What an evening! A full house! A buzzing atmosphere! Some of us had to stand at the back to ensure we did not miss out on the action. My head is still spinning!!!
We had well over 30 people at the meeting on Monday night; you knew it was going to be a great evening.
Karl Howe took up the challenge of being the Toastmaster of the evening for the first time, and delivered the seasoned performance of an experienced Toastmaster. We all knew what cars we were - I am the Hummer 2 (and I have the picture to prove it), presence, class and luxury - what are you! A superb example of good preparation and introducing guests. We should all take leaf out of Karl's book on this one. Well done to Karl for entertaining us and smoothly flowing the meeting.
Warren Sheng's tabletopics were sublime, and covered a variety of topics from the Telegraph - a treat for all you avid readers of this broadsheet. Quality topics to which the participants had plenty to say - we could not get them off the stage!!! I have heard that there is new bug going around Harrovians this year, diagnosed as the "ILPS" bug - "I Love Public Speaking!" Beware it is infectious!!!
What a rare treat to have 3, yes 3, advanced speeches, from Naren simplifying the mysteries of credit card security, from Saley the illogically logical, and the in rhythm and rhyme Angela. I am looking forward to the next meeting.
The speech ribbon went to Saley for a fantastically prepared, delivered logic conundrum - an actor in the making!
The table topics and the evaluator’s ribbons both went to Khandee - this must be a first - 2 ribbons in one evening - and he is making a habit of collecting ribbons.
Don't forget the club competition on Monday 31 March. Volunteers are needed to help organise this evening - please Let Tony Lazar know your availability.
Harrovians are hosting the annual gala dinner for the Area this year, to be held on 6th July this year. Details and the menu have been emailed to everyone, and are also downloadable from this site. This will be an excellent opportunity to meet, socialise and network with other clubs in the area. Book early to avoid missing out later.
What night of blessings! It was a night of class acts and performances. The improvement in the members of the club was startingly evident - Harrovians is certainly a club on the up at the moment.
Everyone had a superb evening of being blessed as the theme of the evening was expertely strung together by our toastmaster, Warren Sheng. A near perfect performance on how to carry out this role. Warren was well prepared and had done some good planning for this role... and managed to get into a suit - very smart indeed. He remarked afterwards how wearing a suit changes the way you feel - for the better.
Naren, our table topics master, lead an exemplary table topics session. This was another well prepared role. He has obviously being studying the best practice area, and reading the manual! Well done to Naren for such well thought out and pre-prepared topics, giving a feel of real quality to the meeting.
Could the prepared speeches match this? Wow the speeches were superb, all well prepared and thought out, with real message, and a training speech on "evaluate to motivate".
The best speaker was Mandip, with the training speech "evaluate to motivate". See this in the best practice and speeches area. All members should watch this and take notes.
"better quality evaluations = a better club".
See you all at the next meeting on 3 March.
The club is hosting the other clubs in the region at this year's annual dinner.
This will take place on Sunday 6 July 08, in St Albans. The cost is fixed at around £18 per head, and there is a vegetarian option. Partners, family and friends are welcome (as paying guests!)
Details will be sent out shortly.
As this is the club's annual dinner, please ensure that we can have a good turn out. The evening will be primarily a social one, with some toastmaster order of business to get through, and will provide a fantastic opportunity to network with with members of other clubs in our region.
Please get in touch with Tony, Alan, Mandip or Lorna.
The club competition takes place on Monday 31 Mar 08.
The competition will include Table topics, Prepared speeches and evaluation.
We have a number of external judges taking part, please ensure that we can support this competition in full and turn out in force.
A number of items need to be organised on the night, so please make yourself available, or let Tony know that you can help out or if you wish to participate.
Alan McMahon won the last competition, and he did very well at the next stages.
Love is in the air!
An amorous evening - with scented candles and red table cloths. The room was certainly set up for the biggest event in February! An action packed, friendly Harrovians evening!!! The room was packed out, with no spare seats, in heavy anticipation, and light banter. Some of you might be thinking Valentine’s Day. Well at Harrovians, the theme for the evening was about romantic moments – a pre-cursor for the big day.
What a wonderful performance and command of the stage by Toastmaster for the evening, Lorna Burns. A magnificent example of how to carry out this role for a first time. Lorna performed like a pro, and never showed signs of nerves. She immediately introduced the theme of romantic moments.
Naren, our philosophical time keeper, kept the role on time, and pushed the meeting along nicely.
Our Grammarian, Linda – a fantastic effort, set an example of how to do the Grammarians role. For those of you who are yet to take on this role, I would recommend watching Linda in the best practice area.
Another first – Karl Howe as the topics master, a superb table topics section, in keeping with the theme for the evening – romance!!! Quality questions, answered with matching quality by the participants.
During the second half, another first, the icebreaker for Colin. Brilliantly entertaining and warming to Colin. Well done Colin.
Khandee gave Harrovians a short lesson in Japanese, and discussed the intricate bathing habits in the Oisen – the Japanese public bath. Those of you who weren’t there missed a gem of a speech.
Alan with his account of a long lost and forgotten battle, showing how you can to overcome great difficulties, especially at work! Superb delivery Alan!
Warren gave an intriguing and insightful account of how similar Toastmasters and the Church really are. By the end, we were not sure if we were sitting at a Toastmasters evening or in a church.
The evening was rounded off by Rod Sloane’s direct and considered evaluation.
The best speaker ribbon went to Khandee. See his speech in the best practice area.
