Andrew Graham | Jackie Baker | Stuart Watt

Report on Malvern Speakers Club Meeting 8th January 2019

Although we were not sure how many would be coming to our first meeting of 2019, as several of our regular members were either unwell or enjoying an extended New Year holiday, but the meeting proved to be a great success.  We were delighted to welcome no less than eight guests – probably a record for the club!  This included a group of four ladies from Hereford who were keen to pick up some tips for public speaking and to see how the club ran.  Although they may not become regular members, they might be starting a Hereford Club! 

The meeting got off to a good start with an Educational Bite from the Presidents on the value of including questions in a speech, and how to do so to good effect.  Then our Table Topics Master, Ben Colyer, brought on an inspiring group of impromptu speakers telling us about their reflections on 2018 and their resolutions for 2019.  We learned that Manda Graham had decided to “do something” rather than just talk about stuff, and Stuart Watt had decided to “be interesting”.  He finished his speech with a rendering of Happy Birthday as a tribute to David Bowie, sung in a stunning Bowiesque style.  Although that had little to do with his topic, it was probably what won him the Best Table Topic Award!

Prepared speeches were, as usual, of a very high standard.  Jackie Baker enthralled us on the subject of dog psychology under the title Think Dog, in which we learned, among other things, that although a labrador might be motivated by food, a German shepherd dog is much more interested in a bit of fuss and tlc!  Then Graham Sterry scared us with hilarious stories of two occasions when he forgot to apply the handbrake on his car.  And finally, Jane Anson impressed us with her knowledge of the significance on colours.  Did you know that blue is the most popular colour in national flags – and that Cadburys are so proud of their purple logo that they tried to patent the colour? Choosing a Best Speaker was certainly not easy, but the award went to Jackie and was certainly well deserved.

Everything was evaluated in our normal encouraging and constructive manner and we benefitted from having Kate, a visitor from the Gloucester club, to serve as a very competent Table Topics Evaluator.  But the start Evaluator of the evening was Andrew Graham, who won the award.  The whole event was very ably steered by Roger Granville, our Toastmaster for the evening, and everyone agreed that a high standard had been set for the year ahead!

Geoff Richardson

Journalist in Residence

Karen Lowen | Steve Birch | Claire Davies

Malvern Speakers

Toastmaster 13^th November 2018 

‘The Chill of Winter Approaches’ was the theme for the evening and a number of members, plus one visitor, spoke for between one and two minutes on a variety of Winter topics set by Kenny Kayani. We were taken skiing and sledging by Sarah McCarten Williams and visitor David Dutton respectively, back to a Romanian childhood with Andrei Rezmerita, and then Steph Bilton’s description of a baked potato and sweet chestnuts had our mouths watering. The winner for the evening was Karen Lowen with a humorous account of her climbing adventure in the Peak District as a teenager.

The prepared speeches were of an incredibly high standard with Clare Davis taking home the blue ribbon for Best Speaker with her Ice Breaker speech entitled All in a Days Work. Clare gave an account of 3 trips to very different parts of the World in her capacity as a Primary school teacher and she concluded with a call to action that we should all open our minds so that we can educate ourselves along with teaching others

Dogs were a connection with the two other prepared speeches. Hilary Benoit with a speech ‘Now is not for ever’ had all the pet owners in the audience very emotional as she told the story of her Father’s childhood wish for a dog finally being realised after his own children had grown up and  then the sadness of Kipper the dog’s passing. 

Tom Elliston tried to persuade us to agree with his viewpoint that Jesus was a dog. This was done in a clever and funny comparison of Diogenes with Jesus both of whom advocated living without ‘tat’.

Jackie Baker in her thoughtful evaluation of Hilary’s speech reminded us that Hilary has now achieved her Competent Communicator Gold award which was presented at the end of the meeting by President Geoff Richardson. Graham Sterry gave an excellent evaluation of Tom’s speech but it was experienced Toastmaster, Steve Birch, who took the Best Evaluator ribbon for the evening, despite Will Dutton having 6 Table Topics to report on earlier in the proceedings.

Isaac Baker, one of our youngest members excelled as Timekeeper with very creative reminders of the subject for each speech, Yuri Douse gave us a very warm and friendly count of those who used um and ah too much, and we were led very ably through the entire evening by experienced Toastmaster Roger Granville.

Malvern Speakers meet on the 2^nd and 4^th Tuesday of each month and the next meeting is on Tuesday 27^th November at the Great Malvern Hotel . Visitors are very welcome.