Our host for the meeting with a 'flying' theme was Irina Baldwin, who, in her first go at the role did an exemplary job of guiding us safely through the evening. As we had a little time to spare, Irina challenged every member (and each of our 5 visitors) to speak for 30 seconds on the subject 'If you could fly anywhere tonight, where would that be?'. Everyone did an amazing job, with Sussex being the closest destination and Australia being the furthest, although Bhutan sounded the most tempting with its high happiness count.
This was followed by a simple but imaginative Table Topics session led by Anthony Boboe, based around numbers which was won by JJ, one of our visitors, who entertained us by telling us about his four sisters and his 84 cousins.
In the prepared speeches, Aga Stewart gave a polished performance for her 'ice breaker' speech, talking about how her husband 'imported' her from her native Poland to England, and what she learned from the experience.
Karen Willis then delivered an impacting speech on developing meaningful goals by looking at the past year from different angles, including describing the year in tweets and using the 4 Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed for).
Anthony Brennan gave an excellent evaluation of Karen's speech, earning him the title of 'best evaluator' for the meeting.
A special mention for Monica Alabi who excelled despite being thrown into a second role at short notice.
Overall a very enjoyable evening with many people taking on new challenges which, after all, is what Toastmasters is all about.
