Author: LSC Comittee

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.

For the first time since the pandemic, it felt like we were starting to build something last year rather than just trying to conserve what we had. We grew in numbers with the welcome addition of several new members who have added a ton of energy to the club. We have started to socialise together, so we see each other more than just once a month. We attended several events, such as TEDx and Ignite Liverpool, and David and Suzy both managed to present an Ignite talk (a 5-minute 20-slide PowerPoint).

We also had the great honour of seeing club President John make it through to the National Finals for Evaluation, where he did a fantastic job and finished an incredible second.

Our year culminated with us hosting our President’s dinner for the first time since 2018. It was a hugely successful event and we were honoured to invite members from Stockport Ladybrook, Stockport Speakers club and Manchester Peterloo Speakers to come along and join us for the evening. It’s a tradition we’re keen to revive as an annual occasion so we’ll be looking forward to doing it again in 2024

For the first time since March 2020, Liverpool Speakers Club will be meeting in person!

During the past 20 months, the club has kept going online and we’ve done well but we’re all very excited to be able to get back to meeting in person.

The meeting will be on Wednesday 10th November at 7:30pm. As always, guests are more than welcome so please come down if you want to give speaking a go!

Liverpool Speakers Club has been meeting since 1962, but never like this! As we aren’t able to meet up in person for the time being, we decided the next best thing to do is meet up online.

This first meeting was just a catch-up, and a test of the technology to see if it’s feasible to hold meetings via Zoom.

We then had a quick topics session, where our members discussed what they’ve been up to during the lockdown, which has ranged from working on the front line of nursing, participating in hackathons to help find a technical solution to the effects of the virus on society all the way to kicking a ball around the garden and playing a lot of FIFA!

Our next meeting will be on May 4th. Guests are still welcome so please get in touch if you want to join us then!

Due to Covid-19 and the necessary social distancing measures that are in place, the club cannot meet as normal for the time being.

But, that doesn’t mean we can’t meet at all.

For the first time in the 58-year history of the club, we will be having an online meeting on Monday April 20th at 8pm.

Our first meeting will be a short topics session just to test the technology and to see how we need to adapt our meetings to the change in circumstances.

So 2020 is here! Like many people, we find the new year is an opportunity to both look back and look forward.

Liverpool Speakers Club had a very good year. We heard some amazing prepared and impromptu speeches and we added some new members, as well as welcoming back some old friends. Some of our members have been able to take on some of the chair and advisor roles at meetings for the first time.

The club has also been well represented in contests, with all of our representatives qualifying for the district contest in a couple of months.

We had a change at the top, with John Dove stepping into the role of club President.

So, what does 2020 have in store for Liverpool Speakers Club?

We want to continue building as a club. We want to keep adding new members. We want to focus on helping our members and guests become better all-round speakers by teaching them how to chair meetings and critically evaluate speeches.

We want to add some variety into our meetings by having some debate nights, reading nights and more.

We want to engage more with the public speaking community and the public. If you have any questions then you can contact us here, or through our social media.

We wish you all a happy and healthy 2020, and we hope to see you all at meeting this year!

The beginning of a new year is a time of reflection for everyone, who sit and think “what kind of year did I have?”

For us at Liverpool Speakers, 2018 was a very good year. We’ve had a year of successful meetings, listened to some great speeches and heard some very entertaining impromptu speeches. We’ve grown as a club, having added several new members throughout the year.

The club has also been very well represented in the ASC contests. Club Vice-President John got to the national finals for the Topics and Evaluation contests, and Matt has qualified for the district Speech competition.

But the beginning of a new year is also a time to look forward. After all, what is a resolution if not a wish for the year ahead?

So, what does the year ahead hold in store for Liverpool Speakers Club?

Well, we want to build on the work we did in 2018, and then some more! We want to grow further as a club, develop more speakers and get more people involved in some of the club roles.

We also want to vary our meetings, adding in some special nights for debating, reading and anything else we can think of.

We also want to engage more with both the wider ASC community and with others. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions then please let us know. You can get in touch via social media or through this website.

We also want to wish all of you a very happy, healthy and successful new year, and we hope to see you all at a meeting sometime this year!

Congratulations to our club vice-president John Dove, who at the ASC Western District conference won both the evaluation and topics competitions! John now goes on to represent Liverpool Speakers Club at the national conference in York next month.