Meeting Report – 18th May 2017

By Jenny Andreas

 

Our meeting this evening was well-attended, had lots of energy and we were blessed with two special guests, Michael Abrey-Bugg our Area Director plus Freddie Daniells.

Annelise volunteered for the Hospitality role, and did a great job welcoming guests and  members with her charming French accent.

Our Sergeant at Arms, Neil, arrived to set up the room and to  open the meeting and then handed over to our President, Paul Andreas. Paul reported back about the District Conference and encouraged everyone to attend the next one, which is likely to be at Gatwick and easier to get to.

The Keynote speeches from Mark Brown and Mike Storkey had been especially encouraging.  Mike encouraged us to step up, step out and take the challenge by going for educational awards and leadership roles and then taking what we had learnt out into the wider community.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Alex, doing the role for the second time and entertaining us with some of the skills that he has been learning in the Entertaining Manual.  For the theme of the evening he chose the Eurovision Song Contest.

Alex introduced his team. Neil was the Timekeeper, Jenny A the Ah Counter and Tony Smith  the Grammarian.  They all did a great job.

Riyah led The Warm Up by asking us to say or do something funny, which brought out some good jokes, a dance and laughter.

Vinu gave us a Hot Tip about being positive and using positive affirmations.

Our first speaker was Christine with speech #4 from the CC Manual called “One for the Road” about being stopped at a police check on the way home from the last meeting – a timely reminder to stay within the drink/drive limit.  Christine created an entertaining and well-crafted speech out of a mundane subject. Our  Toastmaster, Alex, disclosed that he had also been stopped the same night. Christine had not been breathylised but Alex was and he passed because he was within legal limits!

Next was Margot, also with speech # 4 from the CC Manual called “£5.40 to get in”   This was an entertaining speech about a business trip to a delightful village called Pontypridd in Wales.  Although her family originated from this village she had never been there before because her father believed that, “ I couldn’t go back there because I couldn’t bear to leave it twice!” This last sentence of her speech was powerfully evocative. As Alex so aptly pointed out this was a great speech about “her family trip down memory lane” 

Then Richard Green gave speech #5 from the “Speaking to Inform Manual” – “The Abstract Concept”.  It was about what would happen if we had a power cut lasting for nine days. Alex, our Toastmaster, summed it up brilliantly with one word – “apocalyptic”.    

The three speeches were then ably evaluated by Karen, Alain and Paul L.

After the break Susan led the Table Topics with some varied questions, such as “If you could be a colour which one would you choose?”, “If you ran the NHS. . .?”  and “If you could do any job…..? We got some entertaining answers.  Well done, Susan.

Richard Murray evaluated the Table Topics and gave us some insightful feedback.

Our General Evaluator for the evening was Freddie Daniells, fresh from competing at the District Evaluation Contest in Southampton.  Freddie has a lot of experience, having had roles from Club President up to District Director and gave us some very useful feedback.  He continued this in the pub after the meeting and offered to come back and put on an Evaluation Workshop for us.  This is likely to be sometime in October, so is a date not to be missed.  Listen out for further announcements.

Our President, Paul Andreas, presented the Awards.

Eddie Barnes and Curtis won the Best Table Topics.

Paul L won the Best Evaluation Award for his evaluation of Richard’s speech and Richard won the Best Speaker Award.

Paul A then drew the meeting to a close by reminding everyone about the extra meeting next week at the Shortlands Tavern.

A big thank you to all those who took on roles, gave speeches and helped to make the evening a great success.

After the meeting some of us went to the pub with Freddie who said that he had been impressed by the high standards of the speeches and the role holders.  That is praise indeed from someone with his experience!

Dates for Your Diary

Extra meeting at The Shortlands Tavern on 25 May 2017.  Sign up for a role before they all go.

Annual Dinner on 6 July when our existing Committee will handover to our new Committee.  Tickets are going fast.  Contact Jenny Taggart and book up while you still can.  This is also our 25th Anniversary Dinner and we want to make it special.

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