Epsom Speakers Club meeting Monday 23rd April 2018
Another great evening was had by all, and the sun certainly didn’t zap anybodies energies away. We had inspirational speeches, educational slots and an area election. This together with the usual round of evaluations and topics session, again there was much laughter coming from the audience. I certainly had fun. I hope all the attendees did too.
We started with the Area Directors election, which Charlie kindly chaired. Lloyd went onto win the election, which is an enormous burden taken off me, so I am very pleased with the result. I feel that I can’t give the club the due care and attention that I ought to as President, as I am always so busy. I am sure the Area will go from strength to strength. We were also graced with the presence of our Division Director Arnaud Sartre. I spoke with him at length at the end of the meeting and he is very pleased at the growth of our area. He was also impressed at what a great and established club Epsom Speakers is. Well it is because of you. So well done.
Chris Terry started the club night with his warm up. Stepping in at the last minute, Chris gave us a lovely topic to warm up our voices about the spring and what we did in the sun. Everyone seemed to be able to speak and some of the answers were very amusing. The Toastmaster was Phoebus and his team were Rohan as the timekeeper, Sheena as the Ballot counter and Norman as the videographer.
Phoebus took to the stage like a duck to water with his role as Toastmaster. Phoebus has grown so much over the short time he has been at the club. He had a strong presence, which was welcoming and very encouraging. We had a slightly rushed agenda because of the Area Director elections, so Phoebus did well to keep us to time.
First speaker up was Fatai with his ice breaker. What a treat that was. The main theme of the speech was about Fatai vanquishing his negative voice inside of him, and becoming the speaker he knows he can be. I loved the expression fractured narrative also. He warned us that his speech was going to be a fractured narrative, and he delivered on that promise. Next speaker was Amanda explaining the many different ways we do not fulfil our dreams. Amanda explained how we can start to do this even on a small scale. It was a very inspirational speech, and made me look back at my life and chances I took, which paid off immeasurably because I took the time to get myself ready, and then jumped in feet first, not looking back at the consequences. The third speech was an educational by Costa, or should I say ‘Constantine the Great.’ Costa spoke about the activities you can do outside the club as a Toastmaster, and this is something that I personally will be looking at the end of my Presidency at Epsom. Costa gave us a great insight into what you can do, even though his paraphrasing of the President was atrocious. So thank you Costa for sharing your experience and insight.
Next up was the evaluators. Charlie evaluated Fatai. Charlie does his evaluations without notes. He always delivers a great evaluation and seems to have the memory of an elephant, or should I say Buddhist. He never forgets. Charlie is an inspiration to all of us with this skill that he has. Patrick Ebbs went onto to evaluate Amanda. These are long standing club mates, and it showed with the banter that they have for each other. The evaluation was insightful and accurate. Patrick is a very experienced Toastmaster and I am pleased to have him as my mentor. Last up was Peter evaluating Costa. Nothing to say here then. All the evaluations were insightful and helpful to the audience to see where the speakers were good and where they could improve. Charlie went onto to win the evaluation award.
I was please to see so many guests again, and it looks like we are going to get more new members to the club very soon, which is amazing. Paul introduced them well, and I am sure they will be back.
The topics session was run by Elizabeth, and was all about quotes and sayings. How amazing that Elizabeth kept all those quotes in her head. She was saying in the car on the way home that the students no longer have to learn quotes as they can take the taxt books in. What a shame. Elizabeth ran a great session, where everyone managed to speak on their given topic. The topics line up was Anjana, Mark, Arnaud, David Jackman, Matthijs and Zane. We had a classic topic from a guest, who was David, by changing the topic slightly to something he could talk about easily. David Jackman went on to win the topics session with Anjana. It was a lively and fun session. Well done Elizabeth.
Next up, our VPE, Gillian, gave us a topics evaluation. Gillian gave us a clear and constructive evaluation of the session, with commendations and recommendations. And last up was Doris with her general evaluation of the evening, which was accurate and helpful. So a big thank you to Gillian and Doris for their contributions to the evening.
So thank you all for turning up last night. It was great fun and a lot of laughter was had by all. I certainly enjoyed myself. The next meeting will be on 14th May where Dave Goodman will be our Toastmaster. The week after that we will have our Annual General Meeting where we will be forming the next committee. Please put your applications in to myself or Gillian if you want to be on the committee. I am sure it is going to be another great year at Epsom Speakers.
Keep shining. I am immensely proud to be presiding over such a talented group of people.
Kind regards,
Peter. 🙂
El Presidente.