Contests are always a high spot of the club year and this year’s Humorous Speech and table Topics contest proved to be no exception, playing to an attentive audience of members and guests.
Ray Adams was our Contest Chair and he introduced the evening with aplomb and assured confidence as he explained the running order for the evening.
Wendy Benson, as Chief Judge, then explained the manner of judging for the benefit of the audience.
Ray then asked Wendy to lead the warm up to get the audience in the right mood for the speeches to come. Wendy asked those present which contests they would like to win and dancing and singing were clear favourites among those participating.
It was now time for the Humorous Speech Contest. Marie Newman and Michael John Smithson did the honours on the lights to ensure participants kept to time.
The order of speaking had already been made and it was Simon Roberts who went first with ‘The Gift’ a tale of nautical misadventures when he was given a birthday present of a day’s sailing tuition. Keith Oliver followed with ‘Sun, Sea and Sin’ with his tale of a foreign holiday on which he inadvertently drank alcohol free beer! Finally Ann Carver spoke of her experience on a self-improvement course with ‘Ground swallow me up!’
With the judges ballots completed and collected Ray called the first half to a close and we retired for our network break.
We resumed the second half with the Table Topics Contest. Ray set the question “As a parent how did you give the birds and the bees speech?” Keith Oliver, Simon Roberts, Carolyn Barber and Ian Millen were the hapless contestants and all gave some humorous and lively answers.
Again votes were cast and the Chief Judge retired to do the count. While she did so we enjoyed a brief Table Topics session for members of the audience. The subject this time was “What … would you invent” with participants being asked to give an idea for aboard game, a new food and a TV game show.
The votes were now in and were passed to Ray Adams to announce the winners. First certificates of participation were handed out to our worthy competitors, before he gave out the names of the winners and presented them with their trophies
Humorous Speech Winner – Ann Carver
Table Topics – 1st IanMillen
2nd Carolyn Barber
Wendy Benson concluded the meeting with club business, reminding members of the Area Contest that Saturday, and our next club meeting on the 12th