The Public Speaking Blog

Last night saw our special Christmas meeting, the last of this year.

Accordingly, many of our members brought along food, and the club provided red and white wine. Magdalena, my lovely wife, kindly spent most of Sunday baking a delicious chocolate cake which I proudly brought along.

Since my mother was staying with me at the time, I’d asked Club President Mireia if it would be OK for Mum to attend. It was, and she really enjoyed her evening.

I had a role too - Sergeant at Arms. I was responsible for making sure it all got started on time. I think I did OK, but we did start a few minutes late (Toastmasters are difficult to herd!).

We had lots of Table Topics speakers but only two main speakers for the evening, to make time for food and drink.

The table topics were all on the Christmas theme, followed by two excellent speakers: Marion and Muryel.

Marion’s speech was especially dramatic right from the start - and in an unexpected way. When she took the floor and looked back at the audience, there was a little pause. Then the pause grew a little longer - something was wrong. Marion said something like “Oh, I’m sorry; I’ve frozen” before very graciously sitting down to compose herself.

It was the right thing to do. It gave her time to get her opening back together and, when she stood up again, she got back into the flow of her speech. Slowly at first, but then more confidently, she built the picture of her story.

The story was dramatic too and, because of her well structured speech, as well as the surprising entrance (and super recovery!), we found ourselves gripped throughout. She took us to a cold and lonely ski lift which she was trying to help her son desperately get up. Each unsuccessful attempt drew more strength, and we all waited anxiously to hear if they would get back before the cold night drew in.

It was a great talk, made all the better by its image of a cold, snowy mountain, a perfect tale for the time of year. Oh - and they did make it home that night so it had a happy ending too. Marion closed by telling us the experience had taught her to accept help when it’s needed, and to remember to bring a functioning mobile with you, when you’re out on the slopes.

Our other speaker was Muryel - she of “How Many Feet are in an Apple” fame. As with her last speech, her talk was on food, this time discussing the history behind the various Christmas treats.

She bravely ended on a comparison of British Christmas Pudding with her homeland’s “La Bûche de Noël”. The Brits were never going to come out ahead in this comparison (well, she is biased!).

Mum evidently enjoyed the whole evening but was quite surprised when Mireia invited her to speak about it, at the end of the night. Mum spoke for a few moments about her fear of speaking, the wonderful atmosphere at the club and how much it had surprised and encouraged her.

She spoke confidently, and her words were well thought out. Given how well she talked, I wondered why she was so afraid of talking in public. I was so proud of her.

PS: If you read this blog, why not leave me a comment? I always reply - usually within a day. Just click on the “comments” link under any recent post.

Well I thought I’d be in for a quiet week, but I was wrong.

Despite not having any roles planned for the evening, I was asked at the last minute to step in as evaluator for Andrew.

Furthermore, at the start of the night, I was asked to give the first table topics talk (”My Most Exotic Meal”) - so much for having an easy night. I must admit I let out a bit of a yelp when my name was called!

But I got up there and did it. It wasn’t too bad. I started off with a story about my Mum & Dad, to buy me some time to think. Before meeting my father, Mum studied and learnt 366 recipes, so that he would never be bored. Then, when they finally got together, she learnt that all he really liked was “Mince & Tatties” on Monday to Saturday, and Steak on a Sunday! She still has the poor unused recipes in a folder somewhere.

That was how the evening started. And then, at the end of the night came Andrew’s speech and my evaluation.

He was giving a speech from one of the advanced programmes, and his project required him to have a questions and answers section afterwards.

Andrew was speaking on an interesting topic too - global warming, with a speech entitled “Some Like It Hot”. Now it is often said (and it was this Monday) that you’re best steering clear of sex, politics and religion - at least when it comes to
public speaking.

Andrew resolutely ignored this advice. He even made a joke out of it. He went through each of the UK political parties in turn and analysed their response to global warming.

For him, in this speech, it worked. He certainly had no problem getting the audience to ask pertinent questions at the end. It just goes to show there are no rules to speaking that apply all of the time.

And do you know what? Despite my having been so nervous last time, I took this evaluation in my stride. This time, I wasn’t eating myself up with questions beforehand. Perhaps because it had been sprung upon me, I simply felt that I could do this, that I’d make a good show of it for Andrew. I felt good about it for once.

