Maidenhead Speakers

Our club night’s theme was motivation but Amanda Bouch, Toastmaster of the Evening (28.11.11), didn’t use it for introductions, but as actions.  Before the evening, she encouraged the speakers and key role-holders to give of their best.

Table Topics Master, Nick Bailey chose to use the theme for his topics, which led to stimulating and inspiring impromptu speeches as club members got up and talked about:

• being at their best – Ming Lei was a champion ice skater;
• the most powerful question they ask themselves – Zahid Aziz asks himself every day how he can improve;
• what they would do if anything was possible – Richard Davies would spend time on relationships as they are the most important thing in life;
• who motivates them to commit to a personal challenge – Laurie Billson is working out in the gym to counteract his new job in a choclate factory and to prove a point to his brother;
• how they celebrate achievements – John Gilpin celebrated completing a marathon by signing up for the next one!

Their stories were awesome and their motivation was infectious, leaving the audience inspired to be the best they can be.  This is the stuff top calibre speakers are made of and we enjoyed this quality even from a first-time speaker doing an impromptu speech.

Come along to Maidenhead Speakers Club and be inspired too!

Maidenhead Speakers Club Presents… calling it quits can be a laughing matter!

From time to time we’ve all had enough of the job, the stresses and strains and the petty frustrations. But have you ever thought about crafting the perfect resignation letter? Where you tell your boss what you really think of him? In exquisite detail?

Mell Sheppard has. And she let it all out to Maidenhead Speakers Club when she took part in the annual Humorous Speech Contest this week (12 September). With props that included Darth Vader, and Daisy the cow, Mell took the gloves off as she imagined what it would be like to say what was really on her mind.

Giving vent to her feelings she scored a win with the judges over stiff competition and now goes on to represent Maidenhead in the Area Speech Contest on Saturday 8^th October inWindsor

Presenting the trophy club president remarked that “Mell really brought out the funny side of what isn’t usually a laughing matter – and used the speaking skills she has honed at Toastmasters to good effect. We are sure she will do well in the next stage of the contest”

On the same evening Nick Bailey won the trophy for the table topics contest where speakers have to talk off the cuff on a topic they find out about only moments before! Nick brought to bear his experiences working part time inEnglandas a surveyor and inSouth Africaas a tour guide to answer the question about whether, given the chance he would prefer to reinvent himself as an entrepreneur, a professional or an artist.

If you would like to see how Mell and Nick fare representing Maidenhead on 8 October and to get a flavour of what Toastmasters is like then come along to the Area contest inWindsor. Visitors are most welcome.

Winner Mell Sheppard receiving her award

Winner Nick Bailey receiving his award

USING NOTES (Delivered for an education session at Maidenhead Speakers Club on 24 Jan 2011)

I want to say something about using notes. Not bank notes, notes for speeches. I will cover a few general points first, then deal in turn with the material on which I write my notes, creating notes and finally using notes. These ideas are not things you MUST do – just ideas that work for me and may perhaps work for you too.

Firstly, the best notes are NO NOTES! If you can, don’t use notes at all, that allows maximum eye-contact. But, it’s easier to forget than remember so notes serve as an insurance against a mental blackout. There’s a saying: ‘The palest ink is greater than the strongest memory’. Brief notes help keep your speech moving, on time and in sequence. I’m not advocating a word-for-word written speech, just brief notes.

What about the material for your notes? I prefer to use cards. Unlike paper, cards stay flat, are easy to handle, don’t wrinkle or tear like paper, are heavy enough not to blow around, and can easily fit into a pocket or handbag. Useful card sizes are 13 x 9 cm (5” x 3½”) nominally, or 20 x 13 cm (8” x 5”). For example, Prince Charles puts his hand into his jacket pocket and pulls out his notes on cards.

I find folding up the right hand top and bottom corners on alternate cards simplifies sliding the cards across a lectern; I’ve got something to get hold of whilst I’m speaking, ensuring minimum fuss. I’m sure you will have seen a speaker turning over an A4 sized sheet of notes – it can be very distracting.

