Apologies almost equalled the number of members attending as holidays, work and other commitments took their toll, but our numbers were swelled by Laura Bueno Rubialas from Malaga Speakers and Rahul Hinge a first time guest. We also welcomed back Michelle Sullivan who has not been able to attend recently.
Keith Oliver took on the role of Toastmaster and introduced Laura who had agreed to be timekeeper. The word of the night was Mainstay, which set a nautical theme but also noted those attending who are the mainstays of our club.
Allan Wadsworth led the warm up using a recent holiday to America to get everyone thinking of experiences they had had.
Brent Crouch gave us a number 6 speech - "Please Stop Responding", letting him stretch his vocal variety as he gave us the inside track on avoiding spam mail, phone calls and e-mails.
Keith then gave a talk on his journey on the High Performance Leadership Programme and the experiences learnt in setting up Spinnaker Speakers. There followed an open discussion on things which the club did well and how we could drive it forward and improve.
After the break evaluations wer given by Wendy Benson and Robin Chawner.
Brent then led the Table Topics although most showed their growing confidence and dodged round the questions and answered what they wanted to talk about!
It finally fell to Keith to give out the awards, including the start of a Spinnaker tradition in giving visitors from overseas a fridge magnet of the Spinnaker Tower as a momento, the first going to Laura.
There was just time for a club photo with Laura before we closed.
Best Speaker: Brent Crouch, Best Evaluator: Wendy Benson, Best Table Topics: Wendy Benson