If you thought that The West Coast Speakers Club was full of members ‘of a certain age’ then you would be wrong. At the Association of Speakers Clubs Border Area AGM/Conference in Carlisle, Jess Longrigg from Whitehaven, a junior member, aged 15, gave the speech for the evaluation contest; members from five clubs evaluated it,  the winner being the person judged to have given the best evaluation. Jess’ title was ‘Dance like No-One is Watching’ and dealt with the dance of life; this was her first big speech for the club and the evaluators lavished it with praise; they used words like “superb” “exhilarating” and “astonishing”. Margaret Hunt (Carlisle and District SC) was judged to have given the best evaluation describing the speech as “brilliant”. 

Anna Wilson, representing the club in the ‘topics’ contest was asked to speak on ‘the good times’ and she used the current recession to illustrate that they may be coming to an end. Anna came second and along with the winner, Christine Shuttleworth (Carlisle and District SC) goes forward to the next round, at the District Conference at Motherwell in March. David Heaton, president of the West Coast Speakers Club, chaired the conference and he takes over as Borders Area President for the year 2011/2012; another member, David Preshaw, represented the club in the speech and evaluation contests and the club also provided three ushers to assist with the smooth running of the Conference.The West Coast Speakers Club has a small membership but their input at the conference showed their keen commitment to the club. The club meets every two weeks on a Monday, at the Cumberland Hotel in Workington 7-40pm and guests and potential new members are always welcome. Further information, contact Frank Grace 01900 822951 or email us at info@westcoastspeakers.co.uk