Now about creating your notes. At some functions there may be no lectern, just a low table and with poor lighting, so visibility of notes is essential! It’s a good idea to either handwrite your notes or produce them on a PC with, say, 30 point characters, using a mix of capital letters and lower case. Ideally, one idea per card, with only three or four words per line, and a one-line space between lines, on one side of the card only. I find it a good idea to use a coloured card for the concluding notes, then if time gets short I can easily find my final card and summarise. It is essential each card is numbered – if you drop them they can quickly be got back in sequence. It’s also possible to use a treasury tag through a hole in the corner of each card but then they have to be pivoted round on a lectern.

Leave your notes on the lectern – if you have one – it frees the hands for gesturing and eliminates the unconscious waving of notes. Just slide the top card across the lectern using the turned-up corner. Try to avoid talking and reading your notes at the same time – look briefly at the notes, think, and speak. Let your eyes look down at the notes then quickly go back to looking at the audience.

Finally, the more you read the less the eye contact. Look at your audience, look quickly down at your notes and let your eyes bounce back to the audience. Familiarise, not memorise. Sticking notes on something you look at regularly – a shaving mirror, a fridge door – helps remind you.

In summary: try to manage without notes; familiarise, not memorise; use clear, bold characters, 3 to 4 words per line. Notes are no substitute for preparation and rehearsal. Remember, maximise eye contact; more notes means less eye contact. Norman Rhodes, DTM / 22 Oct 1991

Love Sweet Love

After that initial smash hit Music groups can often struggle with that “difficult second album”. Well clearly Toastmasters is not like the music business! I was recently lucky enough to catch Julie Farrell giving what was only her second speech project at MSC on 24 January.

 Julie gave a compelling and thought provoking speech, the transcript of which she has kindly shared and which is reproduced here.

What  the transcript doesn’t convey is the assured manner in which the speech was delivered, with conviction and sincerity and an opening that invited cynicism only to deftly swat it aside. Presented without notes, this was by turns an amusing, informative and inspirational performance that deservedly won best speech of the evening in the face of strong competition from more experienced toastmasters, and wouldn’t have sounded out of place in an Area or Divisional final. Following on from winning best speaker of the evening for her ice breaker, Julie is clearly one to watch!

 So, if you’re wondering what an outstanding speech looks like then read on…

 Love Sweet Love

             What the world needs now, is love sweet love.  It’s the only thing, that there’s just, too little of.

            Madam Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters and most welcome guests, although the sentiment in the Burt Bacharach lyrics I’ve just quoted is true, it’s certainly not new.  The idea that ‘all we need is love’ has been around for millennia, but how can we transform what has now essentially become a hippy platitude into a practical life-enhancing tool?  In this speech, I intend to show you, firstly by explaining how our normal idea of love is often unhelpful.  Next, I’ll invite you to join me in a simple love-generating exercise.  And lastly, I’ll explain how easy it is to love others, when we remember how much they do for us. 

 But before all that, I must confess, I love chocolate!  It’s so delicious and sweet and creamy, and, scientists say that it triggers euphoria in my brain. 

Our normal idea of love is similar to my love of chocolate – I enjoy it without considering how it is for the chocolate!  We usually want to know what the other person can do for us.  “I love you” often means “I enjoy you”.   

  In the film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray becomes trapped in the same day and has to keep re-living it.  He initially wants to convince Andy McDowell’s character to sleep with him (for his gratification) so he spends his repeated day coming on to her and getting slapped in the face a lot.   

 Bill doesn’t experience any lasting happiness, because he’s treating Andy like a bar of chocolate, wondering what pleasure he can get from her.  This is painful for Bill because he’s putting his happiness into her hands and effectively saying ‘Here’s my happiness. You look after it.  If you give me what I want, then I’ll be happy’.  But she won’t give him what he wants, and it’s not her job to make him happy, so he remains frustrated and unfulfilled. 

