The Public Speaking Blog

This week, I was asked to give a Table Topics speech.

It was the first one I’d done for a while. I didn’t have a role, so I was looking out for who would be “Table Topics Master” from the moment I arrived at the club. Well, this week it was Geoff – who’d evaluated my Icebreaker, last year. He was sitting in the row in front of me.

“I’m watching you, Mr. MacLeod,” he warned.

Right, thought I. That’s it – I’m bound to speak. And I started to consider what I’d say when he called me up.

Sure enough, I was the first one he called. The general topic was “Spring”, and he particularly asked me to talk about “Paris in the Spring”.

Wow – what do I know about that?

When you get a table topic, take your time going up to the front. Never say the first thing that comes to mind.

The first thing that came to my mind was my father. We had a disastrous holiday in Paris as a family in the eighties, and after that he always sang, “I love Paris in the Spring-time…. …but that’s because I’m never there!”.

Unfortunately, with no consideration of the Francophile audience, I said it. Doh!

Well, I seemed to get away with it – and some people laughed.

I’d prepared myself while I’d been sitting waiting, and had a speech in mind. It was based on a true story about an English teacher. However, since the topic was “Paris in the Spring” I changed him into a French teacher.

The teacher had set me an assignment which, of course, I’d left it to the last minute and I had to tell him I hadn’t done it!

He was fuming.

When it came to doing the next assignment, I learned my lesson – I lied. You see, I told him I’d written an excellent assignment but I’d been stopped on my way to the lesson. A pink elephant had floated down from the skies and he trampled all over my poor assignment.

“Sacre bleu,” said my (now) French teacher, who was delighted. He thought the story was wonderful. (Believe it or not, this got a laugh.)

And so, said I rounding up, it just goes to show you can get away with anything if you have a decent story. I was meant to be talking to you today about Paris, but I got away with talking about pink elephants.

Except, I didn’t. I knew it was a cop-out. The way to really give a table topic speech is to keep it on topic. My approach (trying to quickly adapt an existing story) made this hard. It was amusing, perhaps, but it wasn’t really the object of the game. Maybe I need a new approach?

I watched the other table topic speakers intently, and noticed a trend. A lot of the more experienced speakers (including Joyce, who won the evening’s “Best Table Topic” ribbon) use the topic to describe a scene.

I could’ve described all the things that come to mind when you think about Paris in the springtime – and let’s face it, there are plenty. There are the steps up to Sacre Coeur, the hussle and bussle of the Champs Élysées, the view from the Eiffel Tower, the freshness of the air.

So, this is my resolve. For my next attempt, I will try to describe the scene. It might not get so many laughs, but it will be a fresh new speaking challenge.

This month, we had a couple of meetings where I had no assigned role, but was lucky enough to get a chance to speak both times nonetheless.

On the 12th of March, I was asked at the last minute to evaluate Lorraine’s humorous speech. Lorraine is a very confident speaker who spoke at this year’s humorous speaking contest – so I knew I’d have my work cut out.

It’s much harder to evaluate a really good speaker. Firstly, you have the feeling you’re not really qualified to comment – after all, I’ve only been going to Toastmasters for just under a year.

And then, you have the problem of just understanding the project. The beginners’ speaking manuals have clear, step-by-step objectives. In the later manuals, the objectives get more sophisticated, and there tend to be more of them.

Finally, you have the difficulty of actually finding something constructive to say. When the speaker is too good, it’s awfully hard to find something they can improve on.

And so it was with Lorraine. Her speech had been prompted by a newspaper article she’d read, about the decline in the number of marriages.

It was a charming speech, with lots of clever puns and word-plays. It was extremely hard to find something to suggest to improve it. Perhaps, I thought, the punchline timing could’ve been stronger, once or twice, but that was splitting hairs. And then, I thought, it had been brave of her to make fun of men so often – after all, half the audience were male.

I had a close to my evaluation ready – I wanted to finish with a reference to a Britney Spear’s bikini (which had been one of Lorraine’s jokes). However, despite all attempts at a strong finish, I still made my usual “and that’s all I have to say” close. Why do I say that? I’m still working on it…

In the end, Lorraine got the “Best Speech” ribbon – and the “Best Humour” ribbon too. That just goes to show you how great her speech was. But I was proud as punch to get the “Best Evaluator” ribbon. Lorraine said we had a clean sweep!

