London Corinthians

At every London Toastmaster club I have attended, everyone has always said - "You must visit Corinthians". So I visited Corinthians - and what a club! Not only did they stick to their schedule, they also had the area TableTopic champ to treat us to a speech about the "Big Job" from the entertaining speeches advanced manual. Add another 3 ATM speeches and a general evaluation from 17 year TM veteran and you have a impressive display of TM values.
Things the club does well:

* The tabletopic mistress kept her introductions to under 30 sec, this allowed the contestants to interpret the topic as they liked and show their creative side.

* People got to vote for their best speaker/TableTopic speaker and write individual comments about the speeches (a constant theme throughout all the London clubs)

* Finished under the allocated time (nearly all the clubs I have ever attended have gone over time)

Things I could have done better during my table topics session:

* Make gestures with my feet as well as with my hands

* Introduce more humor into my topic ("Do I see the world as black & white or shades of grey")

London Cardinals Toastmasters

London Cardinals Toastmasters was the first TM club I have visited in London. What made the club stand out for me was the professionalisim with how it was run.

The meeting started on time, had voting slips for best speaker/evaluator, an amazing website (www.londoncardinals.com) and (most importantly) was held in some nice digs!

Cole (the President) started the meeting with this contagous enthusiasm that everyone
caught. There was even a Profesional speaker from the US to evaluate the entire meeting - I never knew evaluations could be so humerous! Drew (the meetings timekeeper) was even nice enough to buy me my first British beer - cheers Drew!

London Calling

First off I have to say that I was very impressed with the efficiency of EasyJet's flight from Schiphol (Amsterdam) to London. Ways they could make their operations even more efficient is by:

* Have an electronic check in system
* People being able to choose their aircraft seating position on-line
* Eliminate the second metal detector test

On to London, the first thing that hits you is the amount of people work in the centre of London. The only other place I've experienced that amount of people has been in Amsterdam during Sail '05. Then there's the traffic, only in Geneva did I see more congestion. The black cabs are everywhere, and I shudder to think what it was like before the congestion charge was introduced.

The tube isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. If I were to rate the mass transport systems of all the places I've been to, it would be (in descending order): Singapore's MRT (clean, cheap and safe - what more could you ask?), France's Metro (very old), London's Underground (train directions could be better), Netherlands NL (very expensive but the cleanest I've been in), and lastly Belgium's Metro (it's cheap, but a nightmare to navigate).

Accommodation is cheaper than I expected - I was able to find a dorm bed with breakfast in zone 2 for 19 NZD - bear in mind that it's the off season.