Early Progress
Belonging to teams, groups and clubs has always given me pleasure despite the irony of not being especially sociable. None of my previous experiences prepared me for being part of a Speakers’ Club. Now what? I’d paid my subscription, got my Competent Communicator manual and been struck senseless by two words ‘Ice Breaker’. The VPE was obliquely intimidating me by asking how to spell my surname to get me ‘booked in to speak’. The vice was closing as my first speech was being squeezed out of me. I was in more than a spot of turmoil; I was in the Club calendar!
Seeing your name there was like looking at Lord Kitchen’s poster. The words ‘Ice Breaker’ give the shivers when it’s you doing the ice-breaking. Like other times in life you invest your worries in one issue and miss a torpedo coming from another direction. Table Topics saw me front and centre at my first meeting as a member. Even today I remember the subject: ‘messing about in boats’. Once it was over and I had returned to my seat I developed some animosity for the timer. I thought they said 2 minutes for topics not ten. My officially declared time turned out to be 1 min and 50 seconds. Of course getting the first topic out the way sharpens your mind. Camouflage; from then on I looked to be Timer or even Grammarian as an avoidance strategy. It failed.
My Ice Breaker was rehearsed in all possible venues. In my home was easy until I was asked ‘who are you talking to Daddy?’. The car was simpler and the commuting train enabled memorising. Closer to the day there was involuntarily practice in the bed around about 3am. Not sure if I was rehearsing or being haunted. The blighted evening arrived and, like most, I told my life story which offered no chance of correction or contradiction. For me that 4-6 minutes was a huge event, a collection of emotions that had never gathered together so intensely. Nobody in the room turned a hair but applauded politely and smiled warmly. This was normal. My Evaluator delivered his verdict with true compassion. Yesterday I looked at the Evaluator’s notes from that tortured evening. They included ‘some confidence and a good use of humour’. The only confidence I felt was in getting out of and back to my seat.
My continuing stumbles through Toastmaster meetings in those days were all lessons for life. Do something, fall over, get up, learn, do better. I’m still at Maidenhead and glad to be there. Most of the faces have changed but the spirit, support and sweat remain. Unexpectedly I was to change clubs before a couple of years had passed.
–Ian Rees
Maidenhead Speakers Club 