Battle Speakers Club

There was an amusing plethora of responses, allowing members and guests to warm up easily into gear for a great evening.

The evening’s Toastmaster was Giles Robinson who oozed enthusiasm and charisma throughout the evening. He introduced all the speakers and their roles and gave guests a particularly warm welcome. His professional performance allowed everyone to feel relaxed and at ease. The hot tip given by Susan Kennard was to maintain eye contact while speaking. Kelan Watling was the evening’s grammarian and he challenged everyone to try and use the word ‘obtuse’ in their speeches throughout the evening.

The first prepared speech was given by Glenda Procter. This was Glenda’s first speech to the club and she engaged the audience by taking them through a journey of her life: from being a Coronation baby to a Jubilee bride and now being a spiritual healer. Glenda was confident and used fantastic vocal variety.

Alison Pringle presented the next speech inviting the audience to travel 425 miles back to her roots: breathtakingly beautiful Berwick-upon-Tweed. To illustrate this she used a number of enlarged photographic images. Alison made fabulous use of self-depreciating humour.

The final prepared speech of the evening was delivered by Dorothy Margison. Her brief was to provide a entertaining speech from the advanced communicator series.

Dorothy chose an unconventional style, by presenting a mini drama of herself and her mother having tea at the Ritz.

Using very few props she managed to set the scene nicely. However, it was suggested in feedback that she needed to do more to differentiate herself from her mother, by perhaps using different hats.

In the second part of the evening skilful Toastmaster Gordon Piggott introduced some diverse and interesting table topics. He started by challenging Peter Carney to discuss usefulness of shorthand. Peter managed to amuse everyone using jokes about pushing envelopes. Then all the guests present rose to the challenge by pitching in and speaking for up to two minutes without any prior notice of the topics. Will used great humour and charisma in discussing if he were a woman would he be blonde or brunette. Nicola had great use of body language in discussing whether social media is nonsense or necessary.

Marcus confidently reminisced about Wagon Wheels when he was asked if life was really better years ago. Antonia made great use of the stage in claiming men don’t rule the world: that is not in her world of speech therapy. Jess defended the underdog when talking about political correctness. Finally Paul commanded the stage with confidence when he stated that too much was being spent on the elderly population. This caused considerable heckling which he managed to handle with ease.

A splendid evening was had by all who attended, proving that talking is our social glue. So please come along and join in, it is free to visit us without any obligation to become a member.

The club meets on the second and fourth Thursdays of each at Battle Club, rear of 91 High Street, Battle, TN33 0AQ (entrance next to Yesterday’s World) from 7.15-9.15pm. Further details can be found at www.battlespeakers.co.uk,or call Giles Robinson on 01424 773972.