A Wet and Windy Night
October 5th 2006
A Wet and Windy Night
It was a wet and windy night and the puddles were enormous but light and laughter flooded out of the Richard Room and a passing rabbit paused to wonder………
Well, that’s enough of that. I often find myself waxing lyrical after a Toastmasters’ meeting.
The evening began with our Sergeant at Arms, Ann Nunn, promptly bringing the meeting to order and handing over the floor to our Toastmaster of the evening, Phil Zoio. In his typical relaxed style Phil led the introductions on the theme of ‘what would keep us going through the long, dark winter months’. A number of members had holidays to look forward to and Dinesh found himself feeling envious of those heading to the southern hemisphere. Our Wordmaster, Jeff Bartrop, challenged us to use his chosen word - ‘fortuitous’ and reminded members that he would be listening out for interesting language and turns of phrase. Debs Lawrence, club President, gave tonight’s Hints and Tips on effective speech preparation and listed three ‘Ps’ – Purpose, Practice and Polish.
Dave Nightingale ran the Topics session in the absence of Andy Pitts. Andy had prepared the list of Topics with the theme ‘You have a different job. What was your day like as…’ Eight members took on roles varying from Prime Minister to Park Keeper and Jon Rowe had us rolling in the aisles with an account of his ‘rise’ through the ranks as a Lift Attendant. Chris Tremlett ably evaluated the Topics participants, picking up on examples of humour, commending and offering recommendations to each speaker. We then broke for free tea, coffee and cake and used the new mugs courtesy of Ann Nunn.
The second half of the meeting began with Club Business and Debs had a lot to get through with dates for Open Evenings, Workshops, a Christmas Theme meeting and an Awards evening. She reported on aspects of the executive committee meeting. Then it was time for the three prepared speeches. Ian Read introduced Ann Nunn with her 5th speech ‘Third Time Lucky!’ Ann recalled her driving test experiences and being “confounded by a T junction” after her instructor had insisted on her taking the tests in Lowestoft. Dave Nightingale regaled us with ‘The Decline and Fall of Jelly.’ He assured us that jelly would ‘bounce back’ and peppered his speech with similar groan-evoking phrases! In contrast to the two previous speeches Debs introduced the serious subject of domestic violence. The statistics were eye-opening and Debs closed by encouraging members to increase their awareness of this problem in the community. Ian Read, Jon Rowe and Ian Crane evaluated the speakers with praise, encouragement and suggestions for improvement.
In his Wordmaster report Jeff Bartrop noted among other linguistic gems Ian Crane’s phrase “pull the udder one” (dairy farming); Dave Nightingale’s “jelly industry had a few wobbles” and Fiona Powell’s “ running towards you like a demon” (irate motorist’s reaction to traffic warden in the vicinity of his/her vehicle). Dinesh gave a comprehensive evaluation of the evening as General Evaluator commending and giving recommendations to those who had not already been evaluated. The Table Topic’s Award went to Jon Rowe – a precursor to success on Sunday at the Area Table Topics Contest?? Good luck to Jon and also to Dave Nightingale who is competing in the Area Humorous Speech Contest.
Phil brought the meeting to a close – and the rabbit hopped on.
Sue Coppens-Browne VP Membership
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