Harrovians Best Table Topics Speaker and Shared Best Evaluator

 Harrovians was the first Toastmasters club I joined in the UK in 2004. i was introduced to toastmasters International Harrovian Speakers club by my good, long-standing friend Indra who was talking to me Harrow writers Circle. When I showed him my book on Wedding Speeches & Toasts, he immediately said, with glee, 'you must come along to Toastmasters!'

This week on Monday 19th July 2022, Harrovians had to switch their planned in person meeting to wholly online because of the heatwave, unprecedented temperatures of 32 degrees Celsius, which is nearly 90 % F. Hottest night. 

Road are melting. Cars are overheating and catching fire.

Fields are burning. Crops are being destroyed. Smoke is blowing across roads. Harvests are being destroyed by fire. Heat is killing plants and fruit and vegetables and crops are destroyed by too many insects and rats. 

Railway lines are buckling. 

Adults are diving into rivers and drowning. Children and the elderly are overcome by heat. A and E is filled with people fainting from heatstroke.

Hospitals have staff off sick with Covid. The surgeries are too hot for operations.

Schools with glass sides and no blinds and no aircon get too hot.

At Harrovian Speakers club, in table topics (impromptu speech session), I was asked, 'What is your dream job?'

I replied, 'I would love to be the interior designer for hotels, which would involve staying on site to plan and supervise the installation and get free food and accommodation and somebody making meals and cleaning the room. I would make the interior of each hotel reflect a local personality or hero. Such as Anne Frank, in Holland. In America, Marilyn Monroe, who would also be on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls where she made a film. So many heroes and film stars and authors. Elvis and others. You could have whole trails following film stars. We already have trails for famous people, but I would have trails with themed hotel and restaurants (like Hard Rock cafe) but each would feature a famous person. In America, and Europe and Asia, there are loads of Presidents and kings and queens and I would have quotations from them in the restaurants and corridors and rooms. I would love researching this, which I would do on site, enjoying the free food in the restaurants and the bedrooms with clean sheets and laundry done for me every day. That would be my dream job. Don't you agree, table topics master.

Best Evaluator

I also won best evaluator jointly with Angelie the TMD. (The club President is Suresh.) I was delighted to win two awards, but pleased about sharing the second, so as not to hog everything. Date Monday, July 18 2022.

The meeting had only two speakers, as one of them pulled out because they were ill with Covid, so there was no voting, because that is the Toastmasters rule. (Some clubs still allow voting, as it's not fair that neither the speaker nor the club has the benefit of being able to promote the win on Facebook. As Woody Allan said, a good part of success is simply turning up.)

However, Harrovians has a table topics evaluator. This takes up time denied to the third evaluator of a speaker cancels and makes the schedule nearer the original intention. The second advantage, of course, is that the topics speakers, including visitors get useful feedback, so everybody has a take home benefit, and is encouraged to take up a speaking slot because they have found that when pushed, they can talk for two minutes on any subject, and that the evaluation is useful. Also, they feel included. Finally, importantly, have a third evaluator counted in the voting gives the two prepared two evaluators a chance to be in the vote.

My evaluation included the following recommendations for improving and taking the excellent speech to the next level:

Be positive. End positively. If you cannot promise there will be a good outcome, cite people who failed many times before succeeding, point out that they learn from their mistakes, and find statistics on the average number of interviews you need to get a job.

https://legaljobs.io/blog/interview-statistics/