At Speak Easy @ Martlesham, we'll never know quite what to expect, with speakers constantly surprising us with their wide range of interests, activities, views and stories.

One thing you can expect, though, is a well-organised evening, which follows a carefully designed structure designed to help everyone learn and enjoy.

We begin with brief introductions in which everyone is invited to speak for about 10- 15 seconds. This way we get to know who's at the meeting and a chance to loosen those vocal chords and calm the nerves ready for the evening ahead.

To develop our leadership skills we take it in turns to lead our meetings and to provide support in key roles for timekeeping, reviewing our language and providing feedback.


Table Topics

During Table Topics the members get the chance to practice speaking off the cuff. The impromptu 'Table Topics' (typically lasting around 2 minutes) are set by the Topics Master who invites volunteers to speak without preparation on a surprise topic.

The evaluations

The speeches are followed by evaluations to help the whole audience to learn from the speakers' performances.


This is followed by a short break for drinks and conviviality.


After the break

After the break, we hear the prepared speeches, mostly lasting from 5 - 7 minutes. These follow a series of guidelines and advice from our introductory Communication & Leadership Manual (or various Advanced Manuals).

As speakers we choose our own subjects for these prepared speeches and as members of the audience we are often surprised by what we hear about during the meeting.

These provide interesting challenges for the speakers and a source of entertainment for the audience.

Each speaker is assigned an individual evaluator whose job is to carefully analyse their performance to help them build on their strengths for the future. They do this by making recommendations on how to improve and commenting on what they did especially well.


Central to our meetings and to our personal development are the evaluations where each speaker is given feedback with positive commendations and constructive recommendations. This mutual support and feedback is invaluable. Evaluation is a valuable personal skill that all members are encouraged to practice.