Make sure you attend the next meeting, and get in your speaking or functionary role in fast, as these are getting booked up well in advance. Bring your friends and relatives too.
See you all at the next meeting on 18th Feb.
Mandip Singh Sohal
What an evening!
Full of excitement, a new way for Table Topics, full of quality speeches and a superb General Evaluation.
Anthony McGuigan was a smooth operator as the Toastmaster for the evening, and what a confident performance he gave - we were in safe hands.
Terry Logan, aided by Linda Williams, stepped for the Time Keepers role for the first time on his second visit to the club ! Well done to Terry and Linda.
Khandee came in as the sublime Topics Master, and we had to work hard to impress him in conversation - his approach was a first, and very imaginative.
During the second half, 4 high quality speeches, 2 at the last minute - well done to both Karl and Mandip for this.
Mandip gave a hugely impressive factual talk about the work of his charity, the United Religions initiative - UK.
Sonal followed this with her experience of attending another toastmasters club in Switzerland, where they tap on the table when the word of the day is heard, and have dinner during the break! Bring your sandwiches to the next meeting!!
Karl lit the evening with his talk about energy saving light bulbs and encouraged us all to think about changing our bulbs as the humble light bulb would be no more after next year.
Lorna gave a delightfully colourful account of her daughter's pet hampster, who kept getting lost at home, and had major surgery at the Vet's.
A superb evening rounded off by Kate's brilliant and insightful general evaluation. Kate was impressed by Harrovians, and so were we!!! Kate is going for her advanced leadership award, and we whole heartedly support her on this.
The best speaker ribbon went to Lorna Burns for her story about her daughter's pet hampster.
A final thanks to Anthony for the delicious organic carrot cake for all of us on his return to Harrovians, his second home - if you did not attend, you missed out on a special treat !! All I can say is that Anthony can returns to Harrovians at the next meeting with some more cake, and the next, and the next......
These evenings keep getting better - a sign of great hings to come this year. See you all at the next meeting with some of your friends and relatives.
Mandip Singh Sohal
A wonderful start to the year! Alan McMahon stood in as Toastmaster because Saley had injured his wrist ice skating!
He conducted the meeting and continued the theme of New Year’s resolutions with his usual humorous panache.
Thank you to our visitors from London Athenians, Kate McNeilly and Mike Robinson.
Kate gave us a splendid demonstration of the grammarian role (soon to be viewed on this website) and Mike Robinson delivered a very interesting and informative General Evaluator speech.
Ribbons were awarded to:
Best Table Topics - Richard Lawrence
Richard who was a guest, gave us a highly entertaining table topic on a misspent youth even including our venue in the speech.
Best Evaluator - Anthony McGuigan
Anthony gained another ribbon for evaluating since his return for his evaluation of Shirley Holmes’ speech.
Best Speaker - Shirley Holmes
Shirley delivered a powerful and moving speech from the storytelling advanced manual.
There was a great atmosphere and energy for the first meeting of the year. Everything bodes very well for the future.
Tony Lazar.
Harrovians is now well and truly in the 21st Century, thanks to Mandip Sohal, known to us as “SuperMandip”. What a brilliant blog he has created! Now, in between meetings, we have a place to meet and share ideas to create a Harrovians community.
Are you enjoying the YouTube Toastmasters speeches? We also intend to have video and audio archives of our own speeches for those who want to post them. To create the archive, please email your typed speeches to Mandip.
Saley Ahmed has already agreed to this, as he has a Word document containing all of his speeches. In the near future, look out for “Saley’s Specials”.
Enjoy the new site. Please send your speeches in. Thank you SuperMandip.
Harrovians is – without question - the place to be offline … and now online.
Tony Lazar
President - Harrovians’ Speakers Club, 2007
The meeting on Monday 3 Dec was one the most enjoyable ones I have been to for a long time. It had everything - new innovations, great speeches, a superb table topics and the Harrovians war cry!!!
Tony, our lazar sharp President - always inspirational, and positively encouraging - superb opening and really laid the scene for the evening.
Alan McMahon, the super slick Mr Toastmaster himself did a fantastic job of keeping the evening both smooth and enjoyable - that was a really professsional job Alan - well done!
Lorna, the Grammarian - absolutely spot on with the word of the day and her report - her teacher training has worked wonders for this role!
Maneesha - wonderfully courageous to especially make the effort to come in with a cold and really rocked this role - she was brilliant and had us all singing and about with the golden oldies !!!
Karl came forward with an icebreaker - on the second evening has attended - WOW !!!
Narren - with an advanced speech - blasted his last attempt into the universe - that man is going places!
Francis, cool and calm as ever - the first ever Harrovian to use a powerpoint presentation to deliver a speech - we are definitely running into the 21st Century.
Mandip the "SuperMandip" shook the club with a rip roaring war cry that could be heard in the concil chambers of Harrow Council - luckily none of the councillors were injured!
Anthony, on his return to the club with the table topic evaluation gave a master class in evaluation - if weren't there - it was a real gem.
Saley the Super Stud - a polished and slick general evaluator had us swooning and relishing every word....
Tony presented the winners of the evening
First timer - Karl
Best table topics - Indra
Best Evaluator - Anthony
Best Speech - Mandip
Now we seem to be getting somewhere with this blog & resources, I can really see the huge potential for our members. You can see you speeches here, hopefully in future get either audio and eventually video of youre speeches.
This will be a huge help to those who want see themselves and know can improve,
Also is a possibilty of adding templates for speech writing.
Any other ideas are most welcome. Please email me at info@harrovians.org.uk.
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