Meeting 16th September 2014

Quick reminder!! The Area Contest will be on the 4th October at Shropshire Speakers - And - we are going to be having an Open Evening on 21st October to celebrate 90 years of Toastmasters!!




This will have a slightly different Agenda with 2 sets of Table Topics, the second being an opportunity for guests to get up and have a go after seeing a members session. So PLEASE all bring a long at least one guest.  All those who have been members or guests in the past are also most welcome to come along and say Hello.


I will now hand you over to Annabelle who has kindly agreed to be our Guest Blogger for this week.  Thanks Annabelle.....

"Tuesday night’s Heart of England’s club meeting held the much anticipated club contest, and it is fair to say it did not disappoint. The evening took on an alternative structure to accommodate both the Humorous speech and the Table Topics contests.

We started the meeting with the Table Topics where we had four willing participants – Sanat, Seema, Tony and Dave. In line with the tradition of this contest the speakers all had to answer the same question, therefore before starting they were ushered out of the room and brought in one by one. The topic question of the evening was ‘if you were to write your eulogy, what would it say and why?’ A difficult question. However, all the speakers were able to answer the question in an expert fashion and almost in a prepared manner. All the contestants were within time and therefore qualified for the judging, a tricky task taken on by Susan, Asma and myself. It was a close call between all the contestants (only a few points between) but in the end we agreed on first and second places going to Tony and Dave, respectively.

The second half of the evening held the Humorous speech contest. Again we had 4 eager contestants – Tony, Sanat, Linda and Mish. This contest required the participants to present a prepared speech, between 5 and 7mintues, with the added requirement of having an entertaining element. We heard a variety of topics from Mish’s dislike towards mushrooms to Linda’s interrogation into her eligibility for booking a holiday. All the speeches had an entertaining value and a high level of delivery. But again, as it was a contest, they were required to be judged. This was especially difficult as humour can be very subjective. However, after totalling each contestant’s points (again a close call), first and second place went to Sanat and Mish, respectively

Overall, two great contests both with high standards of speeches. Well done to all those who took part and made the evening a success and best of luck to the winners and runners up who will be going onto the next round on the 4^th October to represent the Heart of England club! "