I feel like I’m getting somewhere now, that I’ll be actually not just able to do this public speaking lark, but I’m starting to actually relax enough to enjoy it.

Maidenhead Speakers Club is changing how I feel about speaking, and how I feel about myself too.

I had my first job as evaluator, last night.

In some ways, this is even more nerve-racking than speaking. I was evaluating Muryel, one of our most entertaining speakers. I knew I’d be given 2 mintues at the end of the night to give a complete and interesting account of how she performed.

And there’s the crunch - it’s someone else’s speech you are talking about. You don’t know what the speech will be about beforehand, so you can’t really prepare.

In my case, I did know the speech number Muryel was speaking from, so that meant I could look at the notes before the speech. Her main speech objectives were to use body language well to convey the message.

At the start of the meeting, I asked if there was something in particular she wanted me to watch out for. She said the timing was her biggest concern.

Muryel’s speech title was “How many feet are in an Apple?” She talked about how far your fruit travels before it gets to you, and the impact this has on your “carbon footprint”.

Before the speech, I took a blank sheet of paper and wrote the key speech objectives as single words, taken from the Toastmasters programme notes. Then, as she was speaking, I made points beside each of these words on the page. As soon as she did or said something that matched one of the objectives, I’d link the points with the objective and write brief notes. Then I highlighted important points with a circle or star.

At the end of the night, I stood up when called upon and went through each of Muryel’s  objectives in turn, describing how she’d done, and giving examples. 2 minutes isn’t a lot of time, so I kept it simple.

Before the evening, one of our members had recommended I:

• Say something complementary
• Give a single suggestion for improvement
• Close with another complement

That was good advice, and I stuck to it. I started by talking about some of her more successful points, talked for a bit about how to improve and then closed on some more of her accomplishments.

In the end, I think I covered most of it, though I did forget to comment on her timing (which she’d asked for).

Muryel gave a great speech (she won the vote), and I think this made my job easier, though it meant it was hard to find some constructive suggestion or advice for her.

Yesterday evening, I gave my third speech at Toastmasters.

This time, it was the second speech from the Toastmasters “Leadership and Speaking Programme”…

I gave a talk about coming back from Germany on a motorbike. It was a funny trip - I’d overloaded the bike and had no idea where I was heading, so I thought that would make a good topic for my speech.

I started the speech by marching up to the floor with my motorcycle gear on - even the helmet, with the visor down.

However, this time, I found one or two of my jokes fell flat. It’s hard to push on when your best punchline meets stunned silence!

But push on I did, and I got to the end of the story. I was much less nervous this time - I didn’t rush through it, and even found occasion for the odd pause.

At the evaluation, I was pleased to learn a bit more. Apparently, I’d held the helmet and waved it around when it might’ve been better to put it down on the floor.

Still, at the end of the night I was amazed to hear I’d won another blue ribbon! When the votes had been counted, I’d been voted the night’s best speech. The competition had been stiff - Pravin had given a particularly hilarious speech about all the things that went wrong on his honeymoon.

It just goes to show, you never know. This has been a speech I’d really practiced and honed, though on the night I’d had to plough through it, a little disappointed by the response. Clearly, though, it had gone better than I’d thought.

This week, our weekly meeting took the form of a humorous speech contest - apparently, an annual occurrence.

There were four very funny speeches from some of Maindenhead Speakers’ finest. In particular, I was impressed by Sheila, who discussed Toilet Grafitti. While this did call for the odd smutty joke, Sheila always dealt with the subject with class. It is incredible, the gravitas she brought to this subject! (That was funny in itself.)

There are no evaluators as such for a competition - instead, there are judges, who mark all the speeches against set criteria, giving point points for each. The points from each judge are then combined to give a winning score. I wasn’t surprised when Sheila’s toilet humour won the day.

My job for the evening was timer with Joyce, one of the club’s most experienced members. We had a great time and got so carried away with the funny speeches, it was hard to remember to light the correct timing lights. Still, one way and another, we kept each other right, and all the speakers finished on time.

