On a cold, dark January night our members braved the traffic chaos that was brewing outside and came together for our first meeting of the year. That meeting was all about evaluation. David gave a short presentation about how to do an evaluation.
Critical evaluation is a very important skill in all facets of life, but in public speaking it’s really important. Honest feedback is how we learn and how we improve, and that’s not just hearing it but delivering it. There’s an art to giving feedback in a way that is positive and constructive, but also doesn’t come at the cost of the speaker’s confidence.
We did an exercise where David gave a speech- curiously about Grapefruit!- and everyone in the room made some notes while he was speaking. Then, they worked in small groups to turn that into an evaluation, which is a mini-speech in itself.
It was brilliant to see some of the newer members getting involved and dipping their toes into evaluation for the first time. Jake and John even managed to come up to the front and delivered their evaluations and did a fantastic job.
We then had an excellent topics session led by John Dove, and that proved to be great fun.
Our February meeting is on Feb 7th, so please come along! Guests are always welcome.