This was the first meeting of the 2011/12 season, chaired by the outgoing president, David Heaton. Some items, left over from the AGM in May, were concluded, Anna is our new Vice President, with David Preshaw taking over as Education Officer. David handed over the chain of office to incoming president, Frank, before continuing with the meeting. Reg gave a speech ‘Seventy Years On’, illustrating the use of vocabulary and word pictures, it was very educational as Reg spoke about Lord Lonsdale and his connection with Lowther Castle, Boxing, Henry Cooper and the lonsdale belt. His speech was well received by the members and Anna, during her evaluation, praised it for clarity of voice and good presentation. Reg doesn’t give many speeches these days because he feels he is ‘past it’ which is a pity because he obviously has still ‘got it’.

Adelaide read a poem from ‘The Speaker Magazine’ which we could all relate to because it dealt with aspects of speakers clubs, in a light hearted way. After the interval Frank chaired the topics session and dealt with the subject ‘favourites’. Members were asked to talk for 3 minutes on their favourite—– book, film, sportsman, holiday destination etc. This was an easy session for members but Frank explained that it is not always easy to condense a subject that you know a lot about, into a 3 minute mini speech. The members sailed through the session however which produced much humour as we heard about Wilson from the comic,’The Wizard’, holidays at Bitterlees near Allonby, television programmes, ‘Relocation, Relocation’, ‘Homes By The Hammer’ and finally how the battle of Agincourt was fought by men without any trousers, because they were suffering from Dysentry! This really was a topic session in which all the members excelled and showed how far we had progressed as a club. Liz, as General Evaluator, summed up the evening, giving praise as well as addressing the areas that could be improved. Frank closed the meeting at 9.45pm and everyone went home with a smile on their face! What a pity there were no guests present to enjoy the meeting, i’m sure they would have been impressed.