Our second meeting in February got of to a good start with 3 new members on the night – Karen Chapman, Charlotte O'Driscoll and Ian Patterson.
Karen got the meeting started in an assured manner, welcoming the new members and giving out the advice on toilets, fire escape and phones before welcoming our Toastmaster for the evening, Chris Ellis.
Chris, after dealing with some minor changes to the agenda got the meeting underway by asking Ian Patterson to explain the role of Timekeeper, and then invited Brent Crouch as Grammarian to explain his role and to give the word of the evening. Brent advised he was looking out for good and bad language, and his word for the meeting was “muzzy” meaning confused.
Wendy Benson was next called on to give the warm up when she asked people for their favourite foods, curry was a clear winner, although pies, chinese and chocolate were also greeted with nods around the room.
Chris now moved us to the prepared speeches which were to be given by Marie Newman, Wendy Benson and Keith Oliver, and each were introduced by their respective Evaluators.
Marie went first with a talk entitled “Every Breath You Take” explaining the benefits of good breathing and getting everyone on their feet to practice deep breathing.
Wendy Benson followed with an interpretative speech entitled “Night Watches” set in an army hospital in World War II.
Keith Oliver concluded the speeches by reminding members of the importance of completing their Leadership Manuals and handing out a sheet reminding everyone what they had done over the previous 6 months, of which many of roles had gone un-evaluated.
The network break followed but s usual passed all too quickly as Karen got us back to our seats for the second half. Chris Ellis now called on the evaluators to pick out what each speaker had done well and to ientify possible areas for improvement. Allan Wadsworth,Keith Oliver and Michael John Smithson gave their thoughts on the respective speeches.
With the formal part of the meeting concluded Chris Ellis called on Ann Carver to introduce the Table Topics session. Ann asked each volunteer to select a quote and give their views, which led to some un-anticipated humour as they first had to interpret Ann's hand-writing.
There was no allocated Table Topics Master so Chris invited comments from the floor. The general feeling was all the speakers had done well but some tips were given to allow time before speaking to consider the question.
Finally Chris called on Steven Okonkwo to give his views on the meeting as General Evaluator.
With the n ll but over it only remained for Keith Oliver to give club business, highlighting the forthcoming speech and evaluation contests and reminding those who had participated during the evening to get their Leadership manuals written up.
Michael John Smithson then handed out the awards before closing the meeting.
Best Speaker – Marie Newman
Best Evaluator – Keith Oliver
Best Table Topics – Michael John Smithson