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.
