It was another great night at Silicon Speech, last night. Alex Schams has returned from his summer hiatus and was our Toastmaster for the festivities. I was Speaker #1 and I took the opportunity to introduce my new website to the club. It was the Pathways, Persuasive Speaking assignment and, hopefully, I persuaded a few members to check out the site at www.sportofspeech.com
Shar McBee was up next up with a terrific speech about the importance of surrendering and “going with the flow”. She left us in a better place, much more flexible and balanced for the weekend.
The speeches were followed by our two, wise and insightful evaluators, Li Xin and Armando Yee. Then it was Table Topics with Karan Bavandi as host. The theme was Public Speaking, what else? Questions ranged from:
How do you prepare a speech? Len Kung had a great answer: she watches TED Talks and learned among other things, to trim the fat. Are you sure you that wasn’t Top Chef?
How do you overcome nervousness? Alex Schams had a great tip for releasing tension; grab something and squeeze it tight.
Who’s your favorite public speaker? Armando Yee named quite a few but Jim Rohn seemed to be his favorite, favorite.
And finally, why give a speech in the first place? For Luis Hurtado it’s the opportunity to communicate in the most efficient way possible. He told a great Picasso story to drive home the point that less is definitely more.
The questions gave us all an opportunity to share our ideas and I think we all learned a few things along the way.
A special shout out to our Area Director, Carla Terravella who joined us, once again. It’s great to have you drop by.
- Toastmaster – Azita Sachmechian
- Table Topics Master – Alex Schams
- Speaker #1 – Lauren Clayton
- Speaker #2 – Karan Bavandi
- Back-up Speaker – TBD
- Chief Evaluator – Armando Yee
- Evaluator #1 – Len Kung
- Evaluator #2 – Sam Nazarian
- Timer – Li Xin
- Grammarian – Luis Hurtado
- Ah Counter – Joelle Johnson
- Thought for the Day – Len Kung
- Joke Master – Karan Bavandi