The other interesting thing about the meeting was that the table topics were judged too. After the main speeches were over, the table topics speakers were asked to leave the room. Then each was called in and given the same topic - how they would plan a campaign to help people overcome the number one fear, learning public speaking.

I was surprised that the Table Topics speeches came after the main speakers - on a normal meet, this is the other way around. Joyce explained that this is to let the poor, nervous contestants off the hook as soon as possible!

I gave my second speech last night - a supposedly humorous look at my complete inability to plumb in a dishwasher.

It was only my second speech, but I broke with convention and used project 4 from the Toastmasters “Communication & Leadership” programme. The event (installing the dishwasher) was still fresh in my memory, and I hoped it would make a funny speech. It didn’t suit the second project, but the objectives of project 4 fitted perfectly.

(In Toastmasters, you can change the order of all but the first and last speeches. However, they recommend you don’t. The programme is ordered in this way for a reason: the speeches build on one another. Still, I ignored this advice. I hoped my speech would be interesting enough to justify it!)

I prepared as I had for The Icebreaker, but with a twist. This speech started out as an email I wrote to my Mum! It made her laugh, and we both thought it was a good basis for a speech. I re-wrote it out in full, before preparing bullet points on cards, the day before.

Well, on the night, I was really nervous. It was a complex speech, about a catastrophic chain of events that led to my almost flooding the whole street. The trick was to remember all the little links in that chain.

I got up there and started rabbitting on about how much I’d wanted this blasted dishwasher. My first couple of jokes fell totally flat. A sea of blank faces stared back at me. I stoically carried on regardless.

Then, a real stroke of luck. In describing the moment when I broke the cold water pipe, I deviated a bit from my written speech:

As I screwed in the self sealing tap, I was faced with a jet of water. You see, the tap would’ve been self-sealing, but I’d forgotten a very important rubber bit. I’d left it on the table!

A spurting stream of silver shot onto the kitchen floor. It gave all the stuff I had lying around a right royal soaking.

Well, I reacted immediately - I panicked!!

I must’ve really looked panicked too, because this really broke the ice. At this, the audience were laughing out loud, now - real, genuine laughter, not the apologetic “we’ve been there too” kind.

I was on a roll.

The whole previous week, I had worried that the speech wouldn’t be funny. It is hard, looking at words on the cold page to see if they’ll bring the right reaction or not, on the day.

But, somehow, I had done it - by just saying what felt right in that moment. As I went on to describe the ridiculous things I did with my hammer, the stopcock and the freezing water, I had them laughing in the aisles. It felt great.

Indeed, I got a bit carried away. Before long the red light was on and it was time to wind it up. I tried my hardest to get through the closing story about the mains stopcock, the concrete and the water board man, but it was no use. I was over time by 5 seconds, and so disqualified from the night’s voting.

My evaluator for this speech was Steve. He did a great job, encouraging me at the start of his evaluation and then pointing out one or two wee things I could improve. I still have a tendency to clasp my hands, and my movements at the start of the speech were distracting and a bit nervous. Steve was sure that I’d achieved all the objectives for this project, and he liked the phrase about a silver jet of water.

It was over, and they had laughed. I don’t know whether they were laughing at me or with me - and I don’t care. They laughed and enjoyed it, and that’s more than could have hoped for.

This week I wasn’t speaking but acting as timer.

This involved lighting 3 lights (green, amber and red) at appropriate intervals, to warn the speaker that time is up. It also means checking that all speakers are within time. You can’t vote for a speaker who has run over.

The most important point on the timing is that the speech starts when the person starts speaking - not when they take the stage. For most speeches in the Toastmasters programme, the timing is green at 5 minutes, amber at 6 and red at 7. The Icebreaker speech is an exception to this (with lights at 4, 5 and 6 minutes).

Table topics speeches have lights at 1 minute, 1 and a half and 2 minutes, as do evaluations

That said, some of the more advanced speeches do have longer times, and
speeches over 12 minutes have longer evalations too - but I was lucky
to have only standard times to deal with.

In each case, the speaker gets 30 seconds after the red light to finish up - after that, the speech will no longer be eligible for voting in the evening’s best speaker contest.