On a separate note, we were treated to Sheila’s entertaining speech on the value of a smile. The point she made was how much you can affect the environment around you, with a simple smile. Whenever you greet someone you know, smile. When you meet a stranger, smile. The world around you will be brighter. Even babies just a few weeks old know this!

And that’s true. Sheila’s speech made me think about my little daughter, and her lovely smile. It made me smile all week.

This week, I did something a bit different.

Till this point, all I’d really done was get up there and tell a silly story. Indeed, that is what I’d been planning for the this week’s speech too.

Until, that is, I talked with Nina at our annual “Tall Tales” contest. Nina was to be Toastmaster for the evening, and she encouraged me, suggesting I try something a little more challenging.

And I thought about it.

I thought it would be nice to put forward a point of view, to argue in favour of something, but all I could come up with was a contentious topic – though one I felt quite strongly about.

Many people at the club have given strong speeches about the environmental issue and the negative impact we humans are having on our world. While I’m certainly not against that, I do feel this argument sometimes goes too far. I felt there was possibly an interesting, alternate point of view to present here. However, I was a bit worried that speaking out would rub one or two people the wrong way.

Again, Nina really helped. She called me up and told me that I could go for it. She said I should do something a bit contentious, if I felt like it – why not?

In the end, I really wanted to bring in the environmental debate, but perhaps not directly. So I decided to focus my speech on defending Top Gear, one of my favourite TV shows. I would never have had the confidence without Nina.

Top Gear has had a lot of criticism lately. Being a show about fast cars, not only does it often come out on the wrong side of the environmental debate, but a presenter was nearly killed last year, in a high speed jet car. This caused an outcry. Many people had argued in the press at the time that the show should be stopped.

Well, thought I, in my speech I would argue why the programme should not be banned.

With all my concerns, though, it was a difficult speech to construct. I began by identifying 3 key things people dislike or complain about Top Gear, so I could address them in turn:

1. Irresponsible Use of Speed
2. The Environmental Impact of Fast Cars
3. Jeremy Clarkson (one of the presenters)

I thought putting Clarkson down as a main complaint all by himself would be funny. And it did get my first laugh, and helped lighten the mood a bit.

In defending the show’s “irresponsible use of speed”, I argued that it all came down to freedom – freedom of choice and freedom of information. Surely, as long as these fast cars remain legal, it should be legal to drive them fast on a race track? And, as long as it is legal to drive them, it should be legal to show them on TV too?

TV presenters should be free to choose whether or not they want to do such dangerous things as drive fast cars. After all, sky diving is dangerous, yet presenters do that. Even golf is dangerous, so where do we draw the line?

Likewise, the programme makers should be free to report on it. After all, we’re free to choose too – we can choose whether or not we want to watch.

It seemed to go down OK, so that brought me to the second argument – the environmental issue. I knew this was the point that would make or break the whole speech.

I began by stating that the world is getting hotter – and agreeing that this is almost indisputable. It is equally clear that many people blame the car. However, cars are still legal, I argued, so it is only fair that we be allowed to show them on TV. Surely, we should ban the fast cars themselves first, before looking to ban the TV programme?

Here, I got very lucky. When doing my research, I found this report, showing that livestock actually accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of human transport added together. I put it this way:

But before we do ban the car, let’s first check the evidence.

Now, I’ve done some research on this and there’s a United Nations report which was published late last year. It turns out that a full 9% of CO2 emissions do, indeed, come from…

…the cow!

It took the audience by surprise, and (to my surprise) it really got them laughing out loud.

By the time I had pointed out that cows account for a third of the world’s methane emissions (a third!), most of them were rolling about laughing. I hadn’t intended it to be so funny.

This had been the hardest part of the speech to write, the part I’d been most worried about. All week, I had worried I would seriously damage my reputation in the club, that they would mark me down as an environment ruiner. I certainly didn’t want it to appear I did not take the issue seriously.

And yet, on the day, I could see I had somehow won them over – most of them, at least. At the very least, I could see the audience felt I’d put forward a fair case – albeit in a glib and silly way.

For my third point of complaint, the presenter Jeremy Clarkson, I introduced him by linking in to “cow emissions” (which brought a few groans). After this, I told them:

Some people say Clarkson is a big buffoon of a man, a man who always likes to trivialize the most serious issues.

This would be very disturbing – if you took him seriously.

But why would anyone take Jeremy Clarkson seriously? After all, he once described a slow car as having “all the acceleration of Henry the Eighth” – this is hardly serious journalism!

