The Public Speaking Blog

My main objective in joining Toastmasters was to be able to give a speech easily, even off the cuff. For me, the Toastmasters programme is a means to that end.

Toastmasters encourages you to follow project steps in turn, learning a new skill from each. A couple of weeks ago, I gave my sixth project speech, objective “using voice variation”.

But I was lazy.

I came up with the idea of telling a few stories about my sister because, well, she’s very interesting. There’s a lot to say about my sister Marta, and that was my speech title decided: “My Sister Marta”.

This time, I really did prepare the speech in well under an hour. I didn’t even bother to time the speech beforehand.

And yet, it all went fairly well. I didn’t use notes (partly because I hadn’t really made any), and I didn’t say a single “Um” or “Ah” throughout.

If you are feeling lazy, here’s a quick formula you can use.

1. Choose a subject for which you have several anecdotes(I could tell stories about Marta all night)
2. Think about those anecdotes for a couple of minutes before the speech - pick out the ones with the funniest punchlines.
3. Think up a strong opening.
4. Finally, most importantly, think up a strong close.

And that’s it. With that, I found I was able to give a speech which flowed well, amused the audience somewhat, and kept within time.

The key to it all is choosing a close you can apply at any time - ideally, one which relates to your opening.

I started the speech by telling everyone that people think I’m weird. They think I’m eccentric, I said, but if you think I’m weird, then you should meet my sister Marta!

I told a couple of amusing stories about when Marta had come to visit, and then how we had gone on holiday to Austria together. This was easy, as these were stories I had already told friends.

It was also much helped by the fact that Marta did some pretty wacky things - like finding a large branch (yes, with leaves) to take back to boyfriend Dougie. That would’ve been fine, only she discovered it was full of “beasties” while we were tearing down the Autobahn at eighty miles an hour. She wound down the window and shook all the beasties out. We were quite a sight, our car charging down the motorway with a branch coming out of the window, shedding leaves and beasties all over the car behind.

At the end of the speech, when I saw the red light coming on, I wound it all up by saying that eccentric my sister Marta may be. She may even be a little weird - but I tell you, audience, there is nobody better to go on holiday with than Marta.

It was simple, but it brought the speech together nicely, and it tied in with my opening.

It felt really quite easy, giving this speech, and it was great I’d been able to finally do it with so little practise beforehand. My evaluator, Norman, even commended me on giving the speech without notes - saying this must’ve required a lot of preparation.

It didn’t.

There was a drawback to my approach, however. I didn’t meet the project objective - using vocal variation. And, yes, this was exactly the same mistake I’d made the last time I’d spoken.

On the same evening, Ellen was giving a speech for the same project. She chose a story about a car crash as her subject. This gave her great opportunity to speak quietly, describing the “time going slow scene” as a car careered towards her, and then loudly, as she described the impact itself.

It met the objectives dead on, and she learnt specifically how to use volume to great effect. I could’ve done the same, with the stories about going on holiday - there was plenty of opportunity for quiet and exclamation.

So, there are two further points to add to my formula above:

1. Read the speech objectives carefully
2. Think about how these can apply to the anecdotes you’ve chosen (or choose new ones, if they can’t)

It may sound obvious, but it doesn’t seem so. At least, it doesn’t the first time you stand up and speak. But you will get used to speaking.

The way to become more relaxed or natural when speaking, is to make it second nature. You just have to speak a lot of times.

Toastmasters really helps. If you go along regularly, the (soon) familiar environment helps - the same four walls, the same faces. It becomes quite routine to get up there and speak. The more often you go, the more accustomed you become.

Taking an active part in the club helps - even if it’s just turning up each week. Being Sergeant at Arms has really helped me.

The job brings a chance to be a little more involved, and that’s good in itself. It’s good to help out by collecting voting slips, buying the milk and making the tea.

It also gives me the chance to say a few words at the start of the evening, and again after the break. I’m the warm-up guy.

Sometimes, I capture the mood, and get the audience really laughing - and there is no better feeling. And there are other times when my jokes don’t work, I stumble or have nothing to say.

Last Monday was the second kind of evening.

