May 23rd – A Powerpoint evening.
This is your chance to dazzel the club with an 8-10 minute presentation of your choice.

Friday 27th to Sunday 29th April – The National Conference in Cardiff.
Two and half days in the ASC bubble is more than a little insight, and a fine opportunity to see and hear the Association’s best speakers gather for the Topics, Speech and Evaluation finals. Katherine is represnting Wimbledon for the evaluation final. Do go along and support her.
There are 3 going from Wimbledon so far, and room for plenty more. Katherine can forward any booking forms and details to you if you need. The venue is the Marriott Hotel in Cardiff.

Wednesday 30th May will be the evening for the resurrected ‘London Out Loud’ Contest.
This is an interclub competition where teams of 3 from Wimbledon, Camden, City and Sutton clubs will gather to cast their light on the shared topic: “Win or Lose? Surely it’s the taking part”.
It is on the 5th Wednesday in the month so should not conflict with any other speaking night, and will be lots of fun. The venue will be The Irish Centre in Camden, and further details will be available shortly. If you have any desire or instinct to be a part of the Wimbledon team, and feel inspired by the subject matter, then please do let me know as soon as possible.

Our final meeting before holiday will be on Weds 27th June this year.

End of year celebration on Friday 29th June.
This will be very much along the lines of our fantastic ‘do’ last year, at the Antoinette Hotel, where there will be chance to eat, drink and be merry, and squeeze in some extra speaking too. Final ticket prices £25.00 please contact Katheryn, Craig or Deborah if you require a ticket, partners and friends are welcome also.

Saturday 21st July – The District speaking event is an afternoon of potential anarchy, as we trash all of the usual limitations about sex, politics and religion and debate some very serious (and not so serious) issues of the day. All Clubs in the South Eastern District will be represented, and of course even as an audience member, there will be lots of opportunity to participate. This will be held at The Irish Centre in Camden as this is a fairly central and accessible location for those travelling in from the North and the East. It’s a perfect opportunity to try out some different speaking skills, stimulate and challenge the mind, and meet new speakers from across the District, so do let me know if you are interested in taking part or coming along. We will be fielding our finest team!

So, lots of social fun and speaking options ahead this year; I hope that’s not too much information; naturally there will be more details to come as each occasion approaches.

A selection of mini speeches were developed by all which included subjects such as, clearing out the house, more outdoor activities and holidays.

Alice was also the Topics master. She choose the topic of “Exam questions.. compare and contrast”.
Topics subjects such as compare and contrast Pop music and Classical, Wearing Stilettos or runners, St Patrick’s day or St George’s day. Julie won the Debra Award with her topic “London or Paris”. She preferred London as it is more cosmopolitan, more green and general quality of life. Well done Julie!

Kalley made us all a lovely cup of tea .. (peppermint tea count was lower this week)!

Gareth gave a great personalised evaluation to all on their topic performance. Praising the good elements of their speech and giving a point of improvement to all.

Michael gave a business update. Including the new manual, Katherine’s win at the Area competition and she is competing again Sunday 18 Maidenhead. Well done Katherine and best of luck from the club on Sunday. Finally the End of Year dinner is being organised for 29 June 2012. Make sure to pop this date in your diary. Details to follow.

In the second half we had four fabulous speeches:

Level 2 – Mean what you say – Matt titled “The Law of attraction”
Matt gave a very enthusiastic and energetic speech convincing us all of the power of The book ” The Law of Attraction”
We are the products of our own thoughts..
Kalley evaluated and commended Matt on his great speech including his use of gestures.
Well done Matt and we look forward to hearing your next speech.

Level 4 – Gestures – Lissy titled “How to be a Rocket Scientist” .
Lissy brought us though how a poor boy from south Africa broke the poverty barrier and the Academia barrier ending up in Harvard working with the top scientist in the world.. all brought on by curiosity and slow build of expectations.
George evaluated Lissy passing her with flying colours and particularly pointing out there were no Umm’s or ahh’s.
Well done Lissy.. Roll on level five.

Level 4 Speech – Gestures – Julie titled “The Information Age”.
Julie walked us though the wonder of 3D technology of the future and everyday technology. Out reliance on it and the advantages of it even down to the aluminium in sunscreen to reflect the sun.
Craig evaluated Julie on her fine speech with relevant use of gestures. He was particularly pleased to have learned some new information regarding sunscreen.

Level 5 – Use if Voice – Gerwyn titled ” You can’t have it all”
Gerwyn brought to our attention the world of self help books we are surrounded by today and questioned why we need these.
Are we unhappier than in the past or do we have to be told what happiness or success are?

Sam then kept us alert with his selection of ten Big Ears questions.

Finally Michael gave a short general evaluation commending all and giving a few points of improvement.

Alice then drew the evening to a close giving us all 10/10 and inviting all to have a drink and a chat at the Antoinette.

Michael handed over to Isabelle for her fantastic first time as Topics chair using the Olympics, East London and Cockney slang as her topics.

Chrissy was given the Arron Tank… Alice the Early flowers and Alison the Dog and Phone…but Claire won the Show and the Debra with her cat Tiggy’s sharing of attention to fill her basic needs of food and love.

Gerwin managed a rapid fire Topics evaluation giving praise and recommendation of improvements to all before Chrissy made us all a lovely welcomed cup of tea to warm us up for the second round.

In the second half we had three speeches:
Christelle – gave a heart warming speech about her best friend. How only your best friend can get you though even a cold miserable Monday morning with their thoughtfulness right though to ending up on rocking chairs at the age 90.

Shirley’s speech Ways to happiness gave us the five ways to happiness…
A sense of belonging, helping others, learning, exercise and friendship.

