Our final meeting for this TM year and it was the hottest day so far this year. So, it was wonderful to find ourselves nicely chilled, sitting in the well air-conditioned Azalea Room at Bourne Hall with experienced toastmaster Penny Williams at the helm as TM for the evening. Ian, as Club Secretary, took us through a quick EGM to elect Katy Minson onto next year’s Committee as Club Secretary. Then it was business as usual.
City worker Rowan breezed in just in time to do the Warm Up, with a very relevant question: “what does Summer mean to you?” Mangoes, watermelons, sailing, surfing, biking, BBQs, cricket, fresh water swimming, cannabis…and more cannabis, apparently. Interesting what one learns about one’s fellow members…
Always great to have C1 speeches on the Agenda, and tonight we had two. Despite running over time, we learnt about the many entrepreneurial adventures and ventures of Timur Ganiev, originally from Uzbekistan and now a resident of Sutton, in his Icebreaker speech. Local Ewell resident Katy Minson wowed us with her story-telling skills, giving us a glimpse of her generous and focused nature and personality. Justin’s C4 speech with the title “Immigration Laws are there to protect us” was thought-provoking and controversial, leading us to his conclusion to take time to question statements so that “the truth will set you free”. Our fourth speaker was Peter Parker with an Advance Speech entitled “New Opportunities”. Winner of the Best Speaker vote went to Katy.
Paul van der Hagan joined Sonia, Ian and Charlie to deliver Evaluations. As a first time evaluator, Paul did a nice job highlighting Timur’s existing speaking strengths and what to work on. Congratulations to Ian who won Best Evaluator for his comprehensive feedback on Justin’s speech.
Gillian led the Topics session, with the theme on giving her advice on a range of topics from what to do about the dent in the car to what to do when you can’t get to sleep. Guest Emma won Best Topics with her insightful speech about what to do when you can’t stand your best friend’s new boyfriend.
Our very attentive Topics Evaluator, Aishi Lim, gave a commendation and recommendation to all 9 Topics speakers, while General Evaluator, Amanda Zwarts, effortlessly reviewed the evening’s proceedings before we adjourned to the warmth of the Wheatsheaf’s beer garden.
Many thanks to all my Committee members who’ve helped make my year as President especially fun and fill of learning. It’s with great pleasure that I hand over the President’s “gong” to Peter, who takes on this role from 1 July. Celebration time – see you at President’s dinner next Monday at Thames Sailing Club.
Doris
ESC President