In a previous post I talked about Toastmasters. Toastmasters is an organisation that helps you with your public speaking and leadership. Every meeting runs to a strict schedule and one of the activities is called Table Topics. Table Topics is basically a chance at improvised speech making. The Table Topics Master has to give the participants a chance to give an improvised speech which he or she gives them.
Coming up with topics for this part of the meeting can be challenging and guess who has to be Table Topics Master next week. Yes, you guessed it, me. What should I ask my fellow club members to talk about? Do you have any ideas? Lets see if I can think of ten ideas.
1. I think the simpler the better. The first time I ever participated in Table Topics I had to talk about the crocodile not being able to poke it's tongue out of it's mouth. So, I ask you, how would you answer that? It had me stumped. My point is, there is nothing wrong with asking about their favourite movie or their favourite food. For people who may not be so confident talking in front of people these kinds of topics can be easy for them to get in the groove. When you start asking about Einstein's Theory of Relativity it isn't helping anyone.
2. Have a collection of current events and ask the speaker to give their point of view on it. Opinions are always a good one. For example, today we saw the Austrian guy jump out of a capsule at 128000 feet and free fall and parachute to the ground. So, you could ask about that and ask the question, an inspiration for mankind or a waste of money?
3. Take a collection of words that are real but no one has probably ever heard of and ask the speakers to give a definition of them. I remember playing a board game like that a few years ago but I don't know what the name of the game was called. I think it might be Balderdash but I'm not 100% sure on that.
4. Use public holidays as a theme for Table Topics. A simple question could be how is the perfect way you would celebrate Christmas? Another idea could be to talk about a memorable New Years' Eve that you have had.
5. Ask the speakers to tell something about themselves that everyone may not know and may find very surprising. This isn't a real example but in my club we have a great deal of farmers in it. A farmer is traditionally thought of as been male and quite conservative. So wouldn't it be funny if one of them said that they like musicals or something similar.
6. The other day I wrote a post about if I won the lottery. This is a perfect example for a Table Topic. I'm sure that you would get a various range of answers from someone saying that they would blow it on material things to someone who would probably invest it in low risk low yield bonds. I can imagine that you would get answers that were enthusiastic and creative while you would also get answers that were for won't of a better word almost boring.
7. I talked about your favourite food before, you could elaborate on it by asking about the strangest food you have ever eaten or the different ethnic foods that you have had. This sounds easy but trying to think of something straight away is, I reckon, quite challenging.
8. I am Table Topics Master on October 23rd. Using the internet (Wikipedia is usually good for this) get the speakers to talk in more detail about what happened today in history. For example, on the 23rd of October 1915 about 30,000 women marched in New York City demanding suffrage. Imagine you are a gentleman of the time and talk about your opinion of this event.
9. If you had someone come to visit you in your hometown for one week where would you take them? What would you do? Where and what would you eat? This maybe easy if you live in New York but if you are doing this for Palmerston North then that could be a challenge.
10. For the more romantic people, ask them what they would do on their perfect date. This can be a fantasy one or a date that they have had in the past.
I'm sure that there are thousands of other ideas for table Topics. Here are just ten. Hmmm, I wonder which ones I can use next week.
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