Epsom Speakers Club Monday 14th May 2018
We were blessed with so many wise words and quotes last night, I felt I was at an inspirational seminar. From Mark Twain to Yoda himself, we had an array of quotes during the topics session, and some inspirational speeches about change and realisations, as people across the world slowly wake up to the situation we find ourselves in as a species. It is that curiosity and questioning that I love in people and would encourage this kind of meeting every time. I left the meeting with such a grateful heart for such an experience. Long may it continue.
The evening started well with Paul D setting up the room and introducing the President. Then David Goodman stepped up to the plate as Toastmaster for the evening, and started with a joke about IKEA. We then went onto experience jokes about slamming sliding doors among many others flowing out of David. It really was a fun evening and Dave did a great job keeping the whole meeting running smoothly. David introduced his team asfollows. Fatai as timekeeper, who gave us a fabulous run down on why we use a timing system at Toastmasters. Mathijs was the videographer and Phoebus the Ballot counter. They all contributed to a great evening. And Sheena opened up the floor with her warm up about whether you would like to travel backward or forward in time to meet your past or future ancestors. It was a very interesting warm up and everybody managed to speech about the subject. Well done Sheena. What I would say is make sure you finish up your session with a definite ending.
Then came the speakers. First up was Rick Hazelden with his C2. The theme was really the theme of the evening, which was change. Rick performed a great C2 and really is growing steadily as a public speaker. Next up was Norman Keane speaking about plastic. It was an interesting speech and Norman did open up and say he had changed his view on plastic, even while being in the business. Plastic is a problem, but it has its uses. Norman did make us aware of many of the problems about plastic, but one of my major concerns are the endocrine disruptors that are sometimes added to plastic. Paul Dowdeswell gave us a very heart rendering story about love and rescue. I am sure Paul and I would have set up an animal sanctuary if we knew each other when we were younger as I was always rescuing animals out my cats and dogs mouths. Paul made some lovely points about how we can learn so much about ourselves with our interactions with animals. Charlie gave us an educational slot about growing the area. Again Charlie was upbeat and positive and shared with us the rise, fall and projected rise of the area with regards to Toastmaster clubs. You know you are going to get some good speaking on show when Charlie speaks, and he didn’t disappoint. I did here Charlie use an Errr though during his educational. Come on Charlie, standards are slipping.
At Toastmasters, everything is evaluated. Amanda Zwarts stepped up to evaluate Rick. Amanda gave us a wonderful evaluation and I am sure not only Rick, but we all learnt from this. Amanda was very encouraging of Rick and his progress and I couldn’t agree more. Then we had Lloyd evaluating Norman. He used a river as an analogy of the flow of the speech. Lloyds evaluation was very analytical and Norman did hear what Lloyd felt was good about his speech and what he could improve on. And lastly Julia Belling evaluated Paul D. This was Julia’s first evaluation and I felt she did a super job. Although you could see Julia was a little nervous, she managed to give great commendations and recommendations. Julia keeps getting better and better as a speaker and a Toastmaster. The best evaluator went to Amanda.
After the break we had the topics session. Mark Peacock stepped up for his first topics session and what a cracker. Mark chose inspirational quotes that made us all think. Mark managed to get all participants to speak for over a minute so he set up the ideal situation with the right themes. That is the idea of Topics by getting people to talk off the cuff and this was achieved. The participants were Peter, Dave G, Phoebus, Anjana, Gillian, Rohan, Sharon and Julia. It was a great session with many inspiring and wise words given to the audience. Anjana won the topics competition again. Dan Magill evaluated the topics session and what a great job Dan did. He managed to find a recommendation for all the participants together with many commendations. The topics evaluator role is a difficult role and Dan made this look easy. Dan is also improving very quickly as a speaker and Toastmaster. He does look like he has been doing this for years.
Finally we had a change from the agenda, where Doris stepped in and gave us her general evaluation. Doris decided to work herself harder by running down her evaluation from finish to beginning. Doris is a very experienced Toastmaster and this showed with her general evaluation. This is also a very tough role and Doris did make this look easy. Well done Doris.
Overall I was very impressed by this whole evening with the standard always rising at Epsom Speakers. What I really enjoy about the rapid improvement is that we do have many Advanced speakers at the club, and they can’t rest on their laurels. Also the wisdom and knowledge shared with us was also very impressive. There were also many laughs to be had over the course of the evening and laughter is the best way of clearing many things, and nerves and fear take a back seat when there is much laughter. I love to hear it and be around it, as we do live in very difficult times as a species and it is good to let off steam with laughter. So keep smiling and keep laughing.
I will see you all soon.
Kind regards,
Peter. 🙂
El Presidente.