Well, the audience were still laughing from the cow debate and this gave them fuel to laugh even more. It doesn’t seem that funny on paper; I think I could have said almost anything at this point and they would’ve laughed.

At the end, I came back to my main theme – about freedom of choice and freedom of speech. I closed by saying that I find Clarkson amusing, but if there are people that don’t, that’s fine. They don’t have to watch the show, if they don’t like it.

They can always watch something else. Or they can tell me they think the show is rubbish, and tell me why. I’ve no problem with that.

But I argued that I love the show and they shouldn’t stop me from watching. They shouldn’t ban Top Gear. Let me decide for myself.

As it happens, Lakshmi, my line manager from work, and his wife, Sudhu, had come along to the club that night as guests. It was the first time I had ever given a speech in front of someone I knew from outside Toastmasters. They certainly gave me lots of support and encouragement: before, during and after the speech.

It was my scariest speech yet – but also my most deeply satisfying.

The night before, I’d been up all night and had hardly slept at all – a real bag of nerves. After the speech itself, when I eventually got to bed, I still couldn’t get to sleep. This time, sheer adrenaline was keeping me awake. I’ve never known a buzz like it.

Last night, I was asked to step in as an evaluator at the last minute for Noni’s Icebreaker.

I remember how very nervous I was on my own Icebreaker speech, not so very long ago. And I was impressed by how very calm Noni appeared to be, at the start of the night.

I tried to remember all the wonderful things Geoff had said to me before my icebreaker. Right there, I could only remember a very few of them. I found it hard to find much of value I could tell this apparently calm person.

Her speech was great, of course, which made it even more difficult for me to find something to help her with in my evaluation. There were moments where she had hurried a little bit, so I pointed that out. But then, she’d also made such great use of ‘the pause’ – so I was sure to mention that too. It was an interesting speech about her coming from Cyprus across to England – twice! It carried all of us, with its light, humorous look at bad weather and British pub life.

For myself, I enjoyed getting the chance to give this evaluation and hope I did a good job for Noni. One thing I need to work on is my close – I never seem to know what to say at the end of an evaluation.

Last night was no exception – I mumbled about how well I thought she’d done and then said something like “and that’s all I can think of to say”. Hmm. That’s something I’ll be working on.

On another note, Keith gave a funny table topics speech on blogs – and how he’d never read one. He compared blogs in general with those letters people send you at Christmas – you know, the long, photo-copied, impersonal ones. He said, whenever he’d tried to write such a letter himself, he’d found it hard not to come over supercilious. And he imagined a blog must be a similar thing. After all, he told us, what makes blog-writers think anyone wants to read their regular outpouring of views?

This week, I was acting as Table Topics Master for the first time.

It didn’t go too well…

In fact, I started off badly and continued in the same vein.

As Table Topics Master, it was my job to choose the topics (short, impromptu speeches) and then pick the club members they should be assigned to.

Beforehand, I had picked 6 topics based on the theme of “New Year’s Resolutions”, and printed these out on little bits of paper so that each speaker could choose.

The first mistake I made was in not identifying my targets well beforehand. At Toastmasters, there’s a rule that you should not pick someone who is
performing another role that evening. The first person I picked was Muryel – who was already evaluating for someone else. I was in such a panic, choosing people at the last minute, that I missed this completely.

She correctly pointed this out right away – and I’m afraid this made me somewhat nervous for the rest of it.

Somehow, I fumbled through till, at the end of the session (all speakers having been called), I completely messed up the summary. I should have announced that now was the time to vote for best Table Topics Speaker, and summarised what each had said. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten who had spoken on which topic!

What could I say?

It was only good fortune which saved me – Norman had written this down, and called out the details for me.

In summing up my performance at the end of the night, Club President Mireia gave me a few useful pointers. Apparently, I’d apologised for my performance throughout (I was nervous!) – and this wasn’t necessary. I’d also apologised for picking on certain of the club members when I really ought to have congratulated them. We don’t want to give the guests and new members the impression this is some dreadful punishment!

But I’ve learnt my lesson. The next time I am called to perform this particular duty I will prepare 2 lists:

1. A list of all the club members, so I can identify the ones I cannot choose (i.e. those performing roles) at the start, by scoring them out.
2. A list of all the topics I have prepared – so I can write the name of the speaker against each one.

That should make it easier to choose appropriate candidates – and easier for me to provide a clear summary at the end.

If I do this in future, it will certainly be less nerve-racking!