There’s nothing better than a good laugh out loud and Monday’s club night was packed with comic relief. All four speakers managed to weave light touches, and heavy doses, of humour in their stories. In his C1, Paul van der Hagen demonstrated not only his existing wide range of speaking skills but also his theatrical prowess as he re-enacted the events of his first, and only, date night. Adam Jones’ C6, “A minor medical … oddball”, had us in suspense and catharsis as he spun his real life tale of diagnosing what was wrong with him.
We had another opportunity to hear how we can become multi-millionaires, when Dave Lane repeated his contest speech about the amount of riches to be gained from uploading strange videos of “unboxing” stuff on YouTube. Dave is also a member of PMI Toastmasters in London, and he will be representing the PMI club at their Area final on Friday.
With his Advanced Speech, “To do or not to do”, Ian Upton trumped Paul’s dramatic performance with an extraordinary array of vocal variety and staggeringly strong stage presence.
It was a close call to see who would win Best Speaker… congratulations to Adam, and for his full recovery.
Amanda, Aishi, myself and Justin had the pleasure of feeding back our evaluations. And the vote for Best Evaluator goes to… Dr Aishi Lim, who managed to dispense some minor corrections on Adam’s use of medical terminology.
Stephen Taylor’s eclectic reading tastes led him to develop a challenging theme for Table Topics – super-heroes whom no-one (apart from him) had heard of. Hats off to Topics’ winner, Peter Parker, for managing to creatively weld a convivial speech about a rather curious super-hero, The Dog Welder. I must admit, that was relatively easy compared to Matter Eater Lad, Tar Baby or Arm Fall Off Boy.
Gillian did a gracious job as Topics Evaluator, feeding back her commendations and recommendations to our 8 Topics speakers. Penny rounded the evening off with her General Evaluation. She noted the sterling job done by our TM for the evening, Paul Dowdeswell, his first time in this role, and how well Sumbal Tsang warmed us all up with her inspiring question “what are you most grateful for this quarter?”.
It was truly uplifting to hear the wide range of things we are grateful for… including having this Club, laughing and learning as we play and practice our speaking skills.
Doris
ESC President