ESC Meeting 21st January 2019
‘Blue Monday’ – but the atmosphere was fun-filled for our second meeting of the year. Costa, our temporary Sergeant at Arms, introduced the meeting and also presented the ‘Warm-up’, encouraging us to tell the meeting ‘What are you proud of?’. A really positive start!
Dave Goodman was our Toastmaster, full of wit, in charge of the evening and keeping us all entertained. Gary Argent was Timekeeper, Kim Pleatman, the videographer and guest Leon Gadson, helped out as the ballot counter.
Elizabeth Bennett was Wordmaster, this time encouraging us to think about learning another language – Latin! Far from being a dead language, Latin is making a come-back in schools and is still used in professions such as the law.
Speakers were John Drinkwater: ‘Do I need a website?’ (consider the needs of your customers, to decide), Mark Peacock ‘Do your homework’ (an interesting discussion of communication styles: for more information, check out the Toastmasters international website), and finally, Doris Sewhoy, exhorting all Toastmasters to ‘Keep the Commitment’. A most useful reminder of the Toastmasters Promise, which we all make when we join a Toastmasters club.
Speech evaluations were given by seasoned evaluators, Phoebus Apostolidis (John), Paul Dowdeswell (Mark), and second-timer, Matt Tuff (Doris). Congratulations to all for careful and thoughtful advice and encouragement to the speakers, and in particular to Matt, speaking like a professional. Evaluations are never easy to perform, with limited time to prepare.
After the break, I was Topics Master, clutching a bag of coins from which each lucky speaker chose one and then told a story from the year of the coin. We heard some amazing stories and learned a lot about our members and guests.
Charlie Warshawski was Topics Evaluator, as usual demonstrating his formidable powers of memory and managing to produce useful commendations and comments for all participants.
Penny Williams as General Evaluator, with her sense of quiet humour, rounded up the enjoyment and gave expert guidance to help us improve.
We welcomed new member Kim Pleatman to the club – good to see her taking the stage to give us a ‘Table Topic’ despite nerves!
- Best Speaker was Mark Peacock
- Best Evaluator was Matt Tuff (congratulations, again, Matt)
- Best Topic was from Gary Argent
And many congratulations to all, and to everyone who participated in the evening.
Our next meeting will be on Monday 4th February, when Mark Peacock is our Toastmaster. Come along, experience the warm atmosphere and forget the winter chills!
Photo by Tyler Callahan on Unsplash