The London Speaker blog has kindly re-published a post I made on this blog from earlier this year. That post, which you can read by clicking on the link, was about creating awinning mindset and finding ways to “tip the balance” in your favour when you enter into a contest. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been thinking about one of my favourite forms of theatre - the Commedia dell’ Arte and I think there are some important lessons for us to take away for our table topics sessions at Toastmasters.
Brief bit of history; in Western theatre there have been two traditions, the scripted and memorised and the improvised. In the scripted and memorised tradition would fall playwrights such as Moliere, Shakespeare, Wilde and numerous more modern examples such as Patrick Marber, Frederico Garcia Lorca and Mark Ravenhill. Read the rest of this entry »
I just saw an article which says that Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, has built up a lucartive career as a professional speaker. It’s reported that she makes £40,000 for her public speaking engagements.
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The London Speaker blog has just posted an interview with Jonathan Palmer last year’s Divison B Humorous Speech winner. It’s a really good and revealing article. Palmer talks about why he didn’t make the grade and win the contest at District (National) level. It’s a key distinction. Read the rest of this entry »
There seems to be an obvious answer to the above question - how do you know your jokes are funny? Surely, you tell someone, or an audience, a joke and they laugh then it’s funny. Great. Simple and straight-forward. Especially if you have preparation time. Read the rest of this entry »
As you’ve probably seen this week Saturday 16 August was the end of the International Speech Contest which culminated in a new world champion of public speaking being crowned - LaShunda Rundles. Read the rest of this entry »
Humour and Freedom of Speech. It’s an interesting concept as it’s one that comes up again and again throughout history. Well, modern history at least.
I was drawn to write a post about it because of the forthcoming humorous speech contest held annually with Toastmasters. Now, in the rules themselves it states:
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I found a UK-based website which did research a few years ago to find the world’s funniest joke. In the process it determined that certain countries have preferences for certain types of humour, which is obvious when you think about it. But what I find fascinating is what type of humour seems to have been preferred. Read the rest of this entry »
I recently wrote a post about leadership and decided to write a follow-up after exploring the Toastmasters International website. They talk about how difficult it is to define leadership. People have different kinds of reactions to the word leadership, but we all seem to know good leadership when we see it.
Well contest season at Toastmasters is rapidly approaching… again. It only seems five minutes ago that we were approaching the International Speech contest, which was waaaay back in February this year. Yikes.
This is probably going to have to be an occasion where I take a back seat. I’ve recently stepped up to the plate as Vice President Education (essentially second in command) so I’m over-seeing club members progress, organising the contest and running a workshop on humorous speaking. That’s a lot of organisation, I’ll manage to squeeze in some stage time though. Read the rest of this entry »
