WIBF Speakers at Large

WIBF Speakers has two branches, in the City of London and Canary Wharf. They meet on alternate Wednesday evenings from 6-8pm with drinks and networking after. Guests are always welcome, but please register for security purposes.

For more information on the meeting at Canary Wharf please visiting Wibf Speakers

Welcome to the WIBF Speakers-City Club – your friendly and professional communication and leadership group.

At each of our meetings we create an atmosphere of professional camaraderie that makes for a unique learning environment. Our pledge to our Members is to provide an informal and supportive environment in which you are encouraged to learn, develop and grow into confident Toastmasters.

We all have the ability to speak, listen and think fluently, clearly and competently as well as the ability to manage and evaluate others. By attending WIBF Speakers-City regularly you will master all of these qualities to an advanced level.

We are part of Toastmasters International (TMI), a global organisation with approximately 270,000 members in more than 13,000 clubs in 106 countries. Since 1924, Toastmasters International has helped individuals like you becoming more confident in varied situations – from delivering presentations, to handling interviews and small talk, or giving public speeches!

Like all TMI clubs we provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which you have the opportunity to develop and grow. The best way to achieve this is to practice again and again and again. Do not be shy, sign up to do a role or to do a speech!

Please note that the City club no longer use this website and therefore if you would like to attend a meeting in the City please contact justine.cooper@wibf.org.uk who will direct your enquiry. New website details will follow soon.

An important aspect of career management can be your public speaking skills, especially as you advance up the career ladder. WIBF Speakers has helped many members to overcome their public speaking challenges and here is just one example of many – Nekesha Roberts of HSBC. “Three years ago I started a new adventure and transferred to the UK from my home in Trinidad and Tobago”, remembers Nekesha. “Although I was aware that I am generally soft spoken, this highlighted the necessity to do something about my communications skills now that I was the one with an accent!” Nekeshas’s career started with banking experience in Trinidad and Tobago and her career continued in the UK as Treasury Assistant within a public sector organisation.

Since moving to HSBC Investment Bank Global Markets Operations, she works as a cost analyst and is studying for her ACCA qualification. “My job includes preparation of the annual operating plan, preparing monthly exception reports for senior management, quarterly forecasting and budget setting. Usually, most of the speaking I do at work is at meetings or discussions with cost centre managers about their accounts. It is particularly important that I am understood, as not all managers are familiar with financial jargon”, said Nekesha.

She was looking around for a public speaking course and spotted WIBF Speakers’ Canary Wharf branch advertising on the HSBC intranet, so joining the group felt like serendipity. “Because of my soft voice I often found myself overshadowed by more dominant personality types. The Toastmasters programme has been great in helping me to project my voice and communicate clearly and confidently. I feel that I am being taken more seriously at work and being given more responsibility. Amazingly, I have only been a Toastmaster for one year – so I feel that there must be more benefits to come!”

Nekesha will be exercising her speaking skills in a different role in July, when she makes a thank you speech in front of 100 guests at her wedding! So, any tips for other WIBF members? “I think that the biggest challenge for anyone who wants to improve on their speaking skills is to make that start”, she said. “It’s easy to make excuses about other demands on our time but that’s often just fear. I personally believe that we are not born with good speaking skills but rather develop them through practice. We just have to decide that this is a goal that is important to us and act upon it”.