June saw us back in the main room at the Oasis with another well attended meeting.
Ray Adams opened the meeting as Sergeant at Arms and introduced our Toastmaster for the evening, Sue Windell. Sue set the theme as Fathers, not particularly as it was nearly Father's Day but just for everyone to recall their own Fathers.
Ros Bristow was Timekeeper, and gave a clear explanation of her role, and Elena took the role of Grammarian with word 'Irenic' making peace-making.
Sue now called on Chris Ellis to get everyone warmed up with their 15 seconds of fame. Chris started with tips for moving house, which led to ideas of breaking the chain, how to pack and other ideas to make the move less stressful, before asking others how they would spend their longest day.
We moved on to the three speeches. Gavin Meikle gave an reading of Alfred Lord Tennyson's “Lady of Shallot”, and was followed by two Icebreakers from Marie Newman with “The Icebreaker” and Carolyn Barber with “The Reluctant Social Worker” both giving an insight into their careers to date, and reasons for joining Toastmasters.
As usual time flew as we rapidly moved to the network break with the usual tea, coffee and biscuits, but this time with the added sparkle of Michael John's home-made Elderflower champagne.
We reconvened for the evaluations given by Keith Oliver, Brent Crouch and Michael John Smithson, before moving on to Table Topics set by Sheryl Andrews. In a departure from the norm Sheryl asked her 'volunteers' to express their feelings using just their hands or eyes while a second person tried to guess what they were conveying. This naturally led to much humour.
It fell to Wendy Benson to evaluate the resultant mayhem.
Following the Grammarian's report, when it was reported the word irenic was used 9 times, Robin Chawner gave the General Evaluation., with hints and tips for the various participants.
Following club business Michael John gave out the awards to the night's winners.
Best Speaker – Carolyn Barber
Best Evaluator – Brent Crouch
Best Table Topics – Ray Adams