 Eventually Bill realises that the transient gratification of a one night stand isn’t what he’s after, and he begins to cherish Andy instead.  He understands that loving for the sake of loving is the true source of happiness.  He says to her, “No matter what happens tomorrow or for the rest of my life, I’m happy now because I love you.” 

 None of us have to sit around waiting for love to magically appear in our lives.  You can generate love yourself whenever you wish, and I’d like to show you how.  I invite you all to close your eyes and think of the person you love the most in the world.  Please do that now.  Really picture the person and swim in your love for them.  What are the beautiful things they do for you?  What is it about them that you love so much?  How do you feel when you make them smile?  Now please open your eyes. 

 We naturally feel happy and peaceful when we experience love.  I sometimes feel powerless to make a difference, but then I remember that I have the power to give love to everyone I meet.  It’s a precious gift, because everyone, without exception, yearns to feel loved and understood.  You have the power to make someone’s day with your smile. 

 It feels good to love.  But we often take the beneficial actions of others for granted – we focus on their faults, and make a point of telling other people about our negative experiences of them.  If you work in an office, someone probably comes in every day to clean the toilets for you, but isn’t it true that you only become aware of them if they haven’t stocked up the loo roll! 

Everything depends on others.  I do work hard, but how much can I actually do for myself?  Other people toil everyday so that I can have food and clothes and clean water.  Every cup of tea that I drink contains hundreds of people.  And yes, it’s their job, and they don’t do it with me in mind, but their hard work does benefit me – where would I be without farmers, or people who drive articulated lorries full of food, or people who work in supermarkets?  And if it wasn’t for my boss, I wouldn’t actually have any money to buy food!

 To recap:  Firstly, when we love people for the sake of loving them, rather than for what we can gain from them, we can’t help but feel happy and peaceful.   

Secondly, you don’t have to wait for love to magically appear.  You can close your eyes and focus on the good qualities of the people in your life, remembering all the nice things they do for you.  This naturally enhances your relationships, and creates good feelings for you.

And thirdly, we are all interconnected.  If it wasn’t for the people who pick the cocoa beans and ship them over here, I couldn’t have my chocolate fix!  When I remember how little I can do for myself, I feel humbled and connected with my fellow humans.

 Fellow toastmasters and most welcome guests, next time you’re feeling those winter blues, just remember to put a little love in your heart.  It’s not just a hippy notion, but one that I urge you to put into practice every day.  I know it sounds empty and vacuous to claim that the only thing we need in the world now is love, sweet love.  But scientists say that that there’s already an abundance of resources available to give enough food, clean water, clothing, and shelter to every single human being on this planet.  When we cultivate love, we naturally develop compassion, and then we can’t help but conclude that the only logical solution is to share these resources.  And when we do that, we can literally save lives.

Members and guests had a real treat during Table Topics at Maidenhead Speakers on Monday 12th April.  We’d already had five excellent speakers on the timely topic of Spring, some people had already filled out their voting slips, when the TM suggested we do ‘a couple more..’.

Step forward Norman Rhodes, DTM, to take on the subject “Poems or Songs of Spring”.

He opened quite, well,  conventionally, with a few lines from a well know nursery rhyme: “Spring is sprung..de grasse is riz…”. Then he paused, shuffled his papers,  thought for a bit longer and decided on impulse (well we assumed it was!) to retrieve something from his seat. He returned to the lectern and announced he had an original poem to read to us.

“I was on a coach with a party travelling up to Loughborough for a guided tour of the John Taylor Bell Foundry the day following my speech evaluations and the words of the 1st three verses just fell into place.   The last verse took a little longer to get right”.

We were blown away. We never see the results of the voting of course, but I’m pretty sure Norman won Best Table Topics by miles.

Some people asked for a copy, so here is it is in full:

Ah  -  Er  -  Um

by Norman Rhodes, DTM

Those dreaded words kept creeping in.
At first I didn’t even know!
But as my count was always high
I realised it must be so.

After a while I found I heard
Those dreaded words when ‘ere I spake,
Which soon with careful concentration
I managed to eradicate.

