New York Toastmasters

It was a privilege to attend New York Toastmasters' meeting this week, because it was a members' only meeting, comprising an educational session and breakout sessions, all on the subject of evaluation, and I was invited along as a guest speaker, to give them material to evaluate. My speech was "The Limerick Toastmasters Club"

They're a very big club and really well organised. I was dialing-in from a hotel in Didcot (see here) and the wifi was a bit shaky so it was doubtful whether I would be able to connect - although thankfully I did. And the meeting was a load of fun. They certainly take their toastmastering seriously.

Written feedback is given by everyone, is not limited to the usual tiny little feedback slips, is given over two minutes, which is twice as long as my club allows, and is distributed by email. Accordingly it is amazing and detailed:

In addition to all of that, and to evaluations workshops in breakout rooms, I had a great live evaluation from Nodira Akhmedova.

I've given this speech twice during the run. Both times were superfluous to the pathway - I achieved level 3 without it - but it was always part of my planning to give more speeches than were necessary, in case something went wrong along the way. I don't have a video of either evaluation, but on both occasions my evaluator suggested one point for improvement, which is that the speech would end better with a callback to the wedding mentioned at the start. I don't think I'll perform it again without incorporating something like that. Maybe along these lines:

In public, there's nowhere to hide.

So when speaking there, do it with pride!

Thus I call on you masses

To charge up your glasses

And let's raise a toast to the bride!