My Christmas and New Year Speeches

Angela Lansbury with Santa head-dress and hanukiah. Selfie photo by Angela.

My Christmas Customs speech described elsewhere covers the origins of the Christmas cracker, Christmas tree, Santa and Rudolph and the Christmas carol 12 days of Christmas.

To get it evaluated at Toastmasters, I looked for a speech I had not done from the CC manual. I decided to do the Entertaining speech.

However, the first entertaining speech was based on three anecdotes from your own life.

My speech was really an informative speech about the original of Christmas trees, crackers etc.

Here's my revised version based on anecdotes:

Christmas and New Year Disasters and Delights

1Do you believe in Father Christmas?
When I was a child I believed everything I was told and read about.
I believed in Father Christmas, and baby Jesus, who I assumed was the son of Father Christmas. As you can probably guess, when I found out that Father Christmas was a fake, I became suspicious about lots of other stories, too.

When I became a teacher, I was determined never to tell children nonsense which far from destroying their faith, was likely to undermine it. I did not set out to contradict anybody's parents, but I was faced with a challenge when a little girl from Korea asked me, "Do you believe in Santa Claus?" I opened my mouth to reply, when I discovered that the question was purely academic, because she already knew the answer. She said, "My father told me, "You have to believe in Santa Claus because if you don't, you won't get a Christmas present."

This was a double threat. First, if I told her the truth, I was responsible for her not getting a Christmas present. Secondly, as a teacher of an oriental pupil who came from a part of the world where teachers were help in high esteem, I might have hoped to get a Christmas card and possibly a small present. I clearly would not get a present if I revealed that I did not believe in Father Christmas, and was to blame for destroying his daughter's belief.

For many years I remembered this with horror, believing that unfortunate child came from weird home, where the little girl's father a control freak, and he must be from some kind of cult, which threatened children.

However, I recently read on a forum about Father Christmas, that one of the commentators or readers, had also been told the same story about if you don't believe in Father Christmas you don't get any presents.

I don't know whether I read a third, confirming that this was not unique to one maniac, but a general joke going around amongst parents, especially those trying to quieten children who were on the verge of turning into realists, and spoiling Christmas by revealing the truth to their still wide-eyed and open -mouthed baby brothers and sisters.

Clearly if total nonsense or threats are made up by one person, they are dangerous nonsense. However, if stories and threats to unbelievers are made up and then became repeated many times by two or more people, the untruths are merely amusing folklore.

1 Christmas trip to Lapland
I went to Finland on a press travel trip. I asked Father Christmas: "What do you say to people who say they don't believe in Santa Claus?'

He replied, "Did you come here by plane?"

"I don't believe in Concorde."

Now Concorde is no more. Nowadays an equally good, similar but updated answer from Santa would be:

"I use a sleigh. I don't believe in plane travel."

Once you have recovered from Christmas, you have New Year. If you go away on holiday, you can enjoy the entertainment provided by the hotel. Most big cities and seaside have fireworks displays on New Year's Even. A good place to watch if from a hilltop or clifftop hotel. One of the best displays we saw was over Gibraltar, when we stayed at the Rock Hotel, which is at the top of the Rock.

Our experience in Florida was rather embarrassing. We bought fireworks for our son, then aged about ten years old. Our first thought was to light them on the balcony. But what if they fell onto balconies below, or people on the forecourt below, who were enjoying a wedding in the ground floor suite and marquee.

We wanted to room on the non-smoking floor, but the hotel was full, the wedding party had booked the entire no smoking floor, and the next floor.

Somebody decided to set off the fireworks in the bathroom. Near Water.
The wedding downstairs was getting riotous. We are very wary of weddings on hotels. We have been in two hotels, one in Scotland and one in the USA, where wedding guests have set off the fire alarm as a joke, to try to get the bride and groom out of their suite.

We had just started our fireworks display and were onto the second firework when the fire alarm went off. We waited a short while, uncertain whether to leave. It kept ringing. We cautiously opened the bedroom door. No sign of fire. However, the alarm continued, so we decided it was safer to leave. Half way down the corridor, it stopped. So we went back to the bedroom.

We started the fireworks again, and shortly afterwards the fire alarm went off again. We decided somebody was having fun and games.

We looked out a a member of staff was knocking on all the doors in our corridor. We didn't start the fireworks again in case we were interrupted.
Then we got a knock on the door. Security came in. They said do you have a fire. We said no. They said good. You're the last bedroom. We've been right along. The alarm sounds and it showed their corridor, so somebody on your floor set off the alarm.

After he left, I said, where's the fire alarm.  We looked all around. We had fire alarms in the bedrooms, even in the bathroom.

Our son said, 'Can we have the fireworks now?" I said no. I think we were the people who set off the fire alarm.

My family said, No. It wasn't us, It was the wedding party.
I said you know what it costs the hotel or the insurance to compensate everybody for ...
We took out fireworks down to the beach.

Prague
Fireworks in car park! To our left. Rockets to the right. By the front. By the back near petrol tank.

