Apr 18

Humorously Speaking, project 1

Are you a member of Toastmasters International and have completed your 10 speeches earning you Competent Communicator status and are looking to start the Advanced Manuals? Maybe you’re considering doing the Humorously Speaking Manual? Keep in mind that the Humorous Speech Contest comes up once a year.

Or perhaps you just want to learn an easy way to start using humour in your speeches or presentations? Maybe you just need to make a funny introduction? If any of these apply, check out this video. If not er… check out this video: Continue reading

Apr 07

BBC 2 Programme The Speaker

So Reality T.V. finally does speaking. Like some sort of bad cross between Big Brother and The X Factor; The Speaker is a new series that looks to find Britain’s Best Young Speaker. Quite an interesting topic for a programme and something that helps raise awareness for this craft and, hopefully, Toastmasters International. But it’s not quite clear why they’re doing it, other than the fact that great speaking is now back en vogue thanks to President Obama. Continue reading

Apr 03

Punchlines vs. Jokes

If you want to learn stand-up comedy, or how to give funny presentations, I came across something very interesting. I read an interview with British comedian Michael McIntyre recently. He tells a story where he was at the Montreal Comedy Festival and was approached by David Letterman’s people. If you’re interested in how to learn to be funny it’s important that you read this. Here’s the quote: Continue reading

Mar 30

Where’s Your Werewolf Moment?

I was re-watching An American Werewolf in London recently, and I had an idea floating around in the bag of my head about how this relates if we want to make a presentation either for work or the International Speech Contest. By the way, if you’ve never seen the movie, and you like being scared out your wits, watch it. It’s a horror, but with a few comic moments thrown in. It frightened the poop out of me when I was a kid. Continue reading

Mar 20

When Did You Last Have Playtime?

No, I don’t mean THAT sort of playtime. I don’t know. Blimey, mind like a sewer you. Anyway… in my previous article about Laughter Yoga I was exploring aspects of the science of laughter. This got me thinking about the wider impact of play and I mean play time as opposed to a script that a bunch of actors stage. Then I cam across an feature in the science magazine Scientific American: Mind, and finally one of my readers commented on the Laughter Yoga post saying how it got her thinking about play. Continue reading