My progress made was clear to me
When my evaluator said one night
Nothing about my Um’s or Er’s:
Just said I had a ‘pauses’ blight.

Then in a flash it came to me,
The reason why I had such pauses:
In taking out those Um’s and Er’s
Their unfilled gaps were now the causes!

.

Fantastic! Well done Norman and we look forward to the next verses.

Maybe this should be required reading by the Grammarian at the start of every meeting…

So here we are in mid January and what’s happened to your New Year’s resolutions? If one of them was to improve your public speaking and presentation skills, have you started yet?

Here are 6 tips to get you going:

1.  They key word is “improve”. Whatever your skill level now, you can get better. Even the great speakers we know today and from history, such as Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Luther King, had to start somewhere. Margaret Thatcher famously spent many hours developing, with a coach, her speaking voice to enhance her appeal to the public. Churchill spent hours rehearsing those well-known speeches in front of a mirror, over and over again. Whatever improvement you make is progress . If it is standing in front of an audience that you fear most, then that is where to start – building confidence. If you do presentations at work but think they are ‘boring’, then you may need to work on the structure  of the speech or the vocal variety in your voice. Whatever level you are at, forget absolute targets like “I want to speak like Obama” and restate your target as an improvement from where you are now.

2. Get advice. Public speaking is a topic – it can be learnt. Centuries ago, when speech was the main form of communication, it was taught as a study subject and known as  “rhetoric” – the art of being able to construct spoken words and sentences to make an impact.   There are books, experts and clubs out there that will help you decide which aspect of your public speaking is good and what can be improved.

3. Join a Toastmasters Club. If you are reading this, you are probably already aware that there is a Toastmasters affiliated club in Maidenhead that meets every two weeks. Active members get to speak at almost every club meeting – that’s a LOT of practise.  Why else join a Toastmasters club  ? Well for a start, the ‘secrets’ of becoming a confident public speaker are distilled down into 10 projects that you work on as part of your membership. Learn how to make an impact, learn how to inspire an audience,  learn how to add variety to your voice and use body gestures confidently. And, of course, meet other like-minded people who are there for the same reason you are.

4. Watch, listen and learn from the best. The speeches of the famous can be found on YouTube and other internet sites. You can buy or download audio of the best speeches in the world. Notice the good speakers on TV and Radio.  Notice the way the sentences they speak are constructed, how they use pauses, and the rate at which they speak. Good speaking is all around you if you take the time to listen. It’s probably best to focus on one aspect of a speech when listening to  it to learn. For example, in Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, notice how the pauses in the speech are in a very different place to where you would see commas and full stops  on the written page. Pauses and change of pace are used for dramatic effect.

5. Practise, practise, practise. Unfortunately you cannot improve your speaking skills by reading and watching only – although that helps. You need to practise and this is where finding opportunities to do so is important. The good news in my experience is that most people DON’T want to speak in public. So when there is a need for some announcement to be given , a reading to be made, a meeting to be chaired, or a presentation to give to a network group,  if you volunteer you will more often that not get chosen! Choose to speak and learn from the experience – most audiences are a lot more forgiving than you think. And who knows where it might lead..members at our Toastmasters club have offered to give after dinner speeches to ‘fill a gap’.. and gone on to make money from speaking.

6. Finally, if you are going to speak soon, take some tips from project 2 in the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual. Organise your speech. It should have a strong opening, a well structured middle and an impactful end. For the opening steer away from the obvious “Hello..” and “My name is…”. Plenty of time to say that later – whilst you have the audience’s full attention say something that will grab them and make them want to listen to the rest of your speech. For the middle section, the key thing is to make sure that what you are saying links to the argument or point you are putting across and that the way you present them makes it easy to follow where you are. Lastly, at the end, leave with an impact : re-state the point or points you want to make, highlight the conclusion, or ask a rhetorical question.

You too can be a better speaker in 2012. It takes a little bit of courage, some planning and commitment, but, who knows, one day we could be learning from your speeches on YouTube.

How many times have you heard people criticise your Powerpoint presentation skills?

