We are getting quite good at coping with a small membership and this meeting was no exception. Several members were absent but the good news is that a new member, Brad (aged 18) attended along with Mark an ex member, who has rejoined the club. Frank, standing in for president David Heaton chaired the business session which was longer than normal because we wanted to give Brad information about the club and also discuss ways of publicising the club; It resulted in a very interesting and informative session. David Preshaw took over as chairman for the evening, introducing Roger for his reading of ’26 mates’; it was something he had found in a drawer, written over 30 years ago and we were treated to a wonderful, humorous rendition, it was really so much more than just a reading and could easily have doubled as a speech. David then stepped in with a speech, in place of the absent Pauline. He spoke of life at Workington Grammar School (very topical) in the late 1960’s. Some of us were down memory lane on this one although Brad (who is so much younger than us) must have been intrigued at David’s portrayal of school days all those years ago. Frank evaluated and praised David for his use of gestures, speech construction, eye contact, use of humour and pace (not too fast) Brad then gave us his first speech for the club; this is probably the most difficult assignment to do because its the first attempt in front of an audience. Brad talked about aspects of his life and spoke with feeling. Mark gave a very good evaluation, praising him for his presence at the lectern, his good pace and the overall impact on the audience. After the interval Ron chaired the topics session; he gave each of us a symbol from a map to identify. We are usually quite adept at answering topics but we all struggled to (a) identify the symbol and (b) to use up our 3 minutes, poor frank didn’t have a clue and proceeded to waffle his way through! Roger evaluated the evening, lavishing it with praise for the members contributions and the overall standard. He thought it had been different from previous meetings but was just as enjoyable and informative. Frank closed the meeting at 9.50 pm

Frank Grace