TALL STORY COMPETITION

Five members entered the contest and we were treated to stories on a variety of subjects.  Some members had put a lot of research into their story and it showed. We heard about Pauline’s ‘holiday from hell’ which started with a suitcase being crushed by a trolley at the airport and proceeded to get worse as the holiday progressed. A stranger who left £75 in a restaurant for a meal  for  Frank and Jean, Mark’s walking holiday in the Pyrenees when he met the actor Anthony Perkins in a bar, Ron’s ‘north/ south divide’ involving London cockneys  and Rogers strange ‘sixth sense’ experience. Frank and Pauline tied equal first, fooling four members!

After the interval Mark chaired the topics session and he used ‘Halloween’ as his theme; it turned out to be a challenging session, Frank struggled with his topic because he admitted that being a Londoner he knew very little about the subject (Halloween wasn’t celebrated where he was brought up as a child) he waffled for about two minutes before making way for others. The rest of the membership coped a little better and we were treated a very informative, interesting, enjoyable session.

Roger, in his role as General Evaluator, praised everyone for contributing to a memorable evening, the most unusual he had attended, he picked out Mark for special praise for his excellent topic session, his commitment, research into the subject ensured the everyone was entertained.

For this meeting we were without the lectern, which had gone missing! After the first five minutes it was as though we had never used one before, because the members all coped  so well, perhaps there should be an extra assignment in the speakers guide for ‘speaking without a lectern’; the members would all have passed on tonight’s evidence.

Frank Grace