Our meeting this evening brought out the true spirit of Toastmasters, with members stepping in at the last minute to fill various roles. This is because transport and other problems prevented some members from attending.
So, the meeting was opened by Paul Andreas, who then introduced the President – himself. Paul reported on the workshop that he had attended earlier in the week with Craig Valentine, reputedly one of the best speakers and coaches in the world. Paul then encouraged members to subscribe to the London Speakers’ Newsletter to stay informed about similar events.
The Toastmaster of the Day was Alain Culos, an Engineer who likes to be prepared, which is why he chose the theme of Preparedness for the meeting.
Our first speaker was Neil Pettigrew, who gave an excellent educational speech about “Strategies for Impromptu Speaking”, a subject that he knows a lot about. He shared with us some tips, which have helped him to become very good at Table Topic speeches and win several TT Contests.
This was followed by Georgina Singleton, whose speech title was “Boring”. Georgina managed to make an interesting speech out of a boring subject, “Pensions”, which she embellished with an excellent Powerpoint Presentation.
The third speaker was Richard Murray with an inspirational speech about how we react to circumstances. Are we like an egg, which goes hard in boiling water or like a potato, which goes soft in boiling water? We can choose and make a Spanish Omelette with the results!
After the break we were entertained by Table Topics led by our TTM, Luke Dzierzek, who did an excellent job especially as he has been a member for only five weeks.
The award for best evaluation went to Dave Hampton, best speech award went to Richard Murray and the best Table Topic Award went to Eddie Barnes who gave a humorous speech about his struggle with new technology. It’s great to welcome Eddie back as he has been unable to attend the club for several months. Congratulations on winning an award on the first meeting back.
The meeting was wrapped up with a presentation of their pins to the new Committee.
News:
Simon Maggs was unable to attend the meeting because he broke a bone in his foot earlier that day. We wish him a speedy recovery.
The day after our meeting Richard Murray competed in the “Corporate Speaking Challenge 2016 Contest” and won. The competition was fierce, as the quality of speeches was high, with ten finalists so congratulations, Richard, who gets to keep a big silver cup for a year, as a reward.
Congratulations to Neil Pettigrew who celebrated his 60th birthday at the Knights Templar pub last Saturday with friends from school, uni and the various clubs that he belongs to – a great evening of food, drink and dancing to some of Neil’s favourite music.