There was a change of venue for the last meeting of the year from Bloomsbury’s regular haunt – The Rugby Tavern – to Conway Hall, home of the Ethical Society.
Club President Nazia Soon kicked the meeting off by welcoming the guests and giving a short history of the building, including its association with intellectual luminaries such as Bertrand Russell.
The toastmaster for the evening Femi Asaolu warmed up the audience with a highly inventive storytelling game during which the unlikely tale of a lost mobile phone emerged courtesy of additions from everyone in the room.
First-time timekeeper Terry Freedman gave a great overview the role and Raj Jain explained his own role as grammarian and challenged all those present to integrate the theme of goal-setting into any speaking opportunity they might have that evening.
The first of the evening’s speeches was a fascinating summary by Swarajit Das of the basic theory behind Richard Dawkin’s book The Blind Watchmaker. Swarajit presented a strong argument for the evolution of complexity without an intelligent, guiding creator and did a fantastic job of making difficult content accessible to all.
Continuing the somewhat existential theme, Alex Donald gave us his No. 2 speech: The ABC of Religion. Asking us in a strong opening “What does religion mean to you?” Alex went on to discuss his own personal experiences with religion throughout his life and concluded that while religion can be a source of great conflict it can also be a power for great good.
For her No. 10 speech Rekha Wadhwani choose to share some “magic moments” from her life and urged us all to savour the magic moments in our own lives. This was a highly inspirational speech which provided Rekha with a brand new magic moment – officially becoming a Competent Communicator. Well done Rekha!
Terry provided a quick report of the times of the various speeches and then Anna Maloney invited the evening’s guests to introduce themselves to the room and say what they were most looking forward about Christmas. Food and family were popular answers!
After a short break for a quick chat and some refreshments, Femi brought the meeting back to order and introduced the first speech evaluator for the evening – Issata Kpakiwa, who provided a thorough and insightful assessment of Swarajit’s opening speech. Issata was followed by Glen Long, who evaluated Alex’s speech, congratulating him on his performance and giving three specific recommendations for next time round. Finally Ratan Lele gave an energetic and charismatic evaluation of Rekha’s persuasive speech.
Next up, Adam Horne introduced the table topics session – an opportunity for people to practice impromptu speaking for 1 or 2 minutes based on a subject of Adam’s choosing. Adam introduced a Christmas theme by inviting each speaker to choose an item from his bag of Christmas gifts and then try to ‘sell’ that item to the rest of the room. Items on offer included a felt snowman decoration, some “snow in a can”, a Christmas card (allegedly drawn by Leonardo da Vinci!) and some Christmas-themed “deely boppers”.
Following this, Henry Playfoot gave a measured but very humorous assessment of the impromptu speakers in his evaluation, with his description of Adam’s bag of presents as an “incredible selection of tat” raising a particularly big laugh.
After a report from Raj Jain in his role of Grammarian, Linda White from Trojan Speakers gave a very professional and detailed general evaluation of the club, during which all elements of the meeting not already evaluated by another member were assessed. We’re very grateful to Linda for taking the time to visit us and help out in such a useful and positive way.
Finally, the awards for the evening were announced by president Nazia Soon. Best speaker went to Rekha, best evaluator to Henry, best table topic speaker to first-time guest Emily (well done Emily!) and the president’s discretionary award went to Terry for his sterling work with the stopwatch.
After the close of the meeting, members and guests stayed to chat over refreshments and snacks, kindly provided and cooked (if not actually made!) by our esteemed president.
Our next meeting is on Monday, 10 January 2011, back in our usual venue – upstairs at the Rugby Tavern.
Have a Happy Christmas and see you in the New Year!
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Great summary – I really enjoyed the meeting!