Another great night was had at the Plough & Harrow. Our theme was Independence/Breaking Away and each of the speakers took a different twist to it. The evening’s presenter, Mercedes, wore a sari and explained to us that she had purchased it on a trip to India last year when she and her husband had learned that a big celebration for Indian independence would be taking place and she was wearing it tonight in honour of the evening’s theme.
We had four guests on the evening and Mercedes took time to talk about the club and its protocols before introducing the first speaker – Lyn. Lyn tackled the theme by thinking of the various ways in which people achieve independence – leaving home, divorcing, moving jobs – and spoke of the opportunities created by these situations. I followed with the next speech which was inspired by the date – 22 February – the birth date of the founding father of the United States, George Washington. I gave my reflections on the courage and intelligence of people when they stand up to tyranny – whether in colonial America or during the Arab Spring. Beryl, the next speaker, raised the question about whether we are ever truly independent and appropriately ended her speech with the line of poetry from John Donne, ‘No man is an island.’ The final speaker, Margaret, took the opportunity of Jamaica’s celebration of independence this year, to celebrate the island of Jamaica itself and gave a very informative speech to encourage each of us to make the trip to this special island.
Allan had kindly stepped in as timer at the start of the meeting and was now called upon to give the timings of each of the speeches – and we found one had gone under the 5 minutes and one had gone over the eight minutes. Having only recently held our annual speech contest, we should have been more mindful of how important it is to keep within the time allocated by club rules.
Julie and Rob were then called upon to give evaluations on the content and delivery of each of the speeches. There was high praise for all and recommendations given for what could be done better next time. It happened that all the speakers have been members of the club for several years so are well experienced at standing up and presenting. The evaluators commented that each of us were better speakers when we weren’t standing behind the lectern but moving out and being more natural. I think all of us would have preferred to deliver a speech without notes but get caught with not enough time to rehearse. A bit of better time management needed here!
After the break, I gave a quick club news update:
we are investigating alternative venues,
the trophy is being sorted out – it hasn’t been engraved with winners since 2006
the speech contest at Council level was takes place on Saturday and everyone is encouraged to come support our club winners as possible.
Rob was called upon as Treasurer to give a financial update. Our bank balance is healthy but it was also explained we need to build up large amounts each year because of the large amounts we are required to pay out for membership at the different levels every August.
The update was followed with three of our guests taking up the option to introduce themselves. And what an impressive group they were – an MBE who has met the queen not once, but twice; a pilot; and a solicitor who has become an advocate in the Crown Court. We hope to see them all again and that they will be joining the club.
The next part of the evening was a workshop to generate ideas for future themes for evening meetings as well as ideas for what workshops might be included later on in the year. Working in pairs, participants made use of postcards to spark off ideas and we had a healthy list of potential themes and workshops at the end of the evening, as presented to us by each of the pairs.
We have recently introduced the role of evening evaluator – someone who comments on how the evening has gone – with an evaluation for the presenter, the evaluators and workshop facilitator. Allan fulfilled this role, with strong praise for how the evening flowed and how good the atmosphere was but with strong recommendations for how we could better organise meetings in future. We generally end the evening with a thought for the road – something to make you smile; something to make you think. This evening it was: ‘Time flies, but you are the pilot!’
Carole Manship
Club President
PS We’ve been missing Mike Venable at our meetings lately. He’s been busy rehearsing the role of a nasty Nazi officer (see below) in a production called Gabriel, a World War II drama, which will be at the Crescent Theatre studio (www.crescent-theatre.co.uk; 0121 643 5858) from 3-10th March. Weekdays and Saturdays tickets are £10. They are £5 for the Sunday matinee.
No comments:
Post a Comment