USA
Best New Year's eve. Lake Tahoe. Motel
Nowhere to go. Had an early night. Best start to a new year.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker.

My Prize winning Table Topic on Dogs Are A Man's Best Friend

Topics Master Amparo chose proverbs for table topics. Mine was Dogs are a man's best friend.
I said:
How many of you have dogs, or know people who have dogs? Our club member Ruth is very fond of her dog and when we held a meeting at her house she kept talking to her dog, in fact she talked to the dog more than she talked to me.

I'd already researched dogs and animals helping humans when I wrote a book of poetry on animals for children. I discovered that Capuchin monkeys could help paraplegics, doing everything for them.

Dogs and chimpanzees and other apes could be taught to understand words and signs.

A famous case was a student who taught a monkey to speak about 300 sign words. The baby monkey learned the language too. About twenty years later the student went back to the baby monkey, now an adult, and the first thing it said was, Why did you leave? Why did you abandon me? Very sad. Shows the animal was not just saying words for objects and counting, but feeling friendship and emotions.

The latest news is that a dog has been taught about 1000 words. I was so fascinated by this, that I'm writing a children's book about a dog which goes for a walk with its owner around a safari park talking to all the animals. Yes, dogs are man's best friend.

Table Topics, Monday October 6th 2015 at Harrovians Speakers' Club.

Later that evening I gave my report as Grammarian. I commented that it was a pity I had not thought to add a pun on man being dog's best friend.

Angela Lansbury ACG.

Quotations on Time, New Verse on Old Time

Here's a quotation I am using to open my speech about my life's work, travelling as a travel writer, author, researcher and comic poet.

"The time has come," the walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax
And cabbages and kings -
And why the sea is boiling hot -
And whether pigs have wings."

Written by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.

Published in 1872.
More than 100 years ago.

I hope Queen Victoria was amused. Most Victorians were. The book was a sequel to Alice in Wonderland.

The sequel was published in 1872 when witty Disraeli was still alive. 1872 was about eight years before my paternal great grandfather arrived in the East End of London, England, from Lemberg or Lvov in the Ukraine.

I've been researching my family history. Turning it into a comic novel. I tried writing a serious novel but it depressed me and I saw no point in depressing myself and the reader. Better to be like Fiddler on The Roof. The East End Cockneys and Jews were renowned for laughing at troubles.

I hope my comic poetry will still be popular in more than 100 years time.

A Hunded Years of Comic Terse
By Angela Lansbury

I hope that in a hundred years ahead
My verse will live 'though I'm more than half dead
So folks will still note cryptic words I wrote
Last wise, silly, fun words I never said.

I hope you're well dressed, well fed on seed bread
That your pillows are silk and your roses are red
That your life is ship shape with no holes in the boat
That couples still wed and kids are still bred.

I'm sure everybody, including you
Will still enjoy daft things I try to do
So for sad thoughts my joy's an antidote
From search-for-socks 'til bed-dead - without you.
-ends-
Copyright Angela Lansbury Oct 28 2014

Shakespeare said, "All's well that end's well."

See two books of quotations:
Quick Quotations for authors and speakers by Angela Lansbury (Lulu.com) (Alphabetical by subject)
Who Said What What? by Angela Lansbury (Lulu.com) (By day of the year)

See two books of comic verse about animals, A-Z
Angela's Alarming Animals by Angela Lansbury (Lulu.com)
Poetry pets and pests by Angela Lansbury (Lulu.com)

How to write poetry:
Petry Workshop Workbook by Angela Lansbury (Lulu.com)
Writing Poetry for Fun by Angela Lansbury (Lulu.com)

Grammar and Misleading Headlines & Titles

COUPLE SHOT DEAD FOUND BY DAUGHTERS
   I read a headline which said, Couple Found Shot Dead By Daughters. On first reading I assumed the daughters had shot dead by the daughters. But when I read the first paragraph, then went back to check the headline, it seemed that a couple who had been shot dead were later found by the daughters. To clarify this, Couple Shot Dead, Found by Daughters.
   AIRLINE BOSS ON CRASHED PLANE
  On first reading this headline I understood, or rather misunderstood, that the boss of the airline was on the crashed plane. No, he was speaking about the crashed plane. 

Marking Gestures

For competitions and dramatic speeches you may wish to note gestures.

For the presenter - lead applause by clapping
Applause - clapping your own hands; clapping a puppet's hands; clapping giant blow up pair or hands; clapping with boxing gloves

Speech Gestures blog

Whole body

dance for joy

dance in competition

clumsy learning to dance

Diving

swimming demo: breast stroke, crawl back stroke, butterfly

Floating

Tennis - hitting ball, height of racket

Golf - stance

Face

Anger - frown, astonishment - open mouth, raised eyebrows, learning head forward; curiosity head forward, watching tennis match, stiff upper lip, whisper behind hand, head on one side straining to hear, hand cupped over ear to hear, looking at watch, kicking football, catching netball, swinging golf club, doing aerobics, squatting, slumped in front of TV, cheering football team, reading letter, (see Chaplin films, mime artists such as Marcel Marceau).