I had a joke ready - actually a funny headline I’d read outside a newsagent’s, last week. It was so odd, I had to read it twice.

DEADLY SKUNK
FLOODS LONDON

Well, I thought this was a great image - I mean, just imagine it. How big would this deadly skunk have to be? And what could he have used to flood London? I thought I could talk a bit about the massive skunk diverting the Thames.

Looking back, when I read it outside the newsagent’s, it took me several minutes to realise this skunk was drugs, not a smelly mamal. That’s what I thought was funny. And, of course, that’s why it fell flat. It took the audience just as long to understand me - I didn’t give them time to digest the image.

Then, of course, a lot of them were thinking about the actual meaning, and they thought it very serious - not something to be laughing at. Most of them just didn’t get it - a lot of them thought me completely nuts, I’m sure.

But that’s OK. It barely got a laugh - so what? I know I won’t get it right every time - and they’ve seen my sometimes idiosyncratic ways before. There was still a slight buzz of anticipation before, but afterwards I didn’t feel nervous or disappointed. I’m just not getting so worked up about it all any more. I’m getting used to it.

There were three great speeches and several Table Topics. The Toastmaster, Steve, made a point of telling us Toastmasters should be fun.

It was.

Michelle gave an amazing second speech on the Northern Rock banking crisis - really informative, and bang up to date. It could’ve been dry, but it captured my attention. She described it so clearly. Her lilting Irish accent is entrancing.

Tom gave a hilarious speech on, “You can tell the boss to take the job and … …I’ll let you finish the sentence”. Very, very funny - he had the audience rolling about.

And then there was Paul. Paul gave the last speech of his first 10 “Competent Communicator” speeches. And wow, didn’t he look comfortable and relaxed!

This was the same Paul, who’d given 9 previous speeches on serious topics, carefully chosen to match the speech brief. This was Paul who, on previous occasions, had started nervously, who’d conscientiously broken down each subject, who’d carefully held notes in his hand throughout.

This speech was more like a conversation with a friend than a lecture. He talked about holding your aspirations in the palm of your hand. He drew analogies with the trials of sailing, and of grasping the nettle. It was engaging and natural and very, very enjoyable.

I would love to have had a video of the first speech I saw Paul give, to compare it with last Monday night. It would be like night and day.

Last week saw a special meeting of the club - an annual contest. Actually, there were two contests - one for humorous speaking, the other for table topics.

The humorous speaking contest was, well, amusing. It had me laughing out loud. We had Pravin, Steve and Amanda, all on form with their funny stories. There seemed to be a rough theme emerging of love, blind dates and mechanical break-downs. Pravin’s story of a honeymoon watermelon car crash has to be heard to be believed.

It was also a chance for everyone to give a brief “30 seconds” table topic - on public holidays, and whether or not we should have more of them.

That was the main table topic - public holidays. It being a contest, each table topic speaker spoke on the same topic, but they had the advantage of knowing in advance they would be speaking, and were asked to wait outside the hall, so they couldn’t hear their competitors.

As Sergeant at Arms, it was my job to call each TT speaker in turn, as the judges evaluated the previous speech.

I opened the evening with a confessional. I’d intended to buy the address “www.publicspeaking.co.uk” for this site. Instead, I mistyped it and ended up with pubicspeaking.co.uk! Oh well, at least it’s memorable…

As I mentioned briefly a few posts ago, I now have a minor (but vital!) role on the Maidenhead Speakers Club committee - Sergeant at Arms.

I’d been Sergeant at Arms a couple of times as a stand-in for Keith last year, and was asked to take the role on “for real”, when he moved on to higher things (V.P. PR).

It’s the lowest rank on the Toastmasters committee pecking order. Right now, that suits me. I’m responsible for making the tea, bringing the milk, telling the odd joke, calling the meeting to order and collecting (and counting) the voting slips on normal club evenings.

I also order supplies (milk, coffee, tea and flip charts) and go along to committee meetings, though I don’t deliver a formal report. I really use it as a chance to try out as many funny stories as possible.

Last night was a committee training session for local Berkshire clubs, and I went to that. Clubs have to send along at least 4 committee members, so they can claim a point towards their Toastmasters goals.

