Dear all,

Ailsa was our Toastmaster for the evening, leading us through a packed agenda or relay race as she called it! She was helped by our timer Kate and our guest Michael as grammarian who chose ‘integrity’ as the word of the day.

Our first speaker Veronica delivered her icebreaker speech in which she shared her passion for the environment. She introduced us to project drawdown which aims to reverse global warming and provides 100 solutions to do this. Many of the solutions are linked to the way we eat, and by adapting the way we shop, cook and eat we can all contribute!

Our next speaker Zori also delivered her icebreaker speech. She has been living in the UK for 9 years and shared with us 3 big differences between the UK and her home country Bulgaria. Bulgarian names are very confusing for British people, and Zori told us some funny anecdotes about her own name. The British are extremely polite and finally the Bulgarians are more superstitious than the British.

Our third speaker was JT who delivered some useful tips on how to warm up before public speaking. She transported us to an orchestra, our bathroom and the countryside to use the sound examples of string orchestra, teeth cleaning and horse mouths as a way to warm up the muscles of our mouth, cheek and tongue to help us be more comfortable before we speak.

Barbra delivered the 10th speech of her competent communicator manual. With an impressive introduction to the beat of a rap song, Barbora introduced us to one of her passions: upcycling furniture. She has worked on 13 different projects so far and even completed a wood working course to develop her skills. Find out more about her projects here.

Our final Speaker Shola delivered a speech from the advanced manual on humorous speaking. She used storytelling to entertain the audience based on some strange things that all happened on the same day from a taxi driver not knowing where to go and a guest confusing her for the tea lady. Lesson of the day: do not make assumptions.

The speeches were evaluated by Maria, Anastasia, Aga, Katie and Esmé

Moving swiftly to the second half of the meeting, Sin had planned a very entertaining table topic session where participants had to convince us that they were worthy on the spaceship that leaves the planet to save humanity for a new beginning. Carrie impersonated a fast-food worker with knitting and sowing skills, Jo was a shopkeeper with brilliant carpentry experience, Veronica was a career guidance counsellor but knew how to brew her own beer and our guest Eve was an au pair with hidden baking skills.

Barbora won the award for best speaker, Esmé won the award for best evaluator and Eve won the award for best tabletopics.

It’s not too late yet to book your place for our summer party on 26 June! I hope to see many of you there. Don’t forget to book your ticket here!

Best wishes,

Esmé

President

City Women Speakers 12 June – Best Speaker
City Women Speakers 12 June – Best Table Topics Speaker
City Women Speakers 12 June – The Ice Breakers