Arms 

Thank you -

Please

Shrug

Pray

Mock shake hands

Make Your Message Clear - Title- Opening / Punchline

Speakers sometimes give a speech without a title. Or you have a generic term such as Teaching. Or even more person, A Teacher.
    Are you being paid? If so, give the audience what they want.
    If you are paid simply to be entertaining, a striking outfit, a uniform, a puppet or prop might entertain.
    If you are not being paid, why not? Is it because they argue that you are promoting your book? If so, you need a book display; a talk about why you wrote the book and what your book will do for them. (That could be amuse them.)
   
TITLE
   You should start with a title. That keeps you on track. Otherwise you talk around the subject. You start by saying how you became a teacher, then your fun as a teacher. You forget the purpose of your speech, to persuade people to send their children to you because you are a good teacher.
  Let's look at some kinds of speeches:

 

CLARIFY & MATCH YOUR MESSAGE & CALL TO ACTION 

     Let’s start with purpose and title. What is the purpose? Your title, opening sentence and punchline should all state and reinforce this message. Is it:

1 Give money For Publishing Your Book / a Gift Book For Your Grandchild / Toilets In Schools In Africa.

2 My name is Angela, and I want a job working with a school / charity.

3 As a teacher, I can teach you grammar, spelling, punctuation.

3 Give Money to Me / Oxfam / the NSPCCC / Volunteer Action Development.

4 GIVE TIME, GIVE HELP Africa / Harrow / Singapore / New York / this school /this club needs you - write to them /see our website and volunteer to help today.  

5 Follow your dream - you can make a difference. 

6 I CAN HELP YOU What’s your favourite charity? Project? Life dream? - I am a manager / life coach / teacher / financier and I can help you. 

JOKEY PUNCHLINE / PUN ..........  

CALL TO ACTION

My name’s Angela / whatever - ask me for my business card. 

Hecklers - how to answer amusingly

Hecklers shouting what?

1 Get off the stage. 

(Reply - how much is it worth?)

Sit down. (I am sitting down.)

 Shut up. ( ) 

Not funny.  Boring. Not again.  

(Answer: That makes two of us. )  

(Sorry about my brother/ex/husband/father.) 

(We thought he’d be OK on day release.)

2 Nonsense.    Not true. 

(So true.)  

Rubbish. 

(If you’ve got rubbish, Rubbish collection is Friday.)

3 What do you know about it? Who says! (…) 

(I said. I'll say it again.)

4 Suggestive remarks. - Nice pair of …. Sleep with you any time. 

(May I use that as a testimonial?) 

(Can I put that on my CV?) 

(Will you tell my ex?) 

(Your flies are undone. Sorry, wishful thinking.) 

(You look different with your clothes on.)

5 Disputed facts.  

(Which year was that? When did you last check the figures. On my phone it says … 

There are lies, damned lies and interruptions.

 Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. 

The figures go up and down hourly.  )

6 Attack on credibility of speaker.

 (You must be right. You are half my age.)

7 Attack on race, religion, country. 

(What do you know about it?)

8 Irrelevant nonsense eg Anybody seen my gloves? I dropped my crisps. 

(If you get on the floor - you might find it under the seat in front.)

(Answer: Not a political party I recognise. I can give you the number of social services.) 

9 Chat up lines - hello darling.I fancy you. 

( Reply The guy sitting next to the one who shouted - give him your phone number. He seems willing, up for anything, or anyone.) 

(You buy me a drink later. Anyone else? Just the two of us then. Sorry, this is a group activity, and I don’t think. Let’s have a vote on it. How many think he’s a good person to sleep with? i’ll have to ask my mother, father, son, minder.)

10 Shouting, talking, muttering ; 

( Sorry, what’s on the shopping list? The toilets are upstairs. Mens upstairs. Ladies downstairs, Depending what you’re after. or who you’re waiting for.)

11 Rambling personal story. 

(Answer: Yes, I had a dream like that once - then I woke up. And found myself here.) 

(Can we talk about this some other time. With my psychiatrist.)

12 Drunk singing. 

(Answer. Say, she sells sea shells on the sea shore. I thought you couldn’t

.I wish I were as drunk as you are. then I wouldn’t know what you were saying. 

Give him a drink. Preferably water.) 

(Please show him the toilet. He’s going to need it. 

Please show him the gents. Before it’s too late.) 

(Who’s going to leave first - him - or the rest of us?) 

(The bar is downstairs.) 

(That drink was a mistake. The last one.) 

(Is somebody driving you home? Take him now.) 

(What time are you leaving? Good. We’re leaving five minutes after you.)

(Can you afford another drink? No, never mind, you’ve had enough by the sound of it. 

Can you afford another drink, yes? How about a round of drinks? Thank you. We’ll have twenty five beers/glasses of wine. Can you afford a round of drinks. On second thoughts save your money for a taxi home. Can you play the guitar as well as you sing? Can you dance? Can you walk a straight line. There’s one leading to the door.)

13 Personal insults: fattie, 

(Speak for yourself. 

