It was another good turn out with a good sprinkling of guests to greet our first meeting in October.
Keith Oliver opened the meeting as Sergeant at Arms with the usual house rules, before introducing Ray Adams who was Toastmaster for the evening.
Ray welcomed everybody and in particular Sarah Waters who had joined that evening. He then ran through some of the protocols before advising the theme for the evening was “Vision”.
He asked Charlotte O’Driscoll to explain the lights, which she did in a clear manner, before asking Keith to return to the lectern as Grammarian. Keith explained his role was to look for good and bad language but also to set the word of the evening. He advised that October 12th is Columbus Day in America, being the date Columbus arrived in the New World. To note the fact the word of the evening was ‘explore’.
To settle the audience down before the speeches Ray now asked Simon Roberts to give the warm up. Simon asked the audience what they would complete that week. Answers ranged from work projects, to books, household chores and catching up on TV shows.
We next moved to the prepared speeches. As they were longer advanced speeches we only had the two given by Wendy Benson and Keith Oliver. Wendy spoke about her improving communication skills through Toastmasters with a speech entitled “Dream it, be it”, while Keith, giving his final project form the entertaining speaker manual, spoke about the “Joy of Networking”.
We now arrived at the break with the audience able to put their communication and networking skills to good use. As the evening marked the 3rd birthday of Spinnaker Speakers both Ann Carver and Wendy Benson had brought cakes to mark the occasion, both of which were well received by those present.
As usual time flew by and we had to resume our seats for the second half. Ray first called on the evaluators, Karen Chapman and Simon Roberts to evaluate the speakers, which they both did emphasising the good points but also areas for possible improvement.
Next up was Brent Crouch who was the table Topic Master for the evening, and he set a series of questions to both members and guests based on ‘visions’ ranging from the best thing they had seen, what the vision should be for the club, favourite photograph and favourite TV programme.
The main body of the evening now over it was time for the evaluations starting with Keith’s Grammarian report, followed by Ann Carver who evaluated the Table Topics speakers. Finally we welcomed Dawn Rowlett our Area Director who gave the General Evaluator’s report, in which she praised the club for being so friendly as evidenced by the number of guests and how we were fulfilling the Toastmaster vision.
Ray next called Wendy Benson, club President to the lectern. Wendy reported on the recent area contest in which Ian Millen won the Table Topics contest, and Ann Carver came a creditable third in the Area Humorous Speech contest. Our next meeting would be an educational evening based on goal setting.
Michael John Smithson gave out the awards before asking for feedback from the guests, several of whom indicated their intention to join.
Best Speaker – Wendy Benson
Best Evaluator – Ann Carver
Best Table Topics – Karen Chapman