Toastmasters - Table Topics Master

I have posted the two speeches I have made which came in the second part of the meeting along with two or three other prepared speeches each time. The first part of each meeting is about impromptu speaking in the form of 'table topics'. The Table Topics Master leads these sessions.

This is the advice I was given by my mentor:

1.       Choose a theme to base your questions around (e.g. travel, hobbies, music etc)

2.       Read the question out first, then pick the speaker.  This makes everyone listen to the question

3.       Choose a few more experienced people to go first.  This gives newer people an idea of what to do.  And with the newer people keep the questions straightforward and do-able.

4.       Give priority to those people not doing speeches or other speaking roles.  

Oh you also will need to do a very short intro as to why being able to speak on the spot is a good skill. 

And this is my introduction and questions:
Introduction (something along the lines of)
The table topics part of the meeting has a number of purposes:

1. It allows members to speak who do not have other speaking roles
2. It gives guests a taste of speaking (you can attend as many times as you like as a guest and do a table topic)
3. It helps us all develop our impromptu speaking skills which can be useful on many occasions  when we have to speak about something unexpectedly.

Personally I find Table Topics quite stressful, but all the more reason to practice them!

My theme is 'getting to know you' as having just joined toastmasters I have spoken twice now about myself and I would like to get to know you all a bit better.

Topics

• What would be your perfect day?
• What did you get in to trouble for most when you were growing up?
• When you think of 'home', what specifically do you think of?
• If you could go back in time and give advice to your 12 year old self what would it be?
• If you could solve any problem, what would it be, and why?
• When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
• What do you have that you couldn't live without?
• What do you like most about yourself?

Everyone always give nice positive feedback which is very encouraging, in this case they liked the topics because people always like talking about themselves and they were relatively easy. It is quite difficult chosing topics as you want it to be challenging but not scary and you need to challenge more experienced people more ideally.

I felt a bit nervous but got going once I had started I think. As everyone who speaks at a meeting gets evaluated I got feedback that I was stepping backwards and forwards while speaking - I was actually aware I was doing it at one point and stopped so that is good as often I am too nervous to be aware what my body is up to.

I have been 'volun-told' (geddit? Not me who made it up...) to do table topics on a Christmas theme for the meeting before Christmas. So any suggestions welcome...