Are you describing your dream?

Yes, more to get hold of) 

Look but don’t touch.

shortie. 

oldie …

(age before beauty, my darling. )

stupid 

Half the people here are above average weight, height/age IQ. Half are below average weight. That's what average means. How many of you knew that? More than half the people here are above average intelligence. 

14 I hate you./him

(I love you, too.

Funny he speaks well of you.)

Prepare For Interruptions To Speeches: Plan; Praise; Joke: Thank.

Here’s an amusing subject. Interruptions.

I can do a video on this. It's best done like the video on Indian head shake signals with demonstrations.

Imagine you are the interruption, or simply announce what the interruption is, and I can react.

I have a speech on the subject of interruptions.Prepare for interruptions. 

1 Biggest interruption ever: EARTHQUAKE in the middle of your speech.

Al Jolson - San Francisco (?) earthquake -   he said, “You ain’t heard nothing yet.”

I never thought it would happen to me.

When it did, I was not the speaker but in the audience.

 I was welcomed with a group of travel press journalists to Zakinthos, where the mayor and local tourism chief gave speeches on how safe their island was (meaning your luggage won’t get stolen). 

Huge bang. Greeks ran out, not thinking we would need to be told what to do. Brits, puzzled, carried on drinking beer and wine, wondering where everyone had gone, we though to investigate. Sugdenly somebody said - it’s en earthquake - quick - rum outside!" 

TM without interruptions is not real life. Manuals should cover hecklers, losing your slides because computers won’t link to venue equipment, microphones not working. At Harrovians we once did a topics session in which each topic was interrupted; 

2 Appeal for member to move a car. Chairperson/speaker deals with this. 

3 Speaker’s called to phone by building staff - mother has urgent message. Chairperson must set up backup ‘worst case scenario - missing speaker - plan.  Every committee member should have spare speech in pocket. 

4 Women wearing towels walk through room (area contest in central hallway of leisure centre - TM Alan MacMahon will recall).

5 Drunk interrupts speeches with swearing and tells us to read the bible, threatens us with dogs. (Happened to Harrovians picnic in the harrow park). SAA / president must have phone numbers of police and neighbourhood watch. Backup venue. 

6 caterers cross stage to deliver or collect drinks and deliver hot dinners  (Excalibur in pub), 

7 SAA job from back of hall. Chairman on stage should not be abandoning the speaker.

8 Constant noise from adjacent hotel/venue kitchen.

9 Have sign on door giving type of meeting, hours of meeting, whether strangers welcome or tickets needed - how to get them - for early arrivals, latecomers and other users of building.

10 Members of ballet class arrive in wrong venue too early.

11 SAA background music on tannoy, shopping centre tannoy announces Santa Claus arrival - know the building organisers and where to go for help.

12 Bouquet delivered to speaker by mistake (all based on events we’d experienced), 

13 Singers at Happy Birthday party next door (HOD at golf club). Change rooms.

Plan, Praise, Joke, and Thank.

For example, 'Thank you for that wonderful bouquet. I knew my speech was good but I didn't realise I was that good. It's addressed to the bride and groom. I wasn't planning to get married today. I think this must be for the banqueting hall. Will somebody kindly show this delivery person the way. Thank you so much, Henry. It may be some time before we see Henry or the flowers again. Where was I, before that delightful distraction. Ah yes, I was talking about planning a dinner party. Of course, you should have a flower arrangement on the table.'

Ten Problems & Solutions For Speech Writers & Presenters

The speech is perfect, written by an expert. What can go wrong?

1 The speaker storms off because the presenter has forgotten the speaker's name.
2 The speaker forgets to take the written speech.
3 The speaker/presenter reads the wrong speech.
4 The slides or video don't work.
5 The spelling and grammar are wrong.
6 The subject is too technical for the audience.
7 The speaker has too little time for the whole speech.
8 The speaker is asked to continue speaking but has no more to say.
9 The speaker can't understand the speech, nor pronounce the words.
10 The speaker doesn't know what is funny, and reads it all monotone so everybody falls asleep.

1 I saw this happen in Singapore. The sponsor of the book was embarrassed and everybody was embarrassed. Solution: The speaker should be prepared to explain who he/or she is/is not.
a) The presenter thinks you are somebody else more famous. (I am constantly mistaken for the actress Angela Lansbury. At a big conference it can happen three times a day. Or three times an hour. My planned and often repeated answers are always positive. For example, I'm not related to the actress, but she does wonderful publicity for our name.) If the introduction to the speaker, including the named and credentials, are written into the start of the speech, the words can be dropped, shortened, or included in full. The speech might include words such as : "My full name is ...... but you can call me ..... As Bill/name so kindly informed you, I  have ...."

