Dear Epsom Speakers
What a great show-case of talents we had last Monday! Our annual Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests brought out a galaxy of stars.
Introduced by (VPE and contest organiser), Costa, our stand-in Sergeant-at Arms, Matthijs Houweling did a great job as chair of the Humorous speech Contest. We had four excellent speakers: Dave Goodman, Phoebus Apostolidis, Doris Sew Hoy and Dan Magill. The competition was fierce, but Dan was our winner with a (slightly disturbing!) speech exploring the possibilities of underhand tactics in speech contests. Dave, in second place, showed us some of the insanities of domestic real-life and Doris in third place, gave some of the hilarious joys and pitfalls of growing older.
Charlie Warshawski, as Chief Judge, organised his team of judges drawn from clubs near and far, Zane Vaisla was Videographer, Timekeepers were myself and able new member Amy Liu. Julia Belling and Fatai Dabiri were our ballot counters.
After the interval, it was good to see experienced club member Paul Hickson as chair of the Table Topics Contest, setting contestants the fascinating challenge to consider what alternative career they might have chosen. Matt Tuff and Fatai Dabiri were ushers for this, and we had contestants: Dave Goodman, Elizabeth Bennett, Amanda Zwarts, Dan Magill and Phoebus Apostolidis.
Standards were high, candidates sought to show us their true selves, to fascinate, perhaps even to shock! Winners were, in first place, Amanda, second, Dan and third, Dave.
I gave the warm-down ‘What music inspires you’, which brought out wide-ranging and imaginative answers from members and guests in our audience.
Two winners from each contest will go on to take part in our Area Contest on Monday October 29th at Bourne Hall, and we wish them every success!
Meanwhile, our friends at Mole Valley Speakers will be holding their own contest this Wednesday 26th September at 7.30 pm in Peace Memorial Hall, Ashtead. Please consider going along, enjoying the evening and taking on a role. Contact Lloyd Griffiths if you can help.
Finally, we have our next club meeting on Monday October 1st, when Mark Peacock will be the Toastmaster. I look forward to seeing you all there!
Gillian Prior
Club President
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash