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12/02/2005: "Speakers' Club Update"
Hi Everyone
My fellow CWA members might remember my article Standing on your Hind Legs in November's Red Herrings magazine; I thought some of you might like to know how much help joining a Speakers' Club is giving me on with the speechifying front.
It's certainly giving me plenty of practise! So far, I've done three Table Topics events, in which you have to give an off the cuff speech a bare two seconds after the evening's Toastmaster tells you the subject. I ought to correct what I said in my article about the length. Table Topics speeches are only of two minutes duration, not three or four. I thought I ought to correct this information in case I scared off any potential new members.
Anyway, yippee, I won the TT cup on two out of the three occasions I had to give an impromptu speech. Pretty amazing for someone who never wins anything.
I gave my Ice Breaker prepared speech on Wednesday. This is a talk of four to six minutes duration, in which you are required to introduce yourself and tell the other members something about yourself. I told them about my writing life. Entitled My Life of Crime, my speech explained how I got started as a crime writer and my achievements so far. Another Yippee. Clearly, it went down well as I won the Best Speech cup.
I could definitely get to like public speaking. For a girl who had only ever won an extremely ugly coffee set before, to win three events out of four is some improvement. So, yes, I can definitely recommend that other writers join a Speakers' Club.
Geraldine Evans on Friday, December 2nd 2005 @ 11:44 AM GMT [link]