2 The best man often forgets the speech because there are so many other things to think about, such as the ring, venue, ushers, timing.
Also the best man might keep the wedding speech in his everyday suit to rehearse it, then on the big day he changes into a special hired outfit.
a) If you rehearse the speech with the speaker, even if the text is left at home, the speaker should remember most of it. Ideally, the speech message should be clear, with the start linked to the ending, and every idea linked to the next, and a prop as a reminder of the theme.
b) Have two copies of the speech, one in the everyday outfit or briefcase, a second copy in the suit worn on the day. A third copy could be with an assistant, or on the fridge door at home so you can phone home for a reminder.
c) A copy of the speech can be placed in an email sent to your mobile phone and accessible from the internet from any terminal.

3 You might have more than one speech in your pocket. The Mayor of Harrow told members of Harrovian Speakers Club that he often had three speeches in his pocket because he would make three visits in a day, perhaps to a primary school in the morning, a secondary school in the afternoon, and to adults in the evening. He kept all three speeches in his pocket in the order in which he was giving them. After he gave the first speech, he moved the text to the back of the pocket so the next speech was on top, and so on.
Another speech mishap occurred at a UN meeting. The Portuguese speaker gave his speech and went back to his seat leaving his speech on the lectern. The Indian speaker stood up, saw the speech, and started reading it. The listeners were puzzled to hear him start to talk enthusiastically about Portugal, in the same words as the previous speaker, delighted to see so many Portuguese speakers. At first it might have sounded as if he was simply paying a courtesy to the previous speaker. But it soon became clear that he was reading the wrong speech.
Solutions:
a) Know your own speech and memorise the opening.
b) Have a colour code such as a green border round your speech. That way you will not forget it, you will not leave it behind, and nobody else will read out your speech.

4 a)  speaker, probably highly paid, stormed off stage angrily when he was supposed to be praising a product, but the visuals did not work.

b) I went to a Toastmasters meeting in Singapore where the president of the club was going to show colour slides of his exotic fish. He was disheartened when the visuals did not appear. I was embarrassed because I was the honoured supposedly expert guest supposed to evaluate him glowingly.

The solution is to always have print out posters as backup.
Have printed text to the slides as backup.
Memorise your speech and give it as if the slides are not working.
Find something funny to say in case the slides don't work.
The audience are looking forward to the slides/visual and to hearing you. As a courtesy to both the organisers and the paying public, you should keep everybody happy. Don't blame the staff. Blame the technology, or fate.

5 Spelling and grammar: I went to a presentation on grammar. (This happens at most meetings of Toastmasters International.) The slides instructing the audience on grammar were full of mistakes.
a) Do a spellcheck.
b) Ask a native speaker to check.
c) Get a second person to check. When I worked as a sub-editor at IPC, as many as 8 people would check every piece of copy before it was approved - in some cases, the sub-editor, a second sub-editor, the chief sub-editor, the features editor's assistant, the features editor, the original writer of the article, the magazine editor, the group editor in chief.

6 Experts often argue that everybody in the audience will understand the technical terms. You still need them in a glossary in the handout and on the slides. Why? Firstly, because if you mutter, people won't hear. At least if the long words are on the slide, people can read. Latecomers will also be able to read a summary. Foreign nationals may know the words but not understand your pronunciation.
Experts? The VIP may bring along a wife or student son who dare not ask for an explanation. Every company has somebody who has just joined as a junior.
Sometimes the head of the company has been transferred in from a different business because of their expertise in finance.
The technical bod who is running the computer - will he or she know when you have changed subject and need a new slide, or that the slide on the screen behind you is the previous or next subject?
What about the reporter from the local paper? Will you get the much needed publicity?
If you fall ill, or get delayed at the airport, will your VIP substitute know all the technical terms?
If you lose the slides and have to describe them to the laboratory, will they be able to find the slides easily? You tell them you have lost 20 or 30 slides on annealing. They reply 'We have twenty slides on the box which fell on the floor. My assistants are looking. All they can say is, do they have a blue border?'

7 Write two versions. In the longer one, draw a red line under the place where you can stop if running out of time.

8 I gave a speech with a great punchline. The chairman whispered to me, "The ladies in the kitchen say the tea is not yet ready. Please talk for another five minutes."
 I managed to find another anecdote. But I didn't have a second punchline. Have an extra anecdote and a second punchline, or one you can repeat.

9 Write pronunciations in brackets in another colour or typeface.

10 Mark pauses in blue. Underline or use capitals for words to emphasise. use up and down diagonals to indicate voice going up or down at the end of the sentence. Underline the last sentence so the speaker knows where to end and the audience knows when to clap.

Prize-winning Evaluation - how to do it

I (Angela Lansbury) am on the right with my two ribbons for Table topics and Evaluation. On the left is our warm and encouraging Toastmaster of the Evening, Mandy Carlin. 

I heard Lynn Cantor, last year's UK and Ireland Evaluation Prize Winner, speaking three times in workshops. The first time I admit I had trouble paying attention and sat at the back and what she said bored me, but the second time it sounded interesting, although I could not remember it, yet the third time, wow, either she had improved enormously or 'the penny had dropped' in my brain. Her vital messages got through about how to evaluate what you hear and see and write succinct one word reminder.
    The first time I tried to evaluate table topics I had trouble remembering who said what. To sum it up, you divide your page in half. Don't bother listing commend, recommend, commend. (Praise, suggest how to improve, praise.) Just put one or two good things on the left, one or two good things on the right.
   I started with the first name of the person called out as a heading. I ended comments on each person with a line across the page - otherwise you lose track of who your comment describes.
   I admit I wrote not in a proper book (Lynn recommended keeping a book just for all your evaluation.) I borrowed a pen and wrote on the back of the agenda. After reaching the end of the page I wrote up the side margin - then onto another page, marked 2. Yuk!
   In the break I remedied this. I copied all the comments onto one page neatly, with just a one word summary of each point.
   The page was headed TOPIC EVALUATIONS (date) by Angela. Keep/File.
(If I dropped the paper, it would be returned to me.)
the left column was headed by a tick. The right column was headed by a cross.
Once or twice I got the praise on the right or the recommend on the left. I drew circles and arrows to show where the comments should be.
When the timer gave the timings I was able to check I'd got the person's name in capitals and underlined, and circled. Then i wrote the topic in small letters circled beside the name.
First comment was sub-heading Eric - Age.
That enabled me to start confidently, "The first topic was Eric on age."
In the left hand box I wrote: smile laugh happy
In the right hand box I wrote: Pull up trousers.

   My comment was: Eric's topic was age. Most people are gloomy about age. He smiled from the start, looked happy, kept us happy, and laughed. He began happy, continued happy, and ended happy.
The only recommendation is about the moment when he pulled up his trousers. After that I was worried they were going to fall down! Great happy topic.

Prabha - Chocolates. (Life is a box of chocolates.)
Key words: Success.
Recommend - Touch Nose.
Recommend - Mid-way through the topic you thought and grasped your nose. No need. It won't fall off, I promise.
Book: Quick Quotations by Angela Lansbury. Lulu.com

Prize-winning speech Feb 27 2014

I won ribbons for both impromptu speech (table topic) and evaluation in one evening.

My table topic
Based on the quotation by Carnegie

"He who dies rich is a disgrace."

Dying rich? I should be so lucky! Would you prefer to die rich or die poor?

   This comment is a disgrace. We'd all like to die rich.

    I’m worry dying poor and not having enough money to leave my son. Or dying rich and leaving it all to the government. Inheritance tax. 

   That’s my problem. Why should I leave it all to complete strangers? If I don’t want to give any money to my own son, I certainly won’t want to give it to the government. or millions of strangers starving in Africa. 

   How far is my pittance going to go? Millions of them. What's the population of Britain? 56 million. How many in Africa. Next year there will be twice as many millions. Waste of money. 

   As for Carnegie, all very well for him to talk. He had millions. Carnegie Hall. If I had his millions, I might leave money for a hall - and call it Angela Hall. I'd build one in America, one in England, one in Africa - if I had millions of millions, every country in Africa. 

   But I need the money to leave to my son. He can’t make money, and it’s all my fault. I gave birth to him.

   I didn’t give birth to millions of strangers. My problem is having enough money, even tupenny ha’pence to leave my son. Dying rich. I should be so lucky.

(See next blog for my evaluation of my own topic and others' topics.)
I am the author of Quick Quotations For Successful Speeches.

Certificates For Speakers, Prize Winners, Thanks, Participants

Many clubs present certificates to participants or winners of competitions.
You can find certificate templates in your computer software programs.
A writer's group, training workshop, speaking competition, all have many occasions when certificates reward the speaker, workshop trainer, workshop participants, prize winners, and other competition entrants.

Advantages to your club:
You can print them off at the last minute. You can personalise them with the title of the speech. You can remind the speaker or participant of your venue or club. It's cheaper and quicker than rushing out to buy a thank-you card.

Advantages of certificates to recipients:
It reminds you which year you won a competition for a c.v.
It remind you of the venue.
It reminds you which poem or story won a competition. (Really handy if you've moved house or lost your old computer files.)
It cheers you up on a rainy day.
You remember who was president or secretary to write back and offer another course.
On your wall its a sign to other organisers or pupils that you are successful.

An A4 certificate is presented for major events. But a small A6 certificate is often equally useful. You can stick it between the pages of a book. It's small to pack when travelling. It uses less paper and printer ink. The frame is cheaper if the club presents it framed or the recipient buys a frame. It takes up less wall space when you have ten years' certificates to stick on the wall behind an office desk.

Some examples:

SPEAKING COMPETITION

POETRY COMPETITION

When looking for certificate templates on the internet some are listed as Award Certificates.

Pronunciation

In English our sentences have rhythm and lilt and tone. We speak loudly if we are enthusiastic, or angry. Each sentence has a rhythm. Two syllable words usually emphasise the first syllable. Good MORning. Paris. The French emphasise the second syllable. ParEE.
   The most common rhythms for sentences either iambic or trochee.  I am. Listen for a short word, then a long word.
    Trochee. it rhymes with HOCK - key. (I tried spelling the word in one go but predictive text insists on two words!) Stamping, hit the ball with the first syllable, is followed by a lighter second syllable.
    In English ending with your voice rising implies a question, uncertainty on the part of the speaker, and sometimes another sentence to follow. The technical term for this is up talking.
    Be careful when ending a speech with a question, or rising tone. The audience might fail to clap, waiting to see what you will say next in answer to your question.
   If you speak too fast you are likely to muddle up words or string them together. 

