughing with her views on the feminist movement in her speech "Not Bloody Likely". Chris also demonstrated a natural wit and a flair for props with his "Me and my Dad versus the Golf Channel". Sue delivered a master class in vocal variety as her "The Child Within" speech took us through her career.

Once again everyone was involved in giving feedback to our speakers using our group exercise, which highlights how everyone notices different aspects of speeches and can help others to develop.

I can't wait for the next time!

Monday 21st March

What a great night!

I really think that Windsor Speakers has developed a unique personality. There were 19 of us there and with three more joining on the night we have now reached 15 members.  There were first time visits from Heather, Peter and Shabir. Once again the vast majority of attendees are new to the ideas behind the Toastmaster organisation, are open to the positive benefits and are willing to try new ideas. After discussions with members we’ve decided to adopt our own terminology more in keeping with the contemporary life.

Kit Barritt, current Area Governor, chaired the evening and explained the wider national organisation.  Paul Marsh ran the impromptu speaking session, which included some of our guests, with our latest member Joyce being voted best topics speaker.

There followed a training session on feedback, which can be downloaded here (MS Word), and a checklist for aspects of feedback, which can be downloaded here (MS Word).

For the first time we had 3 prepared speeches, great ice-breakers from Monica (Never Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth) and Sarah (Good Pronunciation- It Is Worth It) and an advanced speech by Gay (the Great Red Dragon) on the rise of Chinese industrialisation.

Then we broke with tradition and had each table working in groups of 4 on evaluating the 3 speeches. This really worked well with everybody making a contribution and getting a taste of delivering constructive feedback. Each of the speakers also responded to what they had heard. We will repeat this process a couple of times to help everybody develop the skills, though we will continue to work towards traditional individual evaluations as time goes on.

It just gets better and better! Thanks to everybody for making it a real success.