Epsom Speakers Club is one of the coolest places to be, especially when the air conditioning has been turned right up! Once we got that sorted out the meeting settled down and our Sergeant at Arms Amanda welcomed five guests; Philip and his sixteen year old son Louis, Hilary, Shawa and, after a break of just twelve years, Seun (pronounced Shaywoon) came back for a second visit.
Our President Dave reminded us that we are part of an organisation of over 300,000 members and that the international speech finals will be taking place in Denver from 21-24th August. We all have front row seats courtesy of the internet via the Toastmasters website. Pop in to look and learn.
Toast master Paul introduced the support team of Shalwa (visiting from Reigate Rhetoric Club), Amber and Costa.
Once we were suitably warmed up by Costa we then enjoyed speeches by Gillian, Julia, Lloyd and John on topics that went between conquering a fear of heights to the benefits of mentoring and being mentored via the injustice of being in a man’s world where just about everything from handrails in trains to air conditioning is set up to suit a man’s physique instead of a woman’s.
The speeches were evaluated to a very high standard by Gary, Matt, Mark and Amanda.
After the break, we had a lively topics session on the theme of Holidays by John where our guests gave some very high-quality impromptu speeches. David evaluated the topics session and finally, Penny evaluated everything that had not already been evaluated.
The Best speaker went to John (several of us commenting that this was his best speech so far by quite a margin), the best evaluator was Amanda and best Topics was from Louis who was telling us that who you are with is more important than where you are.
A quick heads up; it looks like our club Topic’s and Humorous Speech competitions will be on the 16th of September. If you would like to take part then please let Julia know.
The next meeting is on the 19th of August when our Toastmaster is Doris. We look forward to seeing you all there.