Punctuation in Presentations

   A presenter who spoke English as a second language had carefully researched English grammar for his/her* presentation on good grammar. The first error I noticed was the headline was wrong. His/her spelling was wrong. Grammar, when spelled correctly, has the letter 'a' twice.
     Each slide had a major error. As an expert in English, and English teacher, I was hailed as the expert to evaluate the evening. He/she had gone to such a lot of trouble, researching, then producing the slides.
Capital Letters
   Capital letters can be used for every word in a heading or sub-heading. In German nouns have capital letters. In English we restrict capital to names. On rare occasions a word can be both a name and a generic term. In that case you use the capital only when the word is used as a name. For example, 'When I saw my mother, I asked, "May I have an apple, Mother?" '
Full stops
    Full stops are used to indicate when the reader can stop for breath. A page with no full stops, just a series of sentences with commas between them, looks daunting. The unbroken text is exhausting to read aloud or silently.
    The listener would be totally confused.
    Full stops usually separate two sentences, expressing two separate ideas. Commas are used for a briefer pause, before a small phrase which expands or modifies the noun which the extra words qualify.
    I say his/her because this has happened more than once. I also don't want to create the embarrassment of somebody thinking, 'that must be me' or 'that must be him/her'.

I later frowned at a slide which contained the word yours's. Should I tell the speaker, if I were not the Language Evaluator. 

I previously saw a slide with a mistake by a German. I hesitated. Eventually I wrote him anote praising his great presentation. As an afterthough I mentioned how he had only one error in a long presentation, when others have two or three errors in only one sentence. I was very relieved when he wrote back a charming note thanking me for my help in pointing out his error so that with my help he could be one hundred percent perfect.

Please share your

Top Tips For Speakers' Meetings

1 Focus on your call to action.
Which of these is it? Join our club. Buy my book. Be confident. Trust me. Laugh. Cry. Think about this. Change your mind on this issue. Applaud the next speaker, give us the money, or come back to the next meeting? Help me. Call on me for help. A big, loud, long round of applause for that wonderful speaker and splendid speech.
2 The title of the meeting is your promise:
Christmas party. Summer Barbecue. AGM. Officer Training. Workshops with our Winners. Potluck Dinner. Welcome New Members Meeting. Open House - Free evening.
3 The title of the speech is your promise:
How to Write A Humorous Speech. My Funny Family. How to Conquer Your Fears and be Confident. Forget your fears. Life After Death. Life After Debt. Make Money with this Method. You can win.
4 A theme provides interest and variety.
All things Christmassy.  White Christmas party. Winter Wonderland. Summer Holiday Stories. Evening. Harvest festival. Travel Tales. Puppets, Parcels and Props in Presentations.
5 Have a spare speech.
Your speaker is sick or delayed. Weather has kept the speaker away. Your planned speech is not suitable for the audience/event and you need another.
6 If you are timer get attention and keep it.
Explain why timing is important. Have an anecdote or story about time. Keep attention by starting confidently.
7 Be heard at the back.
That's why experienced speakers check 'Can you hear me'.  In a huge meeting you can have a friend in the back row with a signal to tell you if sound is fading.
8 Repeat Success.
If you are successful, offer to come back with another similar session.
9 Be seen. If you are small, wear heels or a hat. or a dramatic colour or outfit.
10 Stay cheerful despite setbacks.
Don't apologise. Make a joke. Or thank the person who reminded you of an omission or suggested a new plan. Learn from mistakes.
11 Engage your friendly audience.
Look at them. Smile at them. Pay attention to the back as well as the front row. Look to both sides of the room. Move around. But don't page up and down like a caged animal. Don't talk to your feet, the ceiling, your book. Don't turn your back on the audience. If you leave or stop, tell them how soon you will be back. (e.g., when I come back with my visitor/hat I want you all to be silent.)
12 Ask the audience for rewards. Reward the audience.

Humorous Speeches

Angela with red wig and puppet. Selfie photo by Angela Lansbury.

How do you make your speech humorous?
1 Have a humorous subject.
2 Pick the story you tell which makes people laugh and use that as the opening or ending or both of a speech
3 Pick a joke and use that as the end of your speech. Take the theme and add other jokes on the same theme.
4 Write a serious speech. Make a pun in every sentence.
5 Pick an amusing prop such as a clown costume, man in apron, and build a humorous speech around it.
6 Pretend to be angry about something trivial. The disadvantages of toilet paper, pencils.
7 Debunk something serious. Why I hate funerals.
8 Be a humorous character - me the technology idiot.
9 Take an absorb premise and exaggerate it. There is a ghost in every chair.
10 Take a topical event from the news and imagine the problems. Woman has quadruplets. Conclusion, life is not as bad as you think.
A humorous speech is not the same as a comedy act. A comedy act is a distraction from your problems by making you laugh at a person who has a problem e.g.
a) bigger problems than yours - they are stuck in a sew, a stranded plane, locked in a toilet
b) a person who makes a mountain out of a molehill,
c) two characters who disagree.
A humorous speech should be on a serious subject, or practical subject, but use humour to make it enjoyable and keep the audience interested and sympathetic.
A humorous speech is not a series of one-liners on a series of random subjects.
Even if you do standup comedy, unless you do improv responding to the audience shouting subjects, you need a theme and a logical progression to help you remember.