Usually, the more senior roles are discussed in these training sessions. Still, I didn’t get the feeling I was just making up numbers. As well as (interactive) speeches to discuss how best to perform some of the senior roles (Education, Membership and President), at the start of the evening there was chance for us all to participate. Each club to confer on what makes each club unique. A member of each club was asked to stand up and present the case.

When the clubs shared several of their “unique” attributes, it made me smile.

It was a chance to meet some of the local Toastmasters movers and shakers, and to get a brief insight into other clubs.

Two weeks ago, I was “Toastmaster for the Evening” at Maidenhead Speakers Club, for the first time. The toastmaster is responsible for organising the evening’s main speakers and other participants, and for introducing each participant to the audience. It’s a chance to be the host for the whole two hour event.

It was a learning experience.

I’d decided the evening’s theme would be “embarrassment”. This was a bit risky (it might seem like I wasn’t taking it seriously), but I thought it would be fun and different from the usual “my greatest success” theme.

I used an agenda generated by the d71.org site - it gives you a break down of the evening, with a timeline in the margin. It was an excellent guide and I began well, telling an embarrassing story about the time I mistakenly went into the ladies toilets in a nightclub.

This got a laugh, but I got nervous and rushed on to hand over to the Table Topics Master. When I sat down again, I realised I’d completely forgotten to outline the agenda for the evening, and hadn’t described the Toastmasters mnemonic HATS (Handshake, Applause, Timing, voting Slips).

Then, there’d been some confusion over the Timer’s introduction. On some evenings, timers introduce their role at the start, and sometimes this doesn’t happen - I wasn’t decisive. Nina, the timekeeper, later told me that some of the audience had been confused by this.

I’m afraid there were a couple more sloppy mistakes to come.

I mispronounced a speaker’s surname. I knew her name; it was just nerves on the night tripping me up.

And then, worse, I introduced one of our more experienced speakers as former District Governor, when she’d been Area Governor. Doh! This really made me freeze.

Silly, silly mistakes, which I should’ve avoided. When I do it again, I’ll be sure to compile a clear synopsis of each person before hand, and to double check and rehearse each one.

Compounding my problems, I was nervous and desperate not to show it. As things went wrong, I tried to meet them with an idiotic smile. But, while I tried to be jolly about it, I think this made it look like I didn’t care. My “embarrassment” theme seemed to reinforce this impression.

And, do you know what? If I’d relaxed and conveyed more “control”, most people would not have noticed. But all these thoughts were building in my head. The more I tried to be flippant to disguise my nerves, the more I felt the nonchalance was generating a general atmosphere of chaos.

On the other hand, there were several things I felt happy with.

Before the evening, I put a lot of work into the “embarrassment” theme. I managed to collect embarrassing stories from the evening’s participants, print them all out and fit them in – which was an achievement, as they were complicated. They were funny. Most people seemed to enjoy the evening. At the very least, they got to laugh.

Something else I learned here - it only really makes sense to prepare for the main speakers, the table topics master, the grammarian, the timer and the general evaluator. There’s no point in asking evaluators for their “most embarrassing story” - the story could be longer than their activity. We could end up being there all night.

I worked hard to use the d71.org website, and the agenda had really helped me.

And then, during the break, one of our evaluators dropped out. I found someone (thank you, Keith!) to step in as a replacement at the very last minute, and quickly re-arranged the speeches so he’d have time to prepare. It put the next speaker, Marion, under a bit of pressure but she rose to the challenge. I suspect many people there didn’t even notice.

In his summary, inevitably, our General Evaluator, Eric, commented on several of my mistakes.

I was feeling very defensive. I waited on every word.

He didn’t mention the fact it was my first time. He didn’t talk much about the evening’s humour (which I had put a lot of work into). There was no mention of the missing evaluator, and how I’d dealt with that. “Why not?”, I was asking myself defensively.

But this was unfair. He had the whole evening to summarise, no just my part. Besides, Eric had gallantly stood in as GE. He didn’t know I was nervous and it was my first time. How could he possibly know?

Despite my outward air of triviality, I was taking it all far too seriously.

I’m reluctant to admit I left the meeting demoralised and, to be honest, completely deflated. I’m ashamed to say, I nursed a glass of wine into the wee small hours, feeling utterly sorry for myself, wondering why the hell I’d bothered. I knew I was being an ass, childish, and far too defensive but I couldn’t shake the mood. Eric’s words had not been harsh - they were constructive pointers “for next time”. I was being incredibly over-sensitive.

They say comedians are crying on the inside. I’d played the clown all night, and now I felt utterly miserable.

There have been highs at Toastmasters – this was definitely my lowest low.

This week, Caroline was Toastmaster, and she showed me how to do it. Apparently, she’d stepped in at the last minute; that made it all the more impressive.

Like me, she used the d71.org website to generate an agenda. Unlike me, she started with a proper introduction.

In fact, she introduced the evening beautifully, and gave the whole evening a sense of balance and poise. There was a moment of doubt as to where the break should come in the plan, but she handled beautifully.

I got a chance to redeem myself too. Eric (the GE from the previous week) was Table Topics Master. He very kindly warned me that he’d ask me to come up and give a Table Topics speech. I was prepared in advance.

The general topic was “Role Models”. Most of the topics were very difficult, and Eric chose some of our most experienced Toastmasters to deliver them. However, he kindly gave me one of the easier ones, and he gave me plenty of time to prepare myself by giving me a long introduction.

My topic was “My Role Model, from the Worlds of Business or Sport”.

I started by telling the audience,

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, ‘Who can this fine figure of a man possibly have to look up to? What example can there be for him, when he’s already the finished model?’

Well, you might be surprised but, actually, there is someone…

Then I talked about Richard Branson. I talked about his autobiography (which I’d read), his brutal honesty and how I admire the mood he fosters in other people. It was the first time I’d ever given a Table Topics speech that was completely on-topic.

They laughed at the start, and looked entertained throughout. At the end of the evening, I found I’d won the vote. I’d never won Table Topics before; I’ve always found this hard. I was delighted.

I left the club feeling on top of the world. I was floating on air.

Last night, there were 3 Icebreakers, 3 brilliant first speeches - No notes. I was evaluating Manuela’s icebreaker speech. It was informative, witty, well-structured and extremely entertaining. It was amazing for an icebreaker, and it won the evening’s “best speech” award.

Manuela also used visual aids. Her speech revolved around her travels. Starting in Germany, she went to Ireland where she picked up an ex-husband (well, he became an ‘ex’ later) and headed back to Germany again. Then finally, she changed jobs, and ended up going to the UK. For each country move, she put up a flag of the country. It broke the speech up nicely. It was bright. It was really colourful. It stuck in your mind after the speech was over.

After the icebreakers, Noni gave her third speech, entitled “Move Your Body” - a call to action, to get us all a bit more active. I’ve been putting off joining my local gym for weeks now - so this was poignant for me. One of the aims of the speech was not to use notes, and instead Noni used bright, colourful visual aids - mini mind maps to keep her on track. Beside each point on the display, she’d written little notes to herself in pencil. She could see them up at the front, but the audience were unaware.

Finally, to close, David gave an amazing speech - with only 15 minutes’ preparation, one of our other members having dropped out at the last minute. His was the last speech of the ten that make up the first Toastmasters programme. It was to be an inspirational speech, and the fact he spoke up with so little warning was in itself inspirational. (David has adopted the ‘hour preparation for every speech’ approach for a while now - I call it the Lazy Man’s Way.)

David structured his speech around a few stories. The most memorable was about a friend of his, who’d been asked to give a short speech while he was visiting the United States. He’d expected to be asked to stand up and just stay a few words, but then the host announced the topic and that he’d be speaking for 2 hours!

I’ve just come back home from a very enjoyable evening at Maidenhead Speakers.

It was a special meeting - our Annual General Meeting. Each member of the outgoing committee stood up to give a report on our progress as a club.

Then the new committee was chosen. We have a new President - Amanda, who put a lot into her role as VP Education, last year. I too have a role - Sergeant-at-Arms. The outgoing sergeant, Keith, has done an excellent job, and I have a tough act to follow.

That said, it mostly seems to entail telling the odd topical joke at the start of the evening, remembering to bring some milk, making the tea and collecting the voting slips. I think I can manage this - we’ll see, in a year’s time how I feel about it.

And then, in the “any other business section”, Joyce stood up to say a few “positive” words about… …this blog! I was so surprised. I didn’t think anyone was really reading it, though one or two members have said they have taken a look from time to time.

There was flattering talk about this blog and I might have a new role, but for the first time in ages, I didn’t go up and speak. It was a great chance to sit back and enjoy the show.

Looking back, when I started the blog I hoped to record what I learned from each meeting. To some extent, I’ve done that but I’ve tended to focus on what I was doing each week. This week was a chance to listen rather than speak. It really pays to shift the focus from yourself, to take the time to examine other people.

Marion was our Table Topics Mistress for the evening, so it was up to her to pick people to come out and give impromptu talks. It was her first time in the role, and I thought she did a great job. She chose a theme of ’sports’ - which made me worry just a bit.

At the start, she picked Noni but hadn’t realised that Noni was a main speaker. (Noni is short for Antognoni - her full name was up on the board.) Well, that’s life - things go wrong. Marion handled it really well. She asked for someone to volunteer. Helen put her hand up, and saved the day.

There were some great table topics. Eric really stuck in my mind. He talked about how football was not “about life and death; it’s a lot more serious than that”. We discovered that you need to wear a red hat, if you go round to Eric’s when Liverpool are playing. It’s amazing how few of us knew the European cup final is on Wednesday (I didn’t). We found Liverpool are set against… …er… someone Spanish - Madrid, I think.

Then we got onto the main speakers. Noni gave us a great talk on scuba diving - something I’d never really considered, until now. She described it as “another world”, conjuring images of all the colourful fish she had met. Apparently, we needn’t worry about Jaws - you’d have to be “really lucky” to see a shark. And we shouldn’t be content with snorkelling, either. This is how Noni put it:

Snorkelling is like standing outside a crowded pub, watching football on TV through the window, across the smoky pub.

Scuba diving is putting your boots on and running down the tunnel to go out and actually play the game.

True to form, Muryel talked about food. She told us how much less efficient it is to produce meat than vegetables. Did you know you can produce 16kilos of vegetables for the same resources as a kilo of beef?

“Just think about it,” she would say, after each statement. That was really effective.

As ever, Muryel had an interesting angle. She expressed the difference in terms of how complex the proteins are. She told us, we should all eat less complex proteins, further down the food chain, in order to be less wasteful. We should all be “responsible omnivores”.

Then came Pravin who told us all to write down our goals. He explained how, just a few years ago, his wife and he had done this, and then put their goals up on the bathroom mirror so they wouldn’t forget. A year later, they’d saved enough to move out of their flat. “It’s not enough to have a goal,” Pravin told us. “You need to write it down, and set a time against it.”

There are speakers at the Maidenhead Speakers Club who make speaking seem effortless and completely second nature. Ian, for example, is one. He was Toastmaster for the evening, and did a truly superb job.

Now, I don’t know how long Ian prepares for each of his speeches, but his style is relaxed and it always flows. He looks like he is in his element. Watching Ian speak makes it clear just what can be achieved.

It might take me a while to get there, but at least I can see it is possible. I would like to become as natural and relaxed as Ian - ideally, within 5 years. It’s my clearly defined goal - which I’ve just written down.

Last Monday, I gave my first speech for a while.

The project title was “Your Body Talks”. I was supposed to use gestures and body language to good effect. I already had the topic for my speech, so I retro-fitted it to the project.

My topic idea was self-help and self-teaching books, and how I’d found them interesting but wasn’t sure they helped all that much.

The inspiration came from a story my Mum told me. She’d read a book on improving your memory. It was very interesting, she said, but she can’t remember a single thing about it - can’t remember the author, the title or anything it said.

Which I found pretty funny.

When I gave the speech, I stole Mum’s story, changing it to make it sound like it had happened to me. I was also inspired by my Grandfather, who always said, “If you want to learn something new, then read a book about it!”.

