Peninsula Toastmasters Club

Meeting Review

District 74 – Division D – Area D3

Editor’s note: this article is a lot longer than our usual reviews, but I would recommend you read it if you want a great synopsis of a successful evening, to get a good idea of what a Toastmasters meeting is all about and an excellent example of a general evaluation.

Speakathon

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Tafelberg Gardens Tavern

By Alma Nel

‘As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it be cracked or not; so men are proved, by their speeches, whether they be wise or foolish. ‘
- Demosthenes

Introduction

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of my meeting evaluation, I have to say that for me, and I believe for the other participants and guests, the meeting was a success and lived up to its expectations by giving Toastmasters, also from other clubs, the opportunity they needed to get one step closer to completing their particular manual. The clubs that arrange evenings like this are building towards the advancement of the Toastmasters in their division and district, and deserve all the praise they can get for their contribution, so well done Peninsula on a successful evening!

After once before having participated in a Speakathon, I have to say that this was different in only one way…the guest speaker, David Gurteen, delivering a very interesting Knowledge Café – Workshop.

The inclusion of a guest speaker, who basically fulfilled an education slot, was a very nice addition to the evening program. His exercise allowed us to break the ice and it gave the speakers time to warm up their vocal chords.

I hope that more clubs will make it a point to include Speakathons in their year roster and I hope that more members will be able to attend these to support their club in achieving their goals.

Venue

Tafelberg Gardens Tavern has become home to many a Toastmaster club. It has a superb location for those of us who work in the city, with ample parking, large rooms to accommodate from the smallest to the larger club events, catering with light snacks or meals, and a cash bar.

The instructions to the venue are straight forward and even though many of us opt not to drive in the wrong direction of what appears to be a one-way street leading to the venue…secretly that short drive pleases the rebel inside you and you take the plunge to bend a rule.

However, upon entering the venue, there was a small A4 direction to the hall placed in the entranceway white board. This, in my opinion, may have been a little too small. I applaud you for actually having a direction indicator up, but would suggest you try to enlarge it to fit on an A3 or even better an A4. Perhaps the club could invest in having a color poster printed which would indicate which club is hosting that evening and to welcome you as you put your foot in the door. Adding an adjustable direction arrow to this will mean that the club can re-use the poster for all their events.

Because a big attendance was expected, the large stage hall was booked…which in itself had some pros and cons. It could clearly accommodate a large group of persons, only problem was that a large group did not pitch. It was unfortunate as the large hall would have been great had everyone attended. The acoustics were not great, especially since the hall was virtually empty. Having used the Tavern previously for such large groups, I am aware that one of the other dining areas would have been suited for the event, and would still have been perfect if the entire group did not attend. It would have made for a more intimate experience and greater ease of conversation between attendees during the breaks.

The good part of this hall was that it is away from most noise which is normally experienced when using the other rooms in the Tavern. This allowed for an uninterrupted evening where the speakers did not have to fight to be heard over the rhythms of samba music from the next door dance class.

I am all for dimmed lighting…in a romantic setting. But for an evening of speech delivery, where you have evaluators that need to make notes and read objectives out before the speakers deliver their masterpieces, or even for those speakers who have to do interpretive reading, the dimmed lighting was not a good idea. Nor so was the highly powerful main stage light which was on as it was too bright for the audience to properly see the speakers, and if the speaker was standing by the lectern to deliver the speech, he or she would be shadowing the light and their notes would befall into darkness.

Lighting at the Tavern is a major issue in all of its rooms and this will have to be addressed with the management. The other larger dining room would however have provided sufficient light and room for the event, even if it may have been too noisy.

Hooray for Toastmaster Time

I have a pet peeve…I believe that my time is as important as anyone else’s time, and if you are late to a meeting with me, you are disrespecting me and saying that you are more important than I am…at that point I simply get up and walk out.

Following my reasoning, without a doubt, I know that Toastmasters respect me!

I am proud to say that most Toastmaster meetings I have attended always, always started on time. This meeting was a wonderful example of everyone at their posts, and on time. Thank you for that.

S@A (Sergeant-at-arms)

Without an enforcer, we would have chatted up a storm and no speeches would have been done.

Kirsten, although soft spoken, did a wonderful job.

The room was set up and arranged on time. The club banner was prominently displayed in front of the lectern. At my eye level I could however not see what ribbons the club has accumulated, and I suggest that the banner rather be placed at a higher and more prominent place for the next meeting.

