Division contest – what a great night

DivKSuch a good contest yesterday, we were laughing all the way.

And brilliant representation from Area 35.

Chris Howell (Bromley Speakers) was the contest chair, and did an excellent job keeping us to time, acknowledging all involved and making sure all the rules were followed.

Evelyn Khan-Panni (Bromley Speakers) gave us a polished personal story about the Digital Technology Evolution and Richard Green (Bromley, T&O, Lewisham, Trustmasters – have I missed any?) kept us amused with his story about Gordon Lamsey. I swear his wife puts on another 10 1bs with each humorous speech, no wonder he is scared to invite her as a guest to one of our meetings.

Stars of the evening were both from Area 35.

Malachi Talabi (Speakers of Croydon) brought his wife to witness a funny story with a message. Come and see them both again in Brighton in just over a week.

Samir Malak (Croydon Communicators and T&O, Bank of America) gave us a table topic with structure, a message, engaging body language, and great entertainment.

Malachi and Samir are both proudly holding their Division K trophies in the picture.

Thank you also to Becky Tuff – President of Women in Banking and Finance at Barclays who hosted the event, also pictured.

The President’s thoughts on 16 July meeting

Just wanted to say, thank you for an incredibly enjoyable and humorous evening I felt we all had on Thursday at Ripley.

My first evening as your new President. Gosh it felt good!

Especially the fact that we had eight guests and a packed house to boot! It could not have run better. Everyone took part and we all had a blast. We learnt so much too.

A hot tip from Sasha Kenna “Dont worry be happy” really set the tone for the evening.

We were all warmed up by the charismatic Nisha Yates. Oooohhhhhh!!!

NeilPettigrew kicked the speeches off with his tale of sarongdom, opening doors in a dress no less, and waltzed off with top speaker award! Well done Neil.

Then our own Eddie Barnes engaged us with his powers of persuasive talking, body language and good old eye contact. Well done Eddie.

Lastly Patricia Ceasar sent out a brilliant motivational message to one and all….just do it! With whatever comes to hand. Even if it is a small bust of Beethovan, pardon the expression.

Our three evaluators Area Governor Jenny Taggart, Evelyn Khan-Panni and Ruth Gordon all gave sound feedback and good recommendations. This is what we are about: helpful supportive and motivational advice. Well done to you ladies!

How hilarious were the table topics, led by Dave Henson? Challenging questions with some intelligent answers. Notice I said some intelligent answers. There was one chap who seemed to let the subject fly away. I wonder who that was. A rather embarrassed President. I am still trying to formulate an answer to Sean Bremman’s table topic question which I guess can never be answered successfully. Not in this lifetime. But our guest Sean walked away with top table topic. Thoroughly deserved too! Very well done David Henson.

Our table topic evaluator, Assistant Area Governer Samir Malek successfully navigated and negotiated his way round a tricky job of evaluating 8 speakers, but he gave excellent commendations and recommendations to one and all. Samir’s recommendation to me was “what was that, raise the bar Rich” which roughly translated meant “Hey Rich your table topic was rubbish, you can do better. You are the President you know.” Ha ha ha. Must try harder!

Finally, I must commend Ian Brett on what was an outstanding general evaluation. He gave feedback to all with some excellent recommendations, all delivered in fine style without notes. I say, well done Ian.

Not forgetting our Sergeant At Arms and timer Peter Bull who had a firm grip on our new stopwatch and kept everything running smoothly and Jane Bennett our delightful Grammarian grappled with our grammar and informed us of our intriguing uses of the English language .

Very well done to everyone, it was a real pleasure and so funny too!