Blog

Ribbons

“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon.”

Napoleon may have been right when he said this. There is nothing quite as tangible or visual as a ribbon or medal to show that you have achieved an accolade. And people will go to great lengths, sometimes, to gain those accolades.

I’m glad to say that this is the case for our club as well! Last year we worked very hard to improve membership numbers and the overall experience for all members who attend a meeting at Ambassadors Speakers Club. Read more »

Despite the desperate attempt at alliteration, the Division H Humorous Speech contest is one that shows all the best parts of public speaking. You need to be able to combine humour, content and delivery in a very neat and entertaining package.

That’s exactly what today’s contestants hoped to achieve. Each one has fought through 2 heats at club and area level to win a place at this contest. Whoever wins will take one other division winners in the National level at the Flourish 2011 Autumn Conference.

But let’s not jump ahead! The first part of the day was made up of two workshops. Read more »

The great thing about being in Ambassadors and any other Toastmasters club is the interactions of clubs at a local level, and there is no better example of this than the contests.

If you’re a club lucky enough to push a member ahead who’s got what it takes to make the grade and advance to compete against other clubs and better speakers – then it is an exciting prospect!

Ambassadors Speakers Club had two contestants who won the club humorous speech and table topics contests. These were John Reid and Yvonne Forbes respectively. Read more »

You stand in a room, cold and alone. As you gaze forwards your meets meet the casual stares of every single person in the room. Your mouth goes dry, you knew this day had to come. Eyeballs bore into your core. As adrenaline fills you, your clammy hands are shaking, your pulse quickens, and the inescapable truth comes to the fore:

You’ve been asked to say a few words.

Like a bad dream, you can guarantee that someone somewhere is having this experience right now. No matter how prepared you are, you never quite realise how nervous you’re going to be until you are there. And it doesn’t matter if it is a group of five people or a group of 500, the feeling is the same. You can imagine, that person really wishes they could wake up!

Strangely, this is the Number 1 reason why I hear people DON’T want to join a speakers club such as Ambassadors Speakers Club. “Oh, I don’t think that I would be able to stand in front of people and talk.” Despite the fact that this is what Toastmasters International clubs are for. All Over the World. Read more »

With all of the excitement if the club contest – it seems that we’re having trouble getting news out fast enough at Ambassadors!

This one is quite important though, as Ambassadors Speakers Club has a new home.

From now on, the club meetings will be held at St Gertrude’s Nursery, Lillian Road, Ramsgate. The address can be found at the bottom of the website and on the Contact page.

Also changed are the meeting times, which will now be starting prompt at 7pm. Members and guests are asked to arrive at 6:45pm to ensure smooth running of the meetings.

We would like to say thanks to the Trinity Community Centre for all of the help they have provided to us over the last couple of years, which has helped our club to remain successful and an enjoyable place to be.

As well as a new venue, we are looking at some of our members helping with projects at the St. Ethelbert’s Primary School to help with speaking, listening and confidence for Year 6 children. There will be more news as this happens.

In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you all there!