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The stage is all yours – 17th May

The sun shone brightly over Victoria ahead of our previous meeting. Owning the stage as Toastmaster of the evening was our VPPR Nuala who came up with a general theme for the evening based on luxuries. Her team of assistant was made up of Cleo to keep tab on time, Thomas as grammarian with “opulent” as word of the day and finally Hannah as harkmaster.

Harkmaster Hannah
Harkmaster Hannah

The first speaker to take the stage was Eleanor H with a speech mysteriously titled “Great PR or magic”. Eleanor told us the history of fairies from once scary and evil creatures such as changelings to the lovely and graceful flying creatures of today. No one knows what caused this momentous change but it is likely a bit of magic and a bit of PR. Second on stage was Eleanor G “Sleep tight”. Her objective of persuading us of the importance of sleep was met by a clever use of the stage and by telling us a story of when she experimented not sleeping for 3 days. This experiment didn’t end well and included hallucinations, losing balance and skin discoloration. Don’t underestimate the value of sleep folk! The third speaker on stage was Prateek “Me Inspire me”. Prateek inspired us by telling his own journey from an average teenager, to the person he is today that is able to travel at leisure and has a dream job. The secret was quite simple “act more, think less” and he urged everyone to follow a similar formula in order to be successful. Our final speaker on stage was Mahbub. Mahbub did an advanced speech from the Communicating on Video manual, simulating a press conference on the subject of sport and exercise.

Second to the stage Eleanor G
Second to speak Eleanor G

The stage was then set for speech evaluations, with Terry, Robert, Fahad and John evaluating each of the evening’s speakers in turn. Each speaker was provided commendations and recommendations on areas like his/her use of the stage, vocal variety or speech structure.

Timekeeper Cleo doing one of her reports
Timekeeper Cleo doing one of her reports

 

After a short break our table topics master Stephen facilitated a fun impromptu speaking session with “is this a luxury or a necessity”. This being a washing machine or yearly holidays abroad. The session was then evaluated by George.

Table topics evaluator George
Table topics evaluator George

Functionaries Thomas and Hannah came back on stage to give their respective reports followed by our general evaluator of the evening Area Director Laurent Nicourt.

The one and only Laurent Nicourt!
The one and only Laurent Nicourt!