What a fantastic meeting led by Carrie as the Toastmaster of the evening, with the theme “Summer Colours”. It was amazing to see that we had another full house with many members and lots of guests  

There were 4 prepared speeches, starting with Emma delivering her second speech in the Persuasive Influence Pathway. The speech was entitled “The Future of our High Street” and Emma used the recent announcement on M&S store closures to reflect on the challenges faced by our high street, the reasons behind them and its future. Emma believes that high streets have a role in the future, but more for convenience & experiences and embedded in a model supported by a mix of high street / residential houses / shared workspace.

The second speech was from Aileen with her speech #3 in the advanced manual Persuasive Speaking “#GoPlasticFree”. Everyone knows that plastic is durable and convenient but harmful and toxic; yet still, more than 8 million items of plastic go into the ocean every year. In her speech, Aileen gave us a number of ideas on how we could reduce our plastic consumption, such as bringing our own cups & bowls for coffee / tea / lunch and our own bags for grocery shopping. The government is considering plastic free aisles but Aileen went a step further and challenged us to sign up for Go Plastic Free in July. If each of us takes a very small step, altogether, we will make an impact. #GoPlasticFree in July.

The third speech was given by Marianna with her 10th speech from CC manual “Women of the World”. It was an inspirational speech, and as always, Marianna used amazing props, infused with her passion, to encourage us to learn from other great women, follow our own dreams with self-care and resilience, and make our own unique mark in the world.

The last speech was delivered by another advanced speaker Shola with the speech entitled “Benefits of Professional Trusteeship”. The objective of the speech is to speak to inform – a fact-finding report. Shola used a simple and effective slide presentation to tell us about trusteeship, the different types and the benefits of professional trusteeship. The speech was followed by a Q&A session, where Shola used her expertise and public speaking skills to conclude the session nicely.

Thank you to Dani for leading us through a fun table topics session (impromptu speaking) during the second half of the evening, with the theme “Raspberry Awards – Movies 2017/18”.

Our evaluators were me (Anqi), Carrie, Rowena, Shola and Zhenzhen.Thank you all! Special thanks to our  General Evaluator Gosia Syta from London Public Speakers.

A big thank you goes to Siobhan as Grammarian and Karina as Timekeeper. It was the first time for Siobhan to take on a meeting role; Karina was our guest but she still happily stepped up at the last minute to be a timekeeper. Well done, both! The word of the day is Nascent.

The Best Speaker went to Aileen and the Best Evaluator was awarded to me (Anqi).

First Time Role ribbon for Siobhan (sorry about the blurred photo!)
Karina stepped in as Timer to help us out
Anqi won Best Evaluator for her fabulous feedback to Shola
Best Speaker was Aileen