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Saffron Walden Speakers Club
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Our Blog  (Saffron Walden Speakers Club) 
Meeting summary - 28 July 2016

Hello!

What an exquisite meeting we had last night at the Saffron Walden Speakers club!  Thank you to everyone who was able to come along.

For those that couldn't make it (and those who did but have slept since then), here's what we got up to....

Alex, our club president, kicked off the meeting with his usual enthusiasm and provided a warm welcome to our members and visitors.  I had the privilege of being the Toastmaster for the evening, guiding us through the planned agenda which was designed to allow everyone to practice their speaking and leadership skills.

Miranda delivered her first speech at the club.  A delightful introduction to her venture into sculpture, and of sculpture at all scales.  She even brought some exquisite pieces that she had made.  Our club members certainly have a wide array of talents!

John spoke to use about The Hero With A Thousand Faces.  An intriguing title indeed.  John told us about Joseph Campbell's work on comparative mythology, and in particular the idea of the "Hero's Journey".  This is a very helpful idea for speakers and storytellers or all kinds, and he really brought the topic alive by illustrating it with examples from Star Wars.  It was informative, educational and entertaining.  This was John's third speech at the club and we can already see how well he's doing.

Our third speaker of the evening was Steve Wellman.  Steve talked us through how the Toastmasters educational program worked, and how both the communication and leadership tracks work together to help us all develop. He explained how the program can be life-changing, and shared with us some experiences from his own life that helped us to understand it.  Thanks Steve!

In Toastmasters clubs, we learn by putting ideas into practice and by getting constructive feedback.  This continuous process of evaluation and feedback provides us all with support and guidance about the things that we're doing well and things we could do differently to have even greater impact.  This evening, Debbie, Kevin, Steve and I had the pleasure of providing these evaluations to our speakers.

Club meetings aren't just about prepared speeches though.  Most of us don't spend our lives delivering carefully crafted speeches and presentations, and instead we often need to respond to impromptu questions.  Being able to understand the question, quickly gather our thoughts and provide a meaningful, concise (and occasionally witty) response is a useful skill.  To help us develop that skill, Kevin Baggs led us through a fun session where we talked about "the reasonable man on the Clapham omnibus".

Throughout the meeting, Fiona performed our Grammarian role - helping everyone to improve their use of language, and providing us with the challenge of using the word "Exquisite" as much as possible. Charles helped us to focus on our ah's and um's and other filler words that can be distractions, and Lewis provided guidance on timings until the penny dropped.

We certainly packed a lot into just two hours.  Thank you once again to everyone that was able to attend - you made it into a great evening.

Another meeting is planned for 11th August at Saffron Walden town hall -http://meetu.ps/c/2KQ...­

Will it be as exquisite as this one?  Come along and find out!

Steve

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Posted: Saffron Walden Speakers Club, 29 Jul 16, 11:24 by Steve Campion    Comments:


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