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.

Michael kicked off this years fortnightly sessions as Chair and Topics Chair with a very apt topics session “Something New”..

A good turn out, three of which were visitors. Everyone managed a 3 minute story assigned.

After a healthy refreshment session where peppermint tea continued to be the favourite this year, everyone caught up on “the summer ” activities.

In the second half Gareth performed a level 5 Speech evaluated by Katherine.

Alice performed her Level 8 Speech on humour, titled “You don’t have to be mad to join Wimbledon speakers Club!!! Sally was the evaluator for Alice and she and her Ghosts passed with flying colours.

Vanessa was general evaluator and she gave her differing opinion on the evaluation of the speeches. She thanked and positively critiqued Michael for Chairing, Craig for Timing, Ben for Topics evaluation and indeed Phillip for the Big Ears section.

The evening ended and everyone wandered over to the Antionette for a new year of after Speakers drinks :->

If it’s the start of September, it must mean that one joy is assured: Wimbledon Speakers Club is about to begin its new year. Hooray!

Really looking forward to gathering again for another year, and hearing your topics and speeches.

If you have been pondering, planning or preparing anything to contribute over the Summer break, then please do let me know. I list the meeting dates below, from now until Christmas, and would be happy to include you in any schedule. Please keep in mind too, that there are several roles to be filled for each session, so maybe this could be the year to step up or breakthrough in an area you haven’t tried before, whether it be evaluation, Chairing or making the tea!

We meet first on Wednesday 14th September, for a session to be chaired by our Club President, Michael Ronayne. We look forward to welcoming new visitors and guests, and to getting the new speaking season off to a great start. More details will follow.

Meeting dates in 2011 are: Weds 14th & 28th September – Weds 11th & 25th October – Weds 9th & 23rd November – Weds 14th December.

Please do contact me if you have any queries, questions or suggestions. I look forward to seeing everyone very soon.

Best wishes,

Katherine

A special night where we had two great level four speeches by Peter and Garreth showing us how it should be done and passing with flying colours. Finishing with a rare speech by Katherine. A fantastic speech on her pain with estate agents.. we could all relate or at least feel her pain.

Joseph proudly won The Debra prize by a landslide of votes!.

Isabelle challenged us all with her Big Ears questions.

Michael had lots of fun evaluating Debra as Chair..

Have a peek at a few pics that give a flavour of the evening..

Wimbledon Speakers Club