Do you find your mind wandering during a club evening, or for that matter during any conversation or business meeting you are involved with? It can happen so easily with the least thing causing a distraction. What you need to do is completely FOCUS on the speaker and what they are saying. This can work in any situation and in our club environment we need to give respect to everyone who stands up front whether Toastmaster, Warm Up, those giving a speech, evaluation, topic, or General Evaluation.
If you do not listen to the Toastmaster, the Warm Up or Topics, how are you going to take part and respond? With the speakers, listen to their introduction and from the moment they start to speak focus on every aspect of what they are saying, how they deliver their speech and any message they are conveying. Write down a few points you gained from the speech and then you can speak to that person after to have a short discussion on what you gained from their tale. How would you have evaluated the speech? Listen to the evaluators and see if any points you put together were covered by the evaluator and listen to how they evaluated.
When you leave at the end of the evening, review it to yourself and you will be surprised at how this will help you to develop your own style of delivery.
From Speakeasy 154 – December 2011