By Susan Rayner
Taking the role of meet and greet was Jenny Andreas, providing our guests with a cheery welcome.
Our Sergeant at Arms Adam Russell reminded us all of our facilities at Ripley and also the importance of housekeeping.
Our toastmaster for the evening was Bryony Hall who introduced a theme of “when you have stepped up”. It was Bryony’s first time as toastmaster and she introduced the team as a seasoned toastmaster introducing Paul Andreas as Timekeeper, John Vickers standing in for Richard Green as Ah Counter and Jenny Taggart as Grammarian with our word of the day “Scandalous”. And finally warm up was delivered by Vinu Madhavan.
Adam Russell stepped in and took over the role as Hot Tip reminding us to be an active listener when someone is giving a speech.
Our first speaker was Alexanderz Kirykowic who gave his 4th speech from the competent communicator manual, with a speech entitled “The good life.” He reminded us that being happy is not just a state of mind, but many things go into making us happy, and told us that the average person would only score themselves a 7.5 out of 10 in terms of happiness, and that money does not buy happiness.
Our second speaker was John Cross who redid his Manual #5 from the competent communicator with a speech titled “Backwards and Forwards”. Telling us how he learnt to skate in 1981 in Moscow, as he wanted to meet some of the locals, which also meant he joined the local hockey team to practice his ice-skating skills.
Our last prepared speaker came from Alex Clark with “Once Upon A Time” from the Storytelling Manual. He gave us a fascinating story how that, you don’t always appreciate what you have until someone helps you see what you really have.
The speeches were evaluated by Riya George, Royston Pistone and Neil Pettigrew respectively.
Simon Maggs undertook the role of table topics master with a theme on why conspiracy theories are conspiracy facts. We had a range of topics for our speakers, ranging from why the moon landing was faked, to why the moon is made of cheese, why the world will end 23rd September. With speakers taking up the challenge Dave Henson, Margot Glover, Alain Culos, Susan Rayner, Jenny Andreas, Christine Morrell and our guests Denbo, and Tony. Karen Mefflin gave all speakers an evaluation on their table topics.
Our Grammarian Jenny Taggart gave her report picking up use of words such as effective, excellent, ruminating, and pondering.
Our General Evaluator for Sue Shaw for the evening who gave us all a range of exceptional feedback to all those who spoke.
We then had the presentation of awards, with Neil Pettigrew being presented with the best evaluator and John Cross winning the best speaker award.
Closing the meeting with a reminder about our next meeting on 4th November.