THE single word “Death...” followed by a lengthy and dramatic pause, had the audience for Jim Ballard's mysteriously titled speech 'Micromorts' on the edge of their seats from the outset. A micromort, it turned out, is a measure which can be used to calculate the one-in-a-million probability of death from various human activities. Reeling off with impressive fluency a string of statistics, Jim showed that things we fear most may not always be the most life-threatening. For example, there is a greater likelihood of death from a bee or wasp sting than from a terrorist attack! We were even warned of the (very small!) danger of a fatal fall while putting on or taking off trousers!

Earlier, in the Table Topics session, Adrian Lane had invited impromptu speakers to suggest alternatives to traditional May Day activities. This stimulated some interesting ideas,. These included circling the maypole in full Highland dress; through encouraging the morris-men with the Motown hit 'Dancing in the Street'; and students simply getting a job, instead of jumping off Oxford's Magdalen Bridge on May morning. This last won the night's award for Steve Birch.

Steve was in the spotlight again when president Hilary Benoit reported that he had been elected Toastmasters' Divisional Director at a national weekend conference in London – bringing fresh laurels to the highly successful young Malvern club. Annual committee elections saw Elaine Watt (who also won the Best Evaluator ribbon for her perceptive appraisal of Jim Ballard's talk) voted to succeed Hilary Benoit as President, with Andrew Graham taking over as Secretary.

Hilary ended an impressive year at the top by producing a full-length speech at only a few minutes notice to fill an unexpected gap in the agenda. Although perhaps not up to her usual high standard that had taken her to the national finals in London at the weekend, it was a remarkable achievement that would have daunted most of her fellow members.

Next meeting will be as usual at the Great Malvern Hotel at 7.30pm on Tuesday May 24th.

COLIN JACKSON