This week's meeting marked the beginning of the Toastmasters year and saw the new President, Shola Ayemi, and her fellow officers set sail on their maiden voyage; their first bicycle ride to the foot of the drive with the detached stabilisers held firmly in the hands of proud parents. Shola was the epitome of cool as she steered her fully laden six-seater bicycle without the faintest hint of a wobble.
Our Table Topics Master, Mandy Carlin, aptly had us thinking of our birthdays; thinking of extravagant celebrations, the importance of celebration and whether it really is the thought that counts. We were delighted to have the company of five guests throughout the meeting and were thrilled and excited to see two of them take to the stage and deliver exceptional impromptu speeches. Each table topic speech was delivered with aplomb, but it was the visiting Ayodele Daodu who warmed our hearts with his gentle presence and emotive recount of his father's 70th birthday, and it was he who deservedly walked away with the trophy and coveted ribbon.
It was an evening of success all round as our Vice Present for Education, Sanjit Joseph, completed the Competent Communicator manual by delivering his tenth speech after only ten months. Sanjit has offered inspiration through his drive to complete the first manual apace, and in closing out the manual offered further inspiration with a speech entitled "Where Dreams Go to Die". He carved in our minds the resting place of unfulfilled dreams - those whose destiny was action but whose fruition lie in day-dreamer's minds - and landed a symbolic shoulder-barge to ward us from the all-too-populated land. It was a trophy-winning speech where thought-provoking arguments laced with humour had us all wondering: what are we waiting for?
Rarely does an evening go by without Stuart Beattie holding our attention in the palm of his hand. Whilst mostly it is his professional evaluations that we enjoy, this time it was a persuasive speech from the Technical Presentations manual. Stuart was charged with the task of unearthing investors in a revolutionary space-based solar energy capture scheme and, more crucially, charged with loosening their purse-strings. Selling such a radical scheme was never going to be easy but through the inverted pyramid technique, and by gently reminding and asserting that we are undeniably at the dawn of the commercialisation of space, Stuart made the concept comfortable and tangible. Thereafter the audience were at the mercy of a master craftsman.
Rounding off a captivating evening of speeches - not discounting the high-class post-break evaluations of course - was a humorous speech by Rivka David, entitled "In Search of Humour Lost". Rivka opened her speech by painting a scene at Sunday lunch, introducing mother to the new green-haired, tattoo-clad, motorcycle-riding boyfriend, and immediately paved the way for an eloquently delivered third speech of the Humorously Speaking manual. Rivka posited that in the past few years her sense of humour had become elusive: was her sense of humour now gone, or does it simply live in the fridge?
It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening where the audience was gifted a glimpse into the well-advanced journeys of three of our speakers. For one of our newest members, Alastair Kight, his journey begins with his Ice-Breaker speech at our next meeting. Highlight the 25th of July in your diaries, and instead of coming alone why not fill your car with guests?