I talked about the “Lazy Man’s Way to Riches,” a book I’d read as a teenager and the first “self-help” book I’d ever read. It promised to make you rich just by visualizing the rewards. Now, I’ve tried this out and, indeed, here I am over 2 decades later - I’m still lazy but I’m not rich.

A real aim I had for this speech was to try to spend less time preparing. For the previous speeches, I’d spent most of the day before preparing. This strikes me as quite a lot of time to devote to a five minute speech - I should be able to do it with less. That was one reason - and then, of course, I am just plain lazy.

This time, I tried to cut the preparation down to just 2 hours. That might sound a bit severe. It certainly made the actual giving of the speech more challenging.

What’s more (or, er, less), I wrote the body of the speech on the morning of the speech itself. I spent about an hour on it. I then spent an hour after work rehearsing and checking the timing.

Of course, it wasn’t as carefully scripted as my previous speeches. I had just 3 small cards of notes rather than my usual 6. Still, I am getting a bit more confident, and I hoped I’d be able to make the speech more “off the cuff” and natural than my previous efforts.

In the event, I felt it went fairly well as a speech in its own right, though it didn’t fit the project objectives well enough. I could’ve thought about some more gestures and given them more emphasis - and practise.

Also, I got a bit rushed towards the end of the speech; my close was not strong. That’s something I’ve been working on - a strong close - but I’m not there yet. If you have something clear, or witty, to say at the end of the speech, it is easy to wrap it up at any time. It gives you more confidence, as the speech moves on. Right now, I’m good at going over and over the speech start before I get up there, but I’m not so good at preparing, or delivering, the close.

Still, overall it went fairly well and when it was voted “Best Humour” I was delighted.

Interestingly, I got talking with David and Pravin during the break and when it comes to preparation they seem to be thinking along the same lines. Unlike many of our other club members, they too have tried to cut the preparation time down. David aims to use just an hour to prepare - which is amazing, given how well his speeches flow.

That is where I want to be - at least for the short speeches. I feel I should be able to define a clear period of time which is sufficient for most of them.

Yes, of course there will be speeches which require more preparation - even more research. For example, I have something special in mind for project 7 - on using visual aids. That is another story.

But I would like to develop this skill to the point where I find it effortless, where I can get up and give a coherent, structured speech fluidly with the minimum of preparation. I want to get to the point where I find it natural, and where I always enjoy it.

I was asked to give another table topic, a short impromptu speech.

Great, a chance to prove myself. The last time I’d given a table topic, I’d gone off topic; I’d used a short anecdote and tried to work my speech around it. This time, I vowed I would use the topic of the speech itself.

And what was the topic?

I was asked by David to act as a reporter, but to report on an event of the past - the introduction of the potato by Sir Walter Raleigh.

Well, I started off on good ground - after a brief talk about drug smuggling (i.e. tobacco), I started talking about the huge impact potatoes have had on Scottish cooking - how we’d be lost without them.

And then….

And then, I floundered. I started talking about how I wanted to talk on-topic this time. I was talking about talking, about keeping on topic but not about the topic itself.

And I babbled on and on until the time was up.

While I may be the least informed appreciator of food, I see now that there were many things I could’ve talked about. I love chips, and baked potatoes are great. How about potatoes wrapped in tin foil and cooked in a log fire? Or the one meal I can actually cook, corned beef hash. Where would that be without potatoes?

As my Mother-in-Law is fond of saying, “We’re all generals after the war”.

Last week, I had 3 tasks to perform - yes, three!

First off, I was supposed to be timer. Then, at the start of the meeting, I was asked to step in as an evaluator for Pravin. Finally, I was called up to give a table topic.

Well, I um-ed and ah-ed about being an evaluator - I tried every which way to get out of it - but in the end, I gave way and said I’d do it.

So I found myself trying to do both main jobs, and I’m afraid I ended up doing neither terribly well. When Norman, the first table topics speaker, went up to speak, I was deeply engrossed in my preparation for the evaluation. I let poor Norman talk and talk, and it was only when he asked if the timer was still alive, and everyone looked around and laughed, that I actually realised I’d forgotten to start the clock!

How embarrassing!

Later, Paul called me up to give a table topics talk about swimming under water. I started by confessing I now know what it feels like to drown.