Agendas were distributed and waiting for us on the tables. All the guests were warmly welcomed and signed the guest book or forms that were circulated. As the S@A is normally the first club official at the meetings, I would suggest that this officer take it upon him- or herself to not only great the attendees, but also ensure that the guests and new members are introduced to other officials as they arrive.

Although the S@A did not distribute the guest kits, they were distributed to the guests at the end of the evening.

The S@A further ensured that all the speakers’ needs were catered for and that the food was ready on time.

El Presidente

We think they can do everything…and that is because they actually DO everything. President, Vice President Education (VPE) and Toastmaster of the Evening… Yes, Ana was every woman!!!

Apart from a few glitches due to the change in program and absence of the VPE, the evening was very well chaired by Madam El Presidente.

Ana did the Welcome and Loyal Toast flawlessly. Although she did not have knowledge of all the agenda changes, she did ensure that those changes did not impact the evening adversely.

The tiny gavel was passed correctly throughout the evening to ensure that the air of formality was not lost in the more modern Toastmaster evenings held in Cape Town…because you know Capetonians are just more chilled out.

The theme of the evening, being a Speakathon, was well prepared and the short discussion on what we could expect was done within the time allotted.

Ana kept the meeting flowing smoothly and did her best to keep all items within the allotted time. All the speakers, including the guest speaker and evaluators were given a short and appropriate introduction.

Guest Speaker

We might just have converted him into becoming a Toastmaster. David Gurteen presented a shortened version of his Knowledge Café – workshops. His presentation was very well prepared, and even adaptable to the now much smaller than anticipated group of attendees. The content was personalized and was relevant to the audience. Even though the discussion went over the allocated time, we hardly noticed.

‘For all our knowledge, we have no idea what we are talking about.’ My memory of the speaker’s actually phrasing may be wrong…but wasn’t that the point? During our daily passage through time, we participate in many different conversations. For each of these, we hold our own memory or interpretation of those conversations, whether this is correct or not.

David explained the process he uses during his cafés as consisting out of various smaller conversations. Groups of around 20 to 30 people normally attend, with 4 to 5 per table. Each group is given the topic for discussion, and given 10 to 15 minutes to have a discussion or conversation about the topic. Some of them rotate to other groups between 3 to 4 times. They then return to their original groups and then the entire group has a feedback session as part of a whole group discussion. There are no leaders in the groups. The report back is not single person specific and no summaries are made at the end. This process enables each person’s view and interpretation of the topic to come to the fore, without installing the perception of a leader’s view on the group’s discussion. This ensures further that the outcome from the workshop is what each individual takes home from the experience.

These workshops have 2 goals, to foster better understanding of the topic and a better understanding of the perspectives in the room.

The topic up for discussion for our session was ‘The importance of conversation in the business environment’. The entire group eagerly participated in the discussions. It almost turned into a featherweight fight between the Digital Natives and the Fuddy-Duddies. It was a pleasant learning experience and this is also why the time allocated was not stuck to, and also why we did not really mind.

The venue used for the Speakathon was not ideally suited to David’s workshop style, however the event was none the less successful.

Food, glorious food

The snacks were on time, more than enough due to the over booking and were very good.

The only glitch in this section was the late collection of the snack contribution by the Treasurer. Perhaps it is because the club has a policy I’m not aware of…like if you don’t like the snacks you don’t pay for them? Perhaps all clubs should introduce this.

The reason for our gathering

Speakathons are wonderful opportunities for speakers to get that bit closer to reaching their targets for the year. It is a wonderful addition to the otherwise normal Toastmaster program and should in my opinion be used more often.

Ana gave an effective introduction for each speaker and also explained the purpose and importance of prepared speeches for the benefit of the guests. For each of the speakers she called on the evaluator to explain the objectives of the speech project, to explain the timing procedure, gave an appropriate introduction that is speaker specific, and invited the audience to welcome the speaker. The evaluators proceeded to fulfill these functions with precision.

What I particularly enjoyed was the fact that Ana repeated the speech titles twice before inviting the speakers to the lectern. She was also considerate enough to remind the evaluators of possible aspects of the project they forgot to mention.

The main event! The speakers were exceptional and entertaining.

Lois, always inspirational in her repeating of projects, showed us superb storytelling in the form of a CC4, in her speech titled “Too High A Price”, the story of Daedalus and Icarus vividly came to life in all our minds. Meticulous as always, Lois remained on time and finished on 6 minutes 40 seconds out of the 7 minutes allowed.

