The Public Speaking Blog

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.

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!