On the day, the hardest part was the club stopclock! It makes an audible beep when you start and stop the timer - which I was quite self conscious about. I didn’t want to distract the speaker with the loud peep. Steve put my mind at ease - they are used to hearing the peep when they start speaking.

This task can count as part of the Leadership programme, and Steve kindly evaluated my performance as timer for this.

So, I was preoccupied with this duty and there was no speaking for me, this week. However, at the end of the meeting, Mireia (our President) announced there was still a slot free for the 11th of September. My hand went up - so I’m now up to speak then. I’d better start preparing, hadn’t I?

I gave my first speech, yesterday. The first speech in the Toastmasters programme is called “The Icebreaker”, and aims to let you start speaking in front of an audience, and to show you skills you already have but are perhaps unaware of.

I started by searching the web for advice. Some sites recommend asking yourself certain questions: the What/When/Where/How type of thing. “What do you do (for a living)?”, “When were the most significant times of your life?”, “Where do you come from?”, and so on.

Well I took a look at the first question and thought, “Gosh! I’m a programmer! Now, who wants to hear about that?”.

So that got me a bit worried.

Then I talked with my wife, Magdalena, and she was very calm. Having been a Toastmasters club member in London, Magdalena has given a couple of speeches in her time, including her own Icebreaker. So she’s been there and done it.

She suggested I just talk a bit about my life - going to live in Germany - and maybe a bit about my grandmother, who was German, as the connection.

That calmed me down a bit. After all, my Grandma fled the Nazis! What could possibly be more interesting than that?

So I decided to centre the story around her fleeing Germany and then tail it off with my going back. Now, I knew this was a bit dangerous - it was about her, not really about me - but I thought, “What the heck? It’s at least an interesting story.”

By now, I had enough to make a first stab at it. I sat down in front of the word processor and hammered away - I wrote the whole thing out in full, as if it were a blog entry. And now that I was thinking more clearly, I actually found benefit in my being a boring old programmer - I made that the start of my speech. I wove in a story about a guy I knew who had a a way out of this, which I thought was funny:

“The Icebreaker – A Chance to Speak About Yourself”

Crumbs.

What could I possibly find interesting to talk about myself? For 4-6 minutes?

Well, I’ve been reading up on it a bit. Many sites suggest you talk a bit about who you are, what you do and where you come from. Answer the what/where/when/how questions.

So many difficult questions at once! Could I even answer them to myself, let alone a room full of experienced speakers?

Well, what do I do? It’s a fair enough question. A lot of people define themselves by what they do. They expect you to do the same. “I’m a dentist – what do you do?”, or “I’m a teacher – who are you”? They want you to answer with a clear profession, so they can mark you down as that kind of person.

But what should I say? I mean, I’m a programmer. There, I’ve said it. It’s not very exciting, is it? It’s not a good icebreaker at parties. Why should it work here?

I could call myself a “Software Engineer”, or an “IT Consultant”, but you’ll see through that. Within minutes, you’ll have me down as a reclusive nerd – who likes to fiddle with wires, tap keys and twiddle with gamepads. On his own.

Now maybe you think I’m being hard on myself, but I know I’m not the only one who feels like this. A guy I used to work with – Richard – was a geek, just like me. He fixed the software for a large bank. But he had an answer to this question – he lied. This wasn’t a once-off, Richard always lied. Whenever you asked him what he did for a living, that is.

He always said he was an artist – now, how cool is that? And because Richard had perfected this act over a number of years, he’d developed the story further.

 “First I cover the canvas with tar,” he’d say, “then I roll all over it – naked. At the end, I’ll have died a little, but I’ll be a bigger man than I was before I started.”

The speech then went on to say I thought I’d be better off telling a story than answering questions, and I told the story of my grandmother’s fleeing the Nazis.

So there was some progress, and I’d made a rough start. The next thing that happened was that Keith, my mentor for the first few speeches, very kindly called me up. While he wouldn’t be able to come this time (he has a speaking engagement - lucky Keith!), he did give me some excellent advice.

The best advice Keith, or indeed anyone else, gave me was: “If you think you’re more likely to run over time than under, have a closing statement prepared which you can bring into action at any point near the end”.

