Wednesday 18th February 2009

by Jenny Betts

“What a great turn-out”, our President Gray Standen commented at the start of the evening when she saw we had a full house which included eight guests.

Andrew Klimaytys our Toastmaster for the evening kept things moving with his usual enthusiasm and energy, reminding us how important leadership is and that it’s something we must work on and continue to improve. He described how being able to speak effectively and communicate well enables us to go anywhere, do anything

The meeting welcomed our new VPE John Craddock who introduced his new concept of a Communicator’s Toy Box – to help us think outside the box and to encourage team-building exercises. He had the opportunity to show how it works later in the evening when he produced an imaginary hot air balloon which Zahid, Geetha, Swan and Trevor bravely volunteered to go in. As the Balloon was too heavy they each had to say why they should not be the one to be thrown out!

Bek Singh was our Timekeeper in his first Riverside role. He took control and kept the evening on time which meant bravely ringing the bell on two occasions.

Our Grammarian for the evening Alison Shuttle gave us “rapturous” as the word for the day which proved to be an excellent choice as it was used by many during the evening.

Emma Thomas spoke on “A Woman Scorned”. A speech based on an incident which happened – where she warned us to be careful what we say, especially to a writer as we may find our flippant remarks turned into a film.

Heidi Ashley-Hacker showed us in her speech “Begin with the End in Mind” that it is the quality and effectiveness of our communications that makes the difference. We should think about what we want to achieve before we speak. Heidi made a real impact with her descriptive language and won the best speech ribbon for the evening.

Pamela Smith enthralled us with her story of Peter The Great of Russia. She described the cataclysmic change to the people of Russia introduced by Peter in 1701 and encouraged us to visit the exhibition at the V&A where we could see the clothes she described.

Our speech evaluators for the evening were Claudia Cronjaeger, Neil Mason and Sonia Aste who gave encouraging and helpful feedback in the Toastmaster way (commend/recommend/commend).

There followed a fun-packed session of Table Topics led by Maria Hemmings who encouraged the speakers to justify their excuses in a variety of situations. Corinne Berset evaluated the speakers and praised their creativity.

Our General Evaluator was Errol Williamson, a friend of Riverside from Trojan Speakers. His comprehensive and amusing evaluation rounded off yet another great evening at Riverside.

The meeting on February 4th was snowed out.