Friday 18 November turned out different from the way the VPE had expected, because many members were unable to be there (this is a university and it's still exam time and assessments are due). Therefore the idea of everyone practising their evaluation skills was something we dropped, but instead we had another three speeches (like last meeting), seriously!
Robyn will be speaking at a conference soon, so her speech was a shorter version of her conference paper. She presented a critical commentary on the reporting coming from a prominent Australian think tank. Robyn, a social scientist herself, gave credible reasons, well explained in the talk, to show why she doubts the thoroughess of this think tank's 'research' in one particular area of its fields of interest, and why she thinks public statements about its research are misleading. My take-home message from Robyn's speech was that it could be sensible to look carefully at the group's findings in other research areas, to see if they appear well-founded.
Jim, a long-time Toastmaster and former scientist himself, evaluated Robyn, focusing, as we do in Toastmasters, on both the good points and the points for improvement, the content and the speech structure. The VPE had invited Jim to do this because he has long experience of presenting conference papers, and knows the different requirements there compared to a Toastmasters speech. (Nevertheless, the ultimate aim in both arenas is to convey a message clearly.)
Ann was up next, 'speaking to inform' (that's the title of one of our Toastmaster communication manuals). Ann prefers to bring humour into her speeches, but the challenge for the particular project in this manual was to present a report in a professional manner, conveying a clear message, and then to answer questions from the audience. To meet that requirement yet keep the subject light-hearted or amusing, Ann's report was a description of two pieces of research published (several years ago) in the Annals of Improbable Research. One tested the proposition that the landscape of Kansas (in USA) is 'as flat as a pancake', and the other tested the idiom 'you can't compare apples and oranges'. The Annals (AIR is its acronym!) are associated with the famous international science awards called the Ignobel Prizes, so you can see this serious speech had a tongue-in-cheek element to it. Ann's take-home message was serious (of course!): think about comparisons; don't just accept them at face value. The audience asked several penetrating questions, making Ann glad she had prepared carefully for this particular project!
Claudia, a relatively new member of the club, gave a thorough evaluation, with useful points for improvement (e.g. speak a bit more slowly), and plenty of encouragment. We enjoy Claudia's evaluations, and other speaking, partly because of her warmth and positive outlook.
Finally, Lee who is a very experienced speaker, gave a (properly serious) educational talk about 'motivating people'. 'Educationals' are presented to help club members consider aspects of leadership or management, and Toastmasters International makes materials available for members to use as a basis for the educational speech (really a form of training). Interestingly, we all agreed afterwards that although we had gained a little from the TI materials Lee had brought along, we gained a great deal more from Lee's speech once she walked away from the TI notes and spoke from her own experience. There is a lesson here for trainers, I feel. Namely, don't be shy to put yourself into a training speech if you want your audience to learn from it.
Yuyu, another relatively new member, doing her first evaluation of a speech, was assigned to evaluate Lee. Yuyu is always extremely thorough in what she does, and not only was it a well-considered and balanced evaluation, she also introduced an element all her own - telling us what she had personally learned from the speech. That is something I think we could adopt more generally as a desirable feature of a speech evaluation.
Although there was not time for everone to stand up and give some feedback on the speeches, there was time for Table Topics, which Amy (one of our newest members) ran for us.
Amy gave four topics and chose as speakers those people who had not already had substantial opportunities to speak at the meeting. Amy presented this section in a measured and professional way. She has always had good confidence when 'out front', and experience is now adding to that, giving her more authority when she is speaking. Congratulations!
The next meeting is on 2 December, and it will be the last one for the year. At present, four speakers have asked to be given a spot for a speech. This could be a 'speech-fest' indeed!
Robyn will be speaking at a conference soon, so her speech was a shorter version of her conference paper. She presented a critical commentary on the reporting coming from a prominent Australian think tank. Robyn, a social scientist herself, gave credible reasons, well explained in the talk, to show why she doubts the thoroughess of this think tank's 'research' in one particular area of its fields of interest, and why she thinks public statements about its research are misleading. My take-home message from Robyn's speech was that it could be sensible to look carefully at the group's findings in other research areas, to see if they appear well-founded.
Jim, a long-time Toastmaster and former scientist himself, evaluated Robyn, focusing, as we do in Toastmasters, on both the good points and the points for improvement, the content and the speech structure. The VPE had invited Jim to do this because he has long experience of presenting conference papers, and knows the different requirements there compared to a Toastmasters speech. (Nevertheless, the ultimate aim in both arenas is to convey a message clearly.)
Ann was up next, 'speaking to inform' (that's the title of one of our Toastmaster communication manuals). Ann prefers to bring humour into her speeches, but the challenge for the particular project in this manual was to present a report in a professional manner, conveying a clear message, and then to answer questions from the audience. To meet that requirement yet keep the subject light-hearted or amusing, Ann's report was a description of two pieces of research published (several years ago) in the Annals of Improbable Research. One tested the proposition that the landscape of Kansas (in USA) is 'as flat as a pancake', and the other tested the idiom 'you can't compare apples and oranges'. The Annals (AIR is its acronym!) are associated with the famous international science awards called the Ignobel Prizes, so you can see this serious speech had a tongue-in-cheek element to it. Ann's take-home message was serious (of course!): think about comparisons; don't just accept them at face value. The audience asked several penetrating questions, making Ann glad she had prepared carefully for this particular project!
Claudia, a relatively new member of the club, gave a thorough evaluation, with useful points for improvement (e.g. speak a bit more slowly), and plenty of encouragment. We enjoy Claudia's evaluations, and other speaking, partly because of her warmth and positive outlook.
Finally, Lee who is a very experienced speaker, gave a (properly serious) educational talk about 'motivating people'. 'Educationals' are presented to help club members consider aspects of leadership or management, and Toastmasters International makes materials available for members to use as a basis for the educational speech (really a form of training). Interestingly, we all agreed afterwards that although we had gained a little from the TI materials Lee had brought along, we gained a great deal more from Lee's speech once she walked away from the TI notes and spoke from her own experience. There is a lesson here for trainers, I feel. Namely, don't be shy to put yourself into a training speech if you want your audience to learn from it.
Yuyu, another relatively new member, doing her first evaluation of a speech, was assigned to evaluate Lee. Yuyu is always extremely thorough in what she does, and not only was it a well-considered and balanced evaluation, she also introduced an element all her own - telling us what she had personally learned from the speech. That is something I think we could adopt more generally as a desirable feature of a speech evaluation.
Although there was not time for everone to stand up and give some feedback on the speeches, there was time for Table Topics, which Amy (one of our newest members) ran for us.
Amy gave four topics and chose as speakers those people who had not already had substantial opportunities to speak at the meeting. Amy presented this section in a measured and professional way. She has always had good confidence when 'out front', and experience is now adding to that, giving her more authority when she is speaking. Congratulations!
The next meeting is on 2 December, and it will be the last one for the year. At present, four speakers have asked to be given a spot for a speech. This could be a 'speech-fest' indeed!