“Too many words per slide“, “the slides detracted from your presence“, “too many slides“,  “you looked at the laptop and lost eye contact” and so on.

So here’s an excellent example of HOW to do it from Pranav Mistry speaking at TEDIndia.

Notice in this presentation , among other things:

• Words on slides, yes, but only to emphasize the spoken word
• Mix of pictures and video – most laptops perfectly capable of this now
• Speech and slides synchronised

OK, so this is a big event and he probably had an army of IT and communication experts helping him put this together.

Still , food for thought when you are next using Powerpoint.

For some excellent advice on putting together your next Powerpoint presentation , try Andrew Abela’s Extreme Presentation Method.

(Incidentally Andrew  happens to be an old school friend of mine, who I lost contact with when he emigrated and then made contact with again via a random coincidence in a bar in London – how it happened will be a topic for a speech one day!)

Liam

Toastmaster Mireia Fontbernat offers some tips for making better use of G&T

No, it’s not the drink you should reach out for before an important speech. It stands for “Gadgets and Toastmasters”.

Technology is everywhere. And, all too often, we think that it has nothing to do with us and speaking. Many a presenter has been known to use gadgets as a distraction.

Propping it up
Granted, we need to get the basics right: we need to be able to provide a structure talk, with interesting content for the specific audience, and with the appropriate delivery techniques, such as body language, voice variation… Then we can include props.

Props must add value to our speech; they should act as prompts for us, reminders for the audience and support the structure of the presentation.

The next stage is technology. Gadgets are very tempting – from PowerPoint® to video, from bullet points to animations with sound – we should be able to enhance our presentations with these.

When all else fails
In addition to enhancing speeches, technology has another characteristic: it fails. Badly.

You should at least prepare three different speeches when you use gadgets or technology: one version with all technical aspects working fine, a second one for technology failing – at any point – mid-way (you may even have your own joke about it, but do not imply you cannot do the presentation without it), and a third one for those unfortunately not-so-rare cases when technology refuses to work before you even go on stage.

It is additional work, but if you have been through the experience just once, you will agree it is well worth the extra effort.

And unless it is very obvious, you don’t even need to tell your audience that your speech was intended to be different!

The sky’s the limit
There are enough guidelines and books about how to use technology in speeches, and we all need to find our own way to use them.

But – how about extending our reach? Why should we limit ourselves to using gadgets in our club speeches?

You can visit and participate in other clubs’ meetings, but you can also use technology to reach out to new audiences, try new media and enjoy the process.

Out of the comfort zone
Some technologies may feel very threatening already in the club atmosphere. It may be asking a bit too much to try these in the wild.

Here are the reasons why you should try:
1- You are experimenting with new areas, therefore learning
2- You can always remove things / keep them private
3- Ask your mentor if s/he would like to review this extra-curricular speeches

Take the G&T challenge
Don’t run for the drinks cabinet just yet… Take this little test first:

Which areas do you find most challenging? (Look at your past feedback slips)
a) Content and structure
b) Body language
c) Voice variation

Depending what you answered, pick a challenge from the list below to stretch yourself.
a) Content and structure

• Try using Tony Buzan’s incredible Mind-mapping software. You can download trial software for free.
• Blogging and more BloggingWhy not try writing an article about your next speech and blogging it on the MSC website.
• Take some PowerPoint® courses,then prepare a Powerpoint presentation for your next speech.

b) Body language

• Short videos: Post a short video of yourself.
• Live video streaming:  Share every-day life experiences with your friends and family, as they happen.

c) Voice variation

• Start phlogging (i.e. phone blogging)
• Create your own podcast (you don’t have to post it on the web!) – get your kit.

Good luck and don’t forget to reward yourself if the technology works. If the gadget fails, you can always have a real G&T anyway!

Full disclosure: The author has been commercially or financially involved with some of the companies and services mentioned above (namely, Microsoft and Qik).

There are countless videos out there on the topic of public speaking but for 40 minutes of fun and useful tips, this video of Daniel Wagner speaking at Trojan Speakers in Ealing is worth a look.