Keep a list of what makes you laugh.
In Feb 2014, researching On This Day, I discovered that November 4th in Nepal is a day of religious observance when people worship themselves, oxen and cow dung. If I can relate this to the audience so much the better.
How many of you worship yourselves? How many of you worship oxen? How many of you worship cow dung. How many of you worship all three? How many of you are Nepalese? That explains it. 

Make Your Magnetic Speech Title Grab Your Audience - What's In It For Them?

    Your speech is like a letter. Does your message matter? It matters to you. But will it be relevant to recipients? Pet insurance will be relevant to dog owners. But I get letters asking me to take out vet bills insurance and I don't have a dog. As a speaker you need to look at your information and ask how it can improve the lives of the people listening.
    So make a promise you can deliver. Tempt the audience with a treat. Save them from danger. Solve their problems. Encourage them to take action. Be their friend.
   WIFM
   'What's In It For Me!' That's what each member of the audience is asking.  
   Decide what you are offering. Gardens. Yes, what's in it for the audience? They are pensioners who live in flats and have bad backs. Are you offering a day trip to see the garden shown on your slides? Can they travel? Can they enjoy it every day? What can they bring back? Seeds and plants for their windowsill? How To Grow Gardens on Your Windowsill.
    Book titles of non-fiction books often solve problems. Quick and easy recipes. Free food.
Fiction and humour which entertain us may be an absurd escapism: Join the Jazz players in the Jungle. 

Why Have Heroes? Who needs heroes?

   Who wants to hear about a hero? We teach children about a hero. Bruce and the spider on determination
   As a teacher and speaker, I started this list to help myself write opening speeches, to help myself as a speaker at a speakers' training club. (I am a former presidents of Harrovian Toastmasters in London, England.}
   Then I thought I should share my research with other writers and readers so they could enjoy the stories, benefit from my research and share my enthusiasm. This list should be useful to you if you are ever a toastmasters, president, chairman, after dinner speaker, or motivational speaker at a meeting. I am looking for the sort of story you might hear at school, as a student, on the radio or TV.    
   But even when you are between jobs, looking for work, not yet working, or retired, you might enjoy the stories. The characters are people you would like to hear about if you were in the audience or listening or watching.

Still debating heroes - one off bravery, persistent, determined? Rags to riches? Stoics?

Who is a hero or heroine? Somebody who risked their life, lost their life, or saved the lives of others? Then you find more in WWI and WWII. But a lot of it is grim reading, unless you bias your list towards survivors.
    What about entertainers? I imagine I hear little voices objecting, surely a skater or writer is not a hero? If you have ever tried to write a best selling novel, or even a novel with a beginning, middle and end, a year later, ten years later, you will appreciate the number of hours you must dedicate, the hours of revision, the struggle to master grammar and punctuation, the effort of a day, a week, a month, in simply researching and compiling a list for a blog - before you even start creating metaphors, similes and memorable phrases.
   What about money? Who is successful? The person who made the most money? One must admire those who started with no money and no encouragement and later were successful. Rags to riches. Cinderella. We want to know what kept them going, who encouraged them, which saying or motto they kept repeating in times of trouble which kept them going. Was it will poet alone? Or what you know. Persistence. Determination. Skill. Optimism?
   I admire those who persisted despite discouragement. We, readers and writers, all love stories about authors who were rejected, but whose books were later a great success.

Safety in second hand living. Watching wars. Armchair travel. TV travel.

   But reading and watching TV, sitting in the audience, retired, all this is second-hand living. I am happy to be an armchair trailer and not have the hassle of packing, the dangers of crashes, the stress of travel, the nuisance of mosquitos, the cost of hotels and airfares. I do not wish to clim Everest, like Mallory who was man with a mission but missing for centuries, where my often absent husband liked to trek. Nor did I wish to continue clomping around ski slopes where my husband and son zoomed up in lifts and down on skis.
   I am happy to retire to a quiet corner and console myself with the thought that I have survived most of the people I read about. I can still energise myself to get out of my chair and go for lunch, with the cheerful thought that Alice Herz-Sommer reached the grand age of 109, still entertaining others with her life story and piano playing, got through a concentration camp with her son and still has good friends from the bad old days and she seems to enjoy every minute of her life. You and I, with half the troubles she had seen, will be very happy if we can enjoy life half as much as she does.
   Alice, alas, died in Feb 2014, aged 110. You can watch her playing the piano on YouTube.