Finally Gareth gave a speech on the History of flying.. Bringing us though the wonder of air travel… how it went from a rich luxuary of champagne and limosene to the vast number of travellers today who dont get as much as a sandwitch!

All passed by their evaluators Katherine, Lissie and Julie with points of praise and a few notes of improvements.

Deborah gave a few minutes of Big ears which Kalley managed to answer all the questions.. Well done Kallie!
Alice brought he evening to a close with the General evaluation and then off to the Alexandra for a catch up and chat about the evening’s entertainments…
Don’t forget on Saturday 25th Feb, William Morris House is hosting the annual Area Contests, so our recent winners from Wimbledon (Alice in Topics, Vanessa in Speech and Katherine in Evaluation) would love to see any supporters on that day. It’s an afternoon event starting at 2pm, its very light hearted and relaxed, and will offer an opportunity for some extra curricular speaking. Friendly and familiar faces in the audience are most appreciated on these occasions.

After a lovely cup of tea provided by Sam and a natter over biscuits we headed back for the second part of the evening where four of our members gave speeches.

Level 1 – Claire gave a speech on “New Years Resolutions” where Pilates, Spanish and Speakers were the top three. She hopes this year to be in the 5% of people who make Resolutions to keep them up past 31 Jan!!
Gareth evaluated Claire and passed her with flying colours. Well done Gareth also for his first evaluation!!

Level 1 Matt – A speech titled “Evaluations”. Matt broke down his evaluations to two things Communication and Visualise and explained how this helped him recover from a football injury.
Joseph evaluated Matt, passing him commending him for his enthusiasm and use of vocabulary.

Level 3 Alison gave her speech on Interview Skills. She shared her party conversation transition from, what do you do? to the credit crunch version of this is how you should do your interview… The three elements Alison focused on were Confidence, Interest and Handshakes. She involved the whole audience in her experiments which was fun.
Alice evaluated Alison and passed her for her well written speech with the use of three’s and commended her for the audience participation.

Level 6 speech was given by Philippe titled “Become who you are” Philippe drew us all in to the philosophical view point of Niche, questioning what Niche was driving at and what or where we are with our own self. Fascinating.

Katherine passed Philippe and was very complimentary of his use of vocabulary and delivery.

Michael gave a quick Business update and General evaluation followed by Adams cryptic Big ears session which left us all somewhat embarrased at our level of listening!!!!

Chrissy our great chair for the evening drew the evening to a close right on time for a quick catch up next door at the Antionette hotel.

Next session is the Topics competition so don’t miss it.. should be another fun night.

Our last event was the “End of Year Speech competition” where our two winners
Vanessa Villalobos and Kally Paulin will proudly go on to represent the club the at the London competitions later this quarter.

Vanessa gave a fabulous speech titled ” Will English Survive?” She brought us though the history of English to date and how our multicultural environment has evolved and contributed to the language. Where the Romans introduced Wine and Cheese.

Kally gave a lovely speech titled “Love it or Hate it” She described how cold her hands get and the invigorating brisk walks in the park with her son.

We had four other contestants who also gave very impressive and interesting speeches:
Peter gave a speech titled “survival”
Shirley gave a speech titled “Survival of the fittest”
Alison gave a speech on ” The Legacy of the Negolthians”
And last but not least Isabelle gave a speech titled “Lets celebrate middle age..”

A really fun night for us all and a big congratulations to our two winners. Here’s to a successful 2012 competition year!!! See you all on 11 Jan 7.30pm.

WSC Annual Speech Contest – Subject is ‘Survival’ and quite a few sign ups so far… so be there or be square!!

CHAIR: Philippe Truffert

Phillippe chose the topics of ‘what would you say to…a famous person. This worked well for everyone having alot of fun with famous people like Amy Winehouse, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cherie Blair, Wayne Rooney, Alan Sugar, John Cleese.
Michael won best Topic with conversation with his chosen famous person being Pablo Casals.

TIMEKEEPER: Sam Williams

TOPICS EVALUATOR: Joseph Nurse

BUSINESS SESSION: Michael Ronayne

REFRESHMENTS: Isabelle Bano

SPEECH (LEVEL 1): Kally Paulin
Kally did an excellent speech in the second half – Pursue Your Dreams – and used her life story to illustrate.

EVALUATOR: Katherine Inglis
Katherine passed Kally with flying colours and a most inspiring speech. We look forward to hearing more from Kally soon.

SPEECH (LEVEL TBC): Alice Herron
EVALUATOR: Chrissy Facon
BIG EARS: Alison Holford
GENERAL EVALUATOR: Adam Tomlinson

NEXT MEETING IN 3 WEEKS – WEDS 14th DEC

WSC ANNUAL SPEECH CONTEST – Subject is ‘Survival’ and quite a few sign ups so far… so be there or be square!!

Alice brought some GROOVE into the evening with Aretha Franklin song titles as the topic theme. Everyone tried their best but Kingsley stole the show with his rendition of King of the road and his topic titled “I can’t get no satisfaction”.

Katherine carved her way expertly though the task of evaluation of 17 different peoples topics before Rosa providing a fine cup of tea for all at the break, to warm us all up.

In the second half we had a rapid fire round of one minute topics distributed by Vanessa, followed by Michaels invaluable tips on “The art of evaluating”.

Isabelle’s introductory speech titled “Can dreams come true?” where she brought us though her childhood dream of wishing to speak all languages. Ben evaluated Isabelle passing her with flying colours.

The evening drew to a close with Josephs clever “Big Ears” questions and Philippe’s evaluation of the evening.

Another success all round which then continued next door for a quick refreshment and a natter.