“Speak your truth quietly and clearly
and listen to others”
Max Erhmann – The Desiderata
Tonight’s autumnal meeting at Vox brought us a thought provoking evening of speaking and listening. The quote above is appropriate for any toastmasters meeting, it comes from poetmaster Gemma’s offering of The Desiderata.
The Vox Factor has attracted around 30 guests to meetings so far this year, there are plenty of new faces in the the audience during meetings and in the bar afterwards. A number of guests have contributed at topics sessions which is fantastic and we are seeing some new members joining as well.
Our Wednesday night saw a challenging and diverse topics session, a humourous speech warm up for the area contest and a barnstorming icebreaker – phew!
Starting off with a quote brings us to topicsmaster Nora, who challenged the group with quotes from Dr Seuss, Mae West, and Marilyn Monroe, plus roleplays and a stab at imagining how Anne Doyle would read the news in Texas. In response the planet Vox Populi came into existence and in the well handled roleplays we enjoyed the spectacle of ex-President Tomas taking on the character of a hermit, declaring his intention to ‘share himself with the world’ and join a dating agency! Claire and Tony demonstrated fantastic parenting potential with their grilling of Colette, in character as a 16 year old after a late night out.
Kudos to Jenny for answering a topic twice after mishearing the first time and to Fiona for stepping into the breach and telling us about her superhero capabilities.
Fiona gave the audience a real treat, a personal and funny ice breaker delivered with no notes while wearing bargain-tastic leather shorts!
Tonight’s speeches really continued the high standards that have been set by speakers recently, it’s great to see.
I’ll leave the final word to Max Erhmann again with the lovely opening lines of his poem:
“Go placidly amid the noise and haste
and remember what peace there may be in silence”
Merrilyn Campbell VPPR