Ah, the closing statement. That was the one thing I hadn’t really got together, but I could see it was a gem of advice. If you have a flexible enough statement, you won’t run out of time. And, as Keith also pointed out to me, nobody in the audience knows all the points you wanted to cover. As long as it fits together, you’ll be able to wind up as soon as you get the warning from the club timer.

I thought a bit more about it, and came up with this:

Now, I know it was a bit cheeky talking so much about my grandmother when I ought to be telling you about myself. But do you know what? By telling you about my grandmother, Marta, I think I’ve finally answered those questions, the what/where/when/how. You probably know a bit now, about who I am. And where I came from.

Madame President, fellow Toastmasters and - especially - honoured guests, I hope this story has helped me accomplish my first speech goals, that it has told you a bit about me. And I hope it has broken the ice.

I thought that by facing the fact I’d cheated (I told my grandmother’s story, rather than mine) head on, I’d pre-empt any serious criticism of it. It’s hard to tell someone they’ve done something wrong, if they’ve already apologised for it. Or, that was the theory any way.

And I now had a closing statement I could roll out, as soon as I needed it. As long as I could get the speech somehow to the bit about my having gone back to Germany, I’d be fine.

In my word processor, I did a quick word count - 1,488. A quick google search revealed I should be looking for about 140 words/minute, so this was over 10 minutes’ material. For the Icebreaker,  you’re aiming for 4-6 minutes, so there needed to be some judicious culling. I tried to get it down to 5 minutes.

To do this, I crossed out sections and words on the printed page, and then read the speech out a couple of times, straight from the print-out. I repeated this a few times, until I was comfortable it was within the right sort of time period.

One thing to watch out here (thanks to Geoff for this tip!), you will probably get a little nervous on the day and your speech rate will increase. Mine certainly did. So it is a good idea not to aim for the absolute minimum (4 minutes).

Anyhow, after I’d got the speech into the right sort of length, and I’d ironed out one or two bits (removing any secondary fluff), I was ready to transform it into bullet points. Basically, I went through the whole speech with a pad of paper, and I wrote down significant words and phrases onto the pad.

Then Magdalena, my lovely wife, very kindly typed these out onto 2 cards for me (my writing is appalling!) And I was basically done, and ready.

On the day of the speech itself, I took the cards to work and, at lunchtime, I went for a walk in the park. I repeated the speech over and over to myself, timing and using only the bullet point cards for guidance. The people walking their dogs and looking for a quiet spot of lunch must’ve thought me quite mad as I raised my hands and talked to an imaginary audience, but I persevered!

By the time I got to  Maidenhead Speakers Club, that evening, I was nervous but well prepared. I learnt that Geoff was to be my evaluator, and he really helped me with tips on timing and on avoiding Errms and Ahs. One thing he said which really helped, “If you are going to Erm, you’ll know about it, so don’t do it! Take a pause instead.”

I know, it sounds simple enough but it really helped me.

I was to be first speaker up, so after the table topics, and the grammarian had been and gone, I tentatively awaited my call.

When it came, I nervously walked up to the stage, taking in a deep breath so my first words would sound calm. I shook the hand of the evening’s organiser (Caroline, who did a super job!), and thanked her for the introduction. Then I launched straight into my opening statement:

“The Icebreaker – A Chance to Speak About Yourself”

Crumbs.

I looked at everyone in the audience, trying to make eye contact with as many people as possible. I seemed to have their attention, so that was a good start.

When I got to the jokes, they laughed - in unexpected places. The stuff about my being a nerd got the biggest laugh, so I extended the story about fellow geek Richard a bit. And they loved the word “naked”!

Maidenhead Speakers Club has a number of very experienced speakers. They’d all been there before, and they knew how it felt to give your very first speech, so they were a very kind audience. When I got to the bit about my Grandmother coming to Scotland to die, emotion overwhelmed me and I felt my voice crack.

There was a real danger I’d lose the plot and start crying, but I managed to pull myself together and finish the speech.

There are 3 warning lights near the back of the hall, to tell you when you’re nearing the end: green, amber and red. You can stop after the green one, but when you get to red, you’ve only got 30 seconds to finish, or you’ll be over time. I’d made my mind up at the start to try to get to amber, and to close then. Thankfully, when the amber light was lit, I was ready to discuss my return to Germany, and finish the tale.

