Wonderful news! We are meeting at 18:15 BST on Thursday, June 11! We are meeting on Zoom! Click on this text to join the chat room. If that doesn’t work on your device, the Meeting ID is 631 522 4568 and the password is speakers.
Our last meeting’s Word Of The Day was:
Definition 1: perfectly clean, neat, or tidy.
Definition 2: free from flaws.
Example 1: look at his immaculate study desk!
Example 2: she is wearing an immaculate white shirt.
Prepared Speakers
Seema Rizvi made her debut speech. Her Icebreaker focused on the power of dedication.
How many of you remember your teacher fondly? Why? Did they mentor you in some way? Perhaps they praised and encouraged you for your uniqueness as Seema’s teacher did to her.
Despite her son being born with an “incurable eye disease”, she ensured that he would receive only the best education. As such, he graduated from top institutes and is now excelling at a top job!
Mevlut Sapmaz was wishing for A Light in the Darkness. Now, he is one!
“Have you ever had a problem with your hostess?” Well, in the UK, Mevlut’s host family agreed on certain rules with him. That seemed to go well. One day, however, his friends took him to dinner, and Mevlut arrived later than was stated in the rules with his host family.
His hostile hostess did not allow him back into the house that night! Fortunately, he encountered a taxi driver who helped him massively to locate the police. Clearly, Mevlut owed that driver “big time”. All the driver wanted him to do was to help a British person in need…
Martín Lerma was Born to Serve. He diagnosed himself with an affiliative leadership style.
“Have you ever…?” (Introductory questions seem to be popular right now!) Martin was in a car accident 9 years ago and forgot he was tired! Don’t worry: I wasn’t going to ask if you have ever been a car accident, though. Hopefully you haven’t!
Martin discovered his leadership style in Latin America when he realised he was always being asked to help his family. An affilative leadership style is denoted by someone who lives by example, as Martin explained.
AlyceAnn Crump was called something unpleasant by a man that just met her. He told her “God said: ‘You are going to be my wife’”. AlyceAnn replied: “God Lied to You”!
She met her husband 36 years ago in a way you’d least expect! You see, AlyceAnn was at church when she met him. However, it was because she was asked to look for help from this man.
She shouted, much to her embarrassment, “He can’t even dress! How can he help me?” He called her Alyce, when she specifically told him to call her AlyceAnn! Yet, he insisted that they will inevitably exchange marriage vows! Obviously, God doesn’t lie.
Katia Hougaard (Best Speaker) is Passing the Torch of Science to the masses with her presentation.
What makes a great mentor? For Katia, her greatest mentor, Dr. Stanley Roux, inspired her to become someone who wants to help empower future generations.
Dr. Roux is the “perfect combination of old-fashioned and modern”. “Every researcher matters”, and it is important for Dr. Roux to “captivate” his audience with his blackboard. Students are viewed as junior researchers. Katia values the “sense of integrity” that arises from this style of teaching and is inspired to imitate him.
Evaluations
Kenny evaluated Seema’s speech.
Her hand gestures demonstrated her desire to be a teacher.
She could have used more vocal variety when she said “my hopes were shattered” to show how “shocking” and “dramatic” it was.
Her “pausing was really, really good”.
Harshit evaluated Mevlut’s speech.
He transformed the darkness of speech very well.
He was rather slow at the beginning. This could have been distracting.
He “especially liked the title of his speech” as it reflected the ray of hope that was the theme of his speech.
Chuka evaluated Martin’s speech.
He used a question at the start of his speech, which is a very effective way to attract attention.
He could work on his speech organisation. For example, he could have paused at times to clarify his speech structure.
He used many examples, all of which were relevant to his speech.
Chane evaluated AlyceAnn’s speech.
Her title aroused curiosity.
She could get closer to microphone.
Nevertheless, she is “so good at” changing her tone perhaps because of authenticity of emotion.
Ronnie (Best Evaluator) evaluated Katia’s presentation.
Katia started her story with a very relatable question.
At the end of her speech, we were still wondering why passing on the flame is so important.
She introduced her mentor in a unique and effective way.
Tim acted as our General Evaluator.
Once again, we started on time. Now, we’re on a streak!
We could consider having the General Evaluator introduce Evaluators instead of the Toastmaster.
The meeting had a great flow.