In the absence of the President, (Mike) Frank opened the meeting and welcomed two young women from Germany who were staying with David Preshaw. After Franks’ business session, which included details of our new website, financial details and report on the Border Area conference, he handed over to Roger as chairman for the evening. In the absence of Mike and Wendy(both included on the original programme) he had to make changes and Frank gave us a speech with a difference, part speech and part reading! He spoke about one of his favourite authors, Arthur C Clarke and talked for several minutes about the author before finishing with a reading from one of his short stories, ‘Before Eden’. David Heaton evaluated, high lighting the good points and adding some good constructive advice where appropriate. Our two German guests were very brave and spoke to us as a duo, for several minutes, they remarked that it felt like an oral exam at school! Mark was the second evaluator and both evaluators spoke after the interval. Ron following on, gave us a topics session based on the nights theme ‘Mad as a Hatter’. Some members, struggled to use up their 3 minutes but, as usual, lots of humour was generated, with Ron linking the speakers well, informing us of the origins, which was very educational. Pauline as General Evaluator, summed up the evening which she thought was informative and enjoyable. Roger as chairman for the night, was praised for keeping things running smoothly.