Wednesday 30th September 2009

By Andrea Blackie

VPE Rob Yuen, standing in for president John Craddock, opened the meeting with his customary enthusiasm and reminded us that this was an evening of firsts, not only because it was his first time as acting president, but also because two of our new members were giving their icebreaker speeches. To inspire and motivate speakers and audience alike, he reminded us of the quote by Toastmasters founder Ralph Smedley that ‘we learn best in moments of enjoyment’. With that, we were off on another enjoyable Riverside evening.

Toastmaster for the evening Dorothea Stuart started with some thoughts on Gordon Brown’s speech at the recent Labour conference, which had been rather less than enjoyable, and suggested that the PM could perhaps benefit from some of our members’ expertise! She then introduced the functionaries for the evening. New member Laura Shimili did a fine job in her debut performance as timekeeper, and grammarian Franco Vaccaro gave us ‘shambolic’ as the word of the day.

Our first icebreaker speech came from Sunaina Shori. Entitled “All Change”, it was a fascinating glimpse into her passion for teaching and her ongoing quest to find her perfect career. Sunaina looked enthusiastic and confident as she told us about the new direction her life is taking, and we look forward to hearing more from her soon.

Next up, also giving his icebreaker speech, was retired professional photographer Dennis Clarke, with a speech entitled “Melting Ice”. Dennis kept us gripped with stories of his youth working on cruise ships out of New York and the tragic tale of how he missed the photograph of a lifetime for the sake of a plate of bacon and eggs.

Our third speaker was Glen Savage, who, although he has only been a member of Toastmasters for a few months, has already won the club’s Humorous Speech contest and is on his way to next week’s Area contest. With his riotous speech on the pitfalls facing an unwary Aussie in the land of the Poms, Riverside is quietly confident (in a restrained British way).

Evaluators Andrew Dias, Bek Singh and Sonia Aste gave exemplary displays of how to provide both encouragement and constructive feedback, one of the most important aspects of Toastmasters. Membership VP Errol Williamson then welcomed returning visitor Brigit and our two new guests Tonyand Mojgan

After the break, Topicsmaster Sue Kennedy led a lively table topics session, during which Gray Standen declared her disdain for the cherry pitter, the cocktail shaker and the post office, Jeremy Dowsett recommended YouTube for anyone wishing to see the history of the Ukraine in sand art, andPamela Smith extolled the virtues of the Edwardian figure. Special commendations to guests Tony and Mojgan for taking part!

Best Table Topic award went to Pilar Sibbick for her speech championing all things Andalusian. Sonia Aste was voted Best Evaluator.

Finally, General Evaluator Kim Crosby from London Corinthians summed up the evening with her comment that she had been both educated and entertained!