HOW would you feel if you were asked to stand up, right now, and speak for two minutes on a day in the life of, say, a mirror, a suitcase or a front door….? These were among the challenges that faced competitors in the table topics section of last week’s meeting – challenges they met with flying colours. Speaker after speaker came to the platform and spoke with imagination, confidence, humour and a minimum of hesitation. This made voting for the best contribution a real puzzle, but the winner was Karen Lowen, a recently-joined member of the club, for her highly entertaining thoughts on being a mobile phone for a day!

The jargon of modern technology also featured in the prepared speech by the club’s social-media-savvy president Elaine Watt, in which she warned against false friends such as dream stealers, negative nancies, and frenemies! In a talk laced with memorable phrases such as ‘relational vampires’ and ‘left-handed compliments’. she urged members not to fall for such people but to be ‘CEO of your own life’.

Roger Granville, standing in at the last moment for another speaker, ambitiously tackled the subject of the historic Putney Debates of 1647, during the English Civil Wars, when the outlines of our present democracy were first put forward, 300 years before they became fact. The complexity of his topic led him slightly to to over-run his allocated time – always an important consideration at Toastmasters’ meetings.

The other speech of the evening, intriguingly entitled “Circus Freaks, Giraffes and Baseball Players” came from Jen Cashmore. Fluently and without notes, but with considerable humour, she reflected on her lifetime experience of being a Tall Girl, earning the vote for Best Speech.

Next meeting will be at at 7.30pm on Tuesday October 11 at the Great Malvern Hotel. Guests are always welcome to find out what goes on – and many go on to join the club.

COLIN JACKSON