It was a cold, crisp January night as I walked into Maidenhead Speakers – just a few hours after stepping off the plane after a week of beautiful sunshine in Lanzarote… but I wouldn’t miss Toastmasters for the world… As I arrived, the room was already buzzing with activity. I noticed the chairs were already being put out – albeit at a rather rakish angle tonight, by way of a change!
Among our guests, it was later revealed, we had the VPE from Chiltern Speakers, and a representative from a female version of the Rotary Club, awaiting to be entertained (and impressed) by our speakers.
The meeting started right on time in fine style, with the customary humorous insights of our Sgt @ Arms Julie Farrell, putting a smile on everyone’s face as always and getting the meeting off to a lively start.
Our TME for the evening, David McLeod, then took over – and, after enquiring if any of us knew what important event was happening on Wednesday (not many of us did!) he was proud to tell us, staying true to his heritage, that it was of course Burns Night.
He informed us that tonight’s meeting would have a Scottish flavour, and regaled us with some Burns one-liners (including the legendary Tam O’Shanter), revealing to us that Robbie had written over 600 poems – a bit more than most of us in the audience had anticipated when he put it to the floor!
We even had a bit of Spike Milligan thrown in for good measure – and found out that the most popular Scottish surname is… Smith.
Apart from David’s tie though, there was a distinct lack of tartan in the house…!
Showing an impressive piece of forward-planning, Thomas White stepped up as Table Topics master and continued the Scottish theme with his Table Topics session.
Our brave(heart) TT speakers did an excellent job with some quite challenging subjects…
Water of Life (Gaelic for Whisky); A Fire Engine (apparently the first fire brigade was in Scotland); The Seven Hills (as in Edinburgh); The Unicorn (Scotland’s symbol and coat of arms); The Guilty not guilty not proven Verdict, and, last of all, Blue Eyes – yes, the most popular eye colour in Caldedonia.
Isabel Hunt did well to win, with some tough competition, with her excellent Blue Eyes speech.
I was personally relieved not to be called up for a TT – phew. Not that I want to alert any future TT masters… but I haven’t done one for a while and I’m fine with that thanks – hee hee….!
We then had our 3 main speeches – all I thought of a very high quality, and once again showcasing the talent within our club.
Firstly, Amanda Bouch performed an extended educational speech on Motivation – I found this to be an excellent and inspiring talk. With careful use of the flipchart, she revealed her 4 motivational signposts:
1. Find purpose in your life;
2. Have courage to break through;
3. Set goals – have a plan;
4. Surround yourself with like-minded people.
She finished on a line which really resonated with me (and many others too I’m sure): Success doesn’t come to you – you have to go to it.
For our second speech, our Club President Mary Fraser continued with the Scottish theme – poking fun at ‘the laddies’ in the form of The Roast. I’d heard this expression before (and of a TV prog that used this) but didn’t realize it was of American origin, as Mary revealed to us.
I loved her translation of what women really mean when they say to men:
‘Fine’
’5 minutes’
‘Nothing’
‘Go Ahead’
‘Thanks’
I’ve taken careful note Mary, thanks… (and no, that isn’t a question!).
For our third and final speech, Gerard Pillai changed the mood with a very moving and emotive speech about a man called Okutu, whom he met when he visited Southern Ethiopia. He had become the victim of an awful drought which had killed all his cattle, and wrote to Gerard begging for help for he, his wife and 4 children. Gerard kindly offered to give Okutu financial assistance to educate his children – and when he returned to Ethiopia a year later, was delighted to see that the family were now recovering and getting back on their feet. Okutu’s daughter had received an award at school, of which he was very proud, and Okutu’s wife was running a shop now from their house. His dignity had now been restored.
Would any of us have the dignity to beg?
Amardeep Dhillon, Laurie Billson and Sandra Davison all then performed excellent evaluations of the speeches, co-ordinated by General Evaluator Anita Li. Sandra went on to win Evaluator of the Evening for her confident and well-structured talk dissecting Amanda’s talk.
Mell Sheppard was Grammarian (for the first time, I believe) and gave a humorous and breezy talk at the end, pointing out all the good use of language and metaphors throughout the evening. She even put in some errs and ums of her own for good measure!
Her wonderful word of the day ‘Machiavellian’ was put to good use to by various speakers.
All in all, a top-notch evening full of great speeches and insights – and, as ever, we all came away learning something new and feeling thoroughly entertained.
It just remains to say…
Happy Birthday Robbie!
Steve Cann
