Minutes – Thursday 08 December 2011
In Tony’s absence, this week’s minutes are brought to you by Narinder.
MEETING MINUTES – THURSDAY 08 DECEMBER 2011
23nd Club Meeting of the Year
Season Greetings
What an evening!!! Scintillating speeches, felicitous table topics all with generous helpings of humour. Thank-you to all for attending and participating, special thanks to Mac our Toastmaster for his fascinating Christmas facts throughout the programme. We had 12 members and 1 guest (Linda).
The word of the day was replaced with:
Paul Hindess Request for the Evening: Any seasonal word or reference
Speeches
We had three speakers this evening:
- Jaimen Lathia –“ What goes on inside my head” (Competent Communicator: 1 Icebreaker). Jaimen ‘winner of the mind’ delivered a speech about his philosophical outlook on life. The speech projected both clarity and simplicity of expression and ended with Albert Einstein’s quote “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious”.
- Cheryl Green – The Moral of the Story (Storytelling manual Project: 3). Cheryl, with her usual flare and energy shared a tale of Christmas past. A time where Space Invaders was a must-buy present for every man especially when diamonds were at stake. Great use of vocal variety and body language. Cheryl had us hook, line and sinker from start to finish. Well done!
- Tim Sawyer – “Ahead of our time” (Competent Communicator: 1 Icebreaker). Tim’s speech projected an air of cool confidence with panoply of description to set the scene. The speech was pitched and delivered at the right level with a perfect balance of humour. Tim was commended for negligible use of ahs and
umms, an added bonus on a first speech.
Table Topics
Gayna Cooper hosted Table Topics on a much-anticipated Christmas theme. Gayna’s natural positive approach helped to instil confidence and ease in the participants.
Well done to all those who rose to the occasion. Paul Breakey (Devising Plan B following Rudolph’s unfortunate broken antler), Paul Hindess (Worst Christmas present), Paul Hayward (invent new tradition at Christmas), Linda (Perfect Christmas present), Narinder (Explaining to child why Santa hasn’t delivered presents on eve) and Martin (Ideal person to spend your Christmas).
In addition, Mac’s ‘Just a minute’ part of the agenda provided the perfect opportunity for Dave to share his evening of Tall Tales at Eldergate, where we were intrigued to learn of his political links with Boris Johnson.
Evaluators
Paul Breakey, Martin, Paul Hayward, Dave and Val shared their pearls of wisdom and provided the speakers with good constructive feedback.
Meeting Evaluator
Narinder rounded off the meeting with a personal twist on the role of meeting evaluator, delivering a time travel summary of the year’s events with the added bonus of including every ‘word of the day’ from the last 6months.
Awards
Best Speaker: Cheryl Green
Best Evaluator: Paul Hayward
Best Table Topic: Paul Hayward
Humour: Cheryl Green
Future events
- Speeches and Evaluation Contest – 23rd February 2012
- Area Speeches and Evaluation Contest – 21 March 2012
- Division Speeches and Evaluation Contest – 21 April 2012
Have a merry Christmas &
a lovely New Year
Next Club Meeting: Thursday 12th January
PS. Note to self‐ “easy on the mince pies”.
Christmas party – tall tales and limericks
The Bedford Speakers annual Christmas party and Tall Tales contest was held on the 1st of December at the Ruby Murray Indian restaurant in Bedford, and the restaurant was a welcome sight on a cold December night. Friendly staff, stylish decor, and the promise of delicious food to come.
The contest chair Narinder already had things well in hand, with numbers at each seat ready for the limerick contest, which were soon joined by the programmes – a joint effort between Narinder, me and Val. Gayna welcomed everyone to the party, then handed over to Narinder, who set the scene in great style, despite the frog she had eaten at lunchtime which was still lodged in her throat.
I was looking forward to delivering my own tall tale, but first came starters and limericks, including a multi-verse epic from Gayna and a few picks from Narinder’s bag of limericks.
Then it was time for my speech – “Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam” – a fast-paced tour of SPAM around the globe. My speech was factual, but mentions of SPAM sushi, SPAM gift sets and kosher SPAM managed to fool a few people into thinking I’d made it up.
With other groups in the same restaurant, it was quite a challenge to make myself heard over all the noise. Great voice projection practice though!
I was followed by Tony’s account of a trip to the Ideal Home Exhibition in the 1970s. Despite claiming that the singer Craig David was his nephew, he managed to fool a few people (including me!) into thinking that his story was true, rather than a complete fabrication.
Next up was our former Division G governor, Graham. Graham told us a fictional tale of his brief career as a saxophonist in a blues band in London, that sounded extremely convincing.
Then came last year’s winner, Paul. His speech told us of a steamy (or at least, very wet) August night in 1997, which not only displayed fantastic storytelling skills, but was also completely true.
At some point between speeches, dinner arrived, and the table was soon crammed full with rice, vegetable dishes and curries. A fabulous meal – although I did feel sorry for those who had to speak on a full stomach.
Last but one to speak was Val, with a ‘shaggy dog story’ about a dog she once met at a bus stop. The horrendous pun at the end led me to believe it was a fictional story, but several others correctly identified it as fact.
And finally came our club president, Janet, who told us a story of how she unexpectedly found herself in the middle of an African marriage ceremony with herself as the bride. Despite a certain amount of embellishment, I finally managed to correctly identify a true story.
But the show wasn’t over yet – we still had more limericks to come. Paul and I both managed to rhyme ‘Gayna’ with ‘no-brainer’ but it was Peter’s exceptional limericks including a man from Bedford who sang at a Welsh eisteddfodd who stole the show.
Narinder had one more surprise in store for us – cake! From a place of concealment under the table, she produced a huge plate full of home made fairy cakes, all decorated with the Toastmasters logo.
And finally, the competition results. Janet presented the certificates to the winners. Val took second place in the tall tales, and for the second year running, Paul took first place and carried home the trophy. Meanwhile, Peter’s masterful rhymes and wit won him first place in the limerick contest.
Limericks
Here are a few of the limericks entered in our Christmas Tall Tales and Limericks contest:
Val Swanborough:
We went to the Ruby Murray
For limericks, tall tales and curry.
There was copious wine
Which suited us fine
But the tall talles got taller … and taller …. and taller – no worry!!
Trish Page:
I’ve got a son who’s barbecue mad
It runs in the family and makes me quite sad
But he hasn’t used a tyre
To set a whole field on fire
So at least he’s not as bad as his Dad!
Sue Savage:
My humorous speech was no strainer
In fact it was quite a no-brainer
With language so pretty
And humour so witty…
And still I came second to Gayna
Dave Minzey:
Our President Janet is quite a catch
She is on the lookout for a match
Be it golf or man
We all know she can
Dismiss all duffers and duds with despatch!
Watch this post – more coming soon!
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