Tuesday 18th May Report
Tuesday 18th May
This meeting, with 15 attendees, was one consisting of 6 planned speeches and no Table Topics. However, 2 speakers failed to attend and Sudanta (club president) stood in as back up speaker.
Another fun meeting ensued with Abbi as Toastmaster of the day. As usual, Abbi was full of energy as she announced each participant in the evening. Her warm-up was based on the new coalition between the Conservative and Lib Dem parties; it was a humorous few minutes.
Poor Cathy Clarkson was “shoved” (as she put it) into the role of Timekeeper as well as Grammarian. Her prepared word was “EVINCE” –an interesting new addition to our vocabulary!
Frank Thatcher, who had just returned to the fold after an enforced absence by way of being in hospital, (lovely to see you back, Frank) was “Ah Counter”.
Moneik Gardeneers led the speakers with her CC2; an amazing improvement on her CC1. Her speech was about “Relaxation Techniques”. Moneik was a lot more confident this time with only the odd “uhm”. She did extremely well as she has to contend, not only with being a beginner at the public speaking lark, but coming from the Netherlands she, also, has to speak in a language not her native tongue. Well done, Moneik!
Jack Lacovou was giving his CC3. Jack entertained with his brilliant conversational style as he told us about, “The Hand of God”! True story or not; very entertaining.
Next, came Pauline Hardy with her CC4, entitled, “Time and Tide”. Pauline fills her speeches with humour and quotes; usually culminating in a poem. Unfortunately, panicking at the sight of the red light she forgot the second half of the poem. However, in her indomitable style, she scurried through her notes and read the rest. However, if you were absent or did not hear the end, here it is:-
I’ve waited for a while, my guest, she is quite late;
I’ve had another coffee but, I wonder, should I wait?
In modern times, technology, gives us the “wherewithall”
To inform people where you are, there’s no excuse at all.
I wait a little longer, but am getting rather fraught.
I have so many things to do, the other person ought
To think about the knock on effect caused by their very lateness,
I’ll miss my next appointment, and I really must confess
That I’ll be extremely loathe to make another date
With this very person who is always, “beep, beep” late!!
The fourth contender was Deirdre with her, milestone CC10, “Don’t worry, be happy”. A clever, entertaining speech with audience participation which earned her “Best Speaker” as well as her CC10 ribbon. Extremely, well done, Deirdre!
The last speaker was Sudanta Abeyakoon with his ACG5, entitled “Body and Mind connection”. On his way to gold (yeh!), Sudanta stepped into the breach with a speech which was not only thought provoking, but some of its content had only been added on that day from a newspaper article. How we all wish that we were that amazing! We learn from him constantly.
The evaluators, all of whom did a great job, were Sarah Malumba for Moneik, Vanessa Buck for Jack, Joan Jardine for Pauline, Aki Akiwumi for Deirdre and Don Grant for Sudanta. Evaluating is quite a skill as the General Evaluator for the night will tell you. This role was given to a visitor from Croydon Communicators, Vathani Navasothy, who, recently got through three rounds of National competitions as an evaluator. Vathani was constructive in her criticism and praise of the evening’s participants. She was humorous and entertaining.
The evening was brought to a close by the President, Sudanta, who commented on Pauline’s joke about a toothbrush! Nearly everyone, it appears, will now be very wary as they use their toothbrush as to what it has been used for in their absence from the bathroom!! The mind boggles.....
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