Club Spotlight: Hamwic Speakers Celebrates 15 Years of Excellence

Hamwic Speakers recently celebrated their 15th Year Anniversary.

An eventful and packed meeting, joined by Ken and Margaret Amy, and all past presidents over the 15 years and the current presidents from Spinnaker Speakers, Solent Speakers, and our Area Director! It was just incredible to experience the murmurs of laughter and conversation amongst the group as friendships rekindled and being made. We also had six guests join us for the first or second time (I do wonder what they were thinking following their attendance!).

We had a panel event where we heard insights and top tips for our public speaking and leadership journeys whether we were new members or long-time members. We heard and were inspired by the story of passion, dedication and collaboration from the surrounding clubs to help Hamwic Speakers put their roots down. The underlying theme was that working together and not alone, is what has made our club thrive, with every member and every volunteer committee member coming together is super important in our community.

It was such a wonderful celebration, and I look forward to our 20th celebration in 2029.

Debate Is Not Yet Futile – But Only Just

It has been 10 years since Paul Carroll banged the gavel for the first time at 104 London Debaters in September 2014. At our 10th Anniversary Debate Meeting on Tuesday the 10th of September 2024, it was our 10th President, KB, who banged the gavel and called the 33 attendees to order amid streams of bunting and clinking glasses.

After welcoming the gathered flock, and tempting them to stay for cake after the meeting, our current President promptly handed over to our Immediate Past President, David Sexton, to Chair the Table Topic session.

David had a whole slew of Presidential and political topics, from election colleges in the US and age limits on Presidents via the relative merit of the Parliamentary system vs. the Presidential system, to funding for political parties and whether Larry The Cat should be made Prime Minister. Phil’s assertion that it would be rude to make the 1% unhappy had the crowd tickled pink, but it was William who gave the audience paws for thought with his advocacy for a purrfect feline prime minister, and so he won the Audience Prize for Best Table Topic speaker by a whisker.

All debate positions at 104 London Debaters are assigned, so debaters do not necessarily express their personal opinions. (And we are not biased in favour of cats).

During the break, the club served free drinks to all members and guests, and with glasses refilled, President KB handed over to one of our founding members and former Presidents, Joann Walsh, to chair the 10 year anniversary Presidential Debate.

For this special meeting, debate itself was under debate with the motion This House Believes That Social Media Renders Debate Futile, Online and Offline.

Before the debate 5 voted in favour, 18 against with 6 abstaining. After a debate with a plethora of claims, grounds for claims, warrants, claims of fallacies, logical deductions, anadiplosis, and a bravura summary from club founder Paul Carroll, the motion was defeated but with a substantial swing to the Proposition, with 14 in favour, 16 against and 2 abstaining.

Congratulations to the Opposition for defeating the motion – thank goodness, debating was not voted futile at a debating club – but also very well done to the Proposition for winning the swing.

Paul Carroll also won the Audience Prize for Best Debate Speech with his summary for the Proposition.

After President KB closed the formal proceedings, we then transferred our attention to the cake, and our founder Paul had the honour of cutting the club’s birthday cake.

We also had 15 vegan chocolate muffins baked especially for the club on the baker’s day off, by Norwegian Baker’s Jessika Hagerup (William’s ex-wife), and donated them to the club with best wishes for another 10 years of free speech and good quality debates.

Paul Carroll, co-founder of the club, cutting the birthday cake.

The 10 presidents are (in chronological order):
Paul Carroll
Dorothea Stuart (not present)
Joann Walsh
Lo Luong Lo
Christopher Walker
Oliver Kurer
Renata Bailey-Sokol
William Hagerup
David Sexton
Kristina Bhuller

An Empowerment Story

I am someone who has always stammered. Stammering is a neurological condition that you are born with, and I always say to people, ‘forget everything you think you know about it’, because there are so many myths.

Now my stammer isn’t very noticeable but it wasn’t always like that.  Looking back, I think that my stammer encouraged me to do well at school and university, essentially to prove people wrong about my abilities.  However, I remember being terrified of reading aloud and avoided public speaking as I had learned to feel ashamed about moments of disfluency. My fear made my speech worse.  Nerves don’t cause stammering but they can make it worse.

As I became more experienced in my subject (I am an economist), I began to lecture. I found myself comfortable as an ‘explainer’, as I could focus on what to say, rather than how I said something.  Being the conduit of information put me in the spotlight in a very passive way.  But as I became more senior, I had to emcee events, and had to actively think about how to engage the audience.

I’d tried various ways to ‘desensitise’ myself: books and online courses.  I’d heard about Toastmasters but only joined in 2017. I remember that first walk to the club – my heart was in my mouth.  Luckily, I bumped into someone else – and that person would continue to be a friend.  Indeed, my 7 years of Toastmasters has been a journey of meeting amazing, inspiring people.

My initial goal had been ‘to dislike public speaking less’.  And of course, somehow the unthinkable happened: I began to really enjoy public speaking.  Toastmasters gave me the space to practice skills that were nothing to do with fluency as such.  So I learnt about speech writing, vocal variety, use of body language etc.  I got to district final in both the international speech and evaluation competitions.  I became a DTM.

More than that I learnt that stammering wouldn’t make me a bad speaker – I can still be eloquent, authentic and connect to the audience.  Toastmasters was so transformational that I wanted to share it.  I sponsored Speechcraft and specifically called for those with speech conditions to come forward.

Over the past decade, in my spare time, I had working on supporting people who stammer in universities through guides, talks and videos.  I began to support STAMMA (the British Stammering Association) who provide amazing services.

Nothing, however, had prepared me for the shock of being awarded an MBE in the 2024 New Years Honours List.  Toastmasters has been so important to my journey – its helped give me the personal confidence to engage effectively.  And its been one of the ways that I’ve tried to support other people who stammer.

Thank you Toastmasters – and thank to you to all the amazing Toasties out there running Speechcraft and taking up club officer roles. You are empowering others through every meeting.

Prof Deborah Johnston (PFHEA) (MBE)
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic Framework)
London South Bank University

Thanks Toastmasters! Mr & Mrs DTM

Debs

I joined Toastmasters as I wanted to be able to deliver presentations to develop my own business. I was very shy and nervous at the first meeting but was made to feel very welcome. My determination to make progress led me to be one of the founder members and I soon started to take up officer roles.  I have been helped by many people, but Kit offered to mentor me beyond the first few speeches and his experience was invaluable and he was so generous with his time, with me and many others. He encouraged and supported me as President and then the Area Director. Oddly, there was no spark between us – just two people helping each other. That support became much more on the break-up of my marriage, with Kit standing by me through a serious mental health crisis. Clearly Kit is an active listener as he got the message and proposed to me a couple of days after risking death whilst white water rafting in Canada. I should have used the wedding planning as an HPL project, but the outcome was better than a DTM, it was a new start to my life with someone who cherishes me.

Kit

As a 25-year TM veteran my greatest pleasure of membership comes from helping members and seeing them grow. Debs’ confidence clearly grew as she worked her way through the old “Competent Communicator” programme. As her mentor I then encouraged her and guided her through leadership opportunities: club officer roles, area director and her high-performance leadership project. One of my favourite memories is co-presenting a workshop on mentoring at a division TLI with Debs. Much of this was done while working and living in Qatar, and president of a club in Doha. Getting up at 5 to fly back for our Basingstoke club meetings was a bit of a drag. What I had paid forward came back with interest following the break-up of my marriage in the form of Debs support for me. The years of friendship through our TM membership formed a solid foundation on which we built a life partnership. However, there was one speech I was not allowed to help with: her bride speech.