Craig, although there was slight confusion as to the level of CC he was going to do (a CC8 I think), taught me something through his speech…how to effectively manage my present total of 1208 messages in my in box. In his speech titled ‘GTD’ (getting things done), he gave us tips and further research resources to enable us to effectively manage our offices for maximum efficiency. Craig did however go way over his allotted time of 7 minutes, all the way into 8 minutes and 49 seconds.

Mike, an exceptional story teller, had almost everyone drying a tear with his CC6 titled ‘Our precious life’. A story of young adventurous boys tempting the fates with their free spirits…almost ending in great misfortune. With tearful jubilation Mike completed his speech in 7 minutes 5 seconds, out of the 7 minutes allocated.

Vanessa, the young entrepreneur, had us guessing with her speech/sales pitch. Her CC6 titled ‘Tag and release’ contained a slightly strange yet very effective correlation between great white sharks and children, and the fact that as species they should both be monitored but also allowed freedom to explore and grow. Actually it made me suspicious and I started to wonder if that bump on my arm was in fact a childhood injury or whether my mother is still, at this very moment, monitoring my every move…hey, maybe that is why we always think they have eyes everywhere. Vanessa completed her speech in 6 minutes 39 seconds, out of the 7 minutes allocated.

Richard, in delivering a reading of a particularly interesting story in his AC23, reminded us of what men would do for money…and what women would do to men. In his speech titled ‘Dip in the pool’, he really made his characters come to life. Richard completed his speech in 8 minutes 24 seconds, out of the 10 minutes allocated.

Lindsay, in delivering his AC23 by doing a speech made famous by an icon in his own words and emotions, was the epitome of bravery and guts being played out through a powerful delivery of a truly memorable speech. In the delivery of his speech, titled ‘I have a dream’, he had all of us on the edge of our seats, listening intently, even if we have read or heard the same speech so many times before. Lindsay delivered his speech in 13minutes 20 seconds, out of the 15 minutes allocated.

Did I pass?

The evaluators did a very good job in ensuring the speakers stay motivated and still delivered constructive criticism to help them improve even more. Even those evaluators who evaluated speakers doing speeches on higher levels than the evaluator him/herself was did very well.

I have to single out the evaluations done by Francois, as I thought these were done exceptionally well, and if he would be so kind, I would like him to do one of my future evaluations.

Evaluators are given between 2 and 3 minutes to deliver their feedback. Most of the evaluators went a bit over time in giving their feedback.

In giving their feedback the evaluators must:

• Organize their evaluation with a clear opening, body and conclusion
• Focus on the specific project objectives
• Personalize their language
• Provide an evaluation appropriate to the experience level of the speaker
• Appear sincere, positive, motivating, enthusiastic and build self-esteem
• Provide specific examples of what the speaker did well
• Show the speaker how to improve

Richard took 3 minutes 7 seconds, and delivered a wonderful evaluation. Tim took 3 minutes 6 seconds, and delivered an evaluation in which I would have liked the objectives of the speech and how the speaker either met them or not to be highlighted more. Vanessa took 2 minutes 2 seconds, and delivered an evaluation in which I would have liked more personalization rather than using ‘we felt’. Francois took 3 minutes 40 seconds for his first evaluation, and 3 minutes 41 seconds for his second, although both were considerably over time, as I stated above he delivered exceptional evaluations. Lois took 4 minutes 40 seconds, although considerably over time it was worth it for another exceptional evaluation of a speech that was in itself very well delivered.

Time is money

The time keepers stuck to only timing the speakers and the evaluators. In a standard meeting the time keeper has a much larger job, and need to time everything from the Meeting start time, Toastmaster theme or word of the day, Education presentation, Table topics, Speech evaluations, reports, and the overall meeting.

The time keepers did however do an exceptional job in recording that which was expected of them for this evening.

On the point of time, many factors played a part in the fact that the meeting went 20 minutes over time. But with a bit of practice and extra time provision in the agenda, that ought to be sorted out for future meetings.

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and this evening was no exception to that rule

Fin

‘Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger.’

- Franklin P. Jones

Overall the evening was a success, and that is what really matters. I cannot stress it more that I believe more of these evenings must be introduced into the Toastmaster calendar year. Gradually start by introducing one in your club, and then expand these so that it becomes another mingling experience for more clubs to get together and achieve those personal and club goals.

The speakathon is also a nice break from the usual meeting agenda with all its formalities and talk of business. Rather than talking of business, it gives members a chance to just talk.

My nit-picking of what happened and what didn’t should not discourage anyone from attending future meetings or speakathons, but should serve as constructive criticism to improve on future events such as this.

Onwards and upwards Toastmasters!