I forgot quite a lot of the stories about my life in Germany but it didn’t seem to matter, and the amber light was constantly in the back of my mind as I tried to finish what I had to say.

Dazed, I rolled out my closing statement, passed the stage back again to Caroline, shook her hand, and staggered back to my seat. Apart from preparing in my seat beforehand, I hadn’t used my notes at all - I had just managed to get into the flow, to tell the story as if to a small group of friends. To be honest, I’d forgotten about the notes, but it was comforting to know they were there, on the lecturn, should I just freeze.

Once you’ve completed your speech, there’s a chance for the audience to comment via little bits of paper. All comments were extremely kind - I’m sure they’re especially forgiving, for your first speech. I got some positive feedback, though. I learnt I’d held my hands together quite a lot towards the end of the speech (right enough, though I was unaware of it at the time), and I’d been projecting my voice quite loudly right the way through. Perhaps, one person suggested, it would have been good to vary it a bit and have a few pauses? Great - this is what I came to learn.

The other speakers were, as usual, fantastic, but my mind was muddled, going over and re-evaluating everything I’d said, so I found it had to concentrate on them.

Then came my evaluation, and Geoff got my full attention as he stood up to comment on my speech. I was completely focused on what he had to say; I was scared to breathe! But he was extremely kind, the main criticism being that I’d told my grandmother’s story, rather than my own (Yes, I’d been expecting that).

And do you know what? At the end of the evening, when the votes were counted, my speech had been voted the best! I was amazed. Caroline called me out to the floor again, and I received a little blue ribbon to prove it. I can’t tell you how good that felt; there had been some truly excellent speakers, that night.

After the meeting, I had a chance to go over a few more notes with Geoff again, and he warned me I’d “set the bar quite high”. Perhaps now, some of the club members will be expecting more from me than I can actually deliver right now. Another member, Gaye, told me she too had been voted the best on her first speech, and it had taken a while to do it again. I certainly won’t be expecting another blue ribbon for quite a while.

But, I’m not too worried about that. It felt fantastic to get it on my first night. It’s going to keep me going for quite a while.

This week, I had my second table topics speech, and I made a real hash of it.

Unlike the first time, where I’d had some prompting from Helen (our then president), this time I was called up without any time to think about it.

And I was told I should talk about the worst job I’d ever had to do.

Which should’ve been easy enough. I was clear on what it was: working in a pea factory in Scotland. Now, this was a truly awful job, and there are a whole host of memorable and funny anecdotes I could’ve drawn on.

But my knees went to jelly, my mind to jam and I couldn’t remember anything much. So I blubbered on about the peas till the yellow light was lit, and I felt I’d done enough to be excused.

Pretty poor show, but at the end I felt relieved. After all, I’d not done very well but my first “cold” table topics speech was over. It hadn’t killed me. And I could live to fight another day.

Another Monday night meeting is successfully behind me. I still haven’t got up there and strutted my speaking stuff, but it was good to take part and hear some excellent speeches.

The “Yes, but…” Man

The quality at Maidenhead Speakers Club is outstanding, and now I’ve been going for a few weeks I can really see the improvement in some of my fellow members, even if I have yet to do much speaking myself.

The first real speaker of the evening (real, as opposed to table topics or educational speaker) was David. I’d seen David speak a couple of months ago (actually, on my first night) and while his good humour had come across, and he’d really given a great speech, there was certainly some evidence of nerves that time.

This time, however, he was much more relaxed; better able to deal with the subject matter. One or two “erm”s crept in, but it was a great speech to listen to - really funny. I was especially impressed when he attempted to do a Brummy (= Birmingham, for non-Brits) accent - and failed. He fluidly managed to turn it into a joke and moved on.

His speech centered around an anecdote, about a Portugese person he’d been on a sales training course with, or given a training course to - I forget. Anyhow, this Portugese chap would not/could not accept responsibility for anything. No matter what the circumstances, his reply was always “Yes, but…”.

Now, this was interesting. Books on improving your public speaking will tell you it is important to use self-deprecation in your speech humour. And here was David centering his theme on a fault of someone else. It was funny. And it worked…