Kate Middleton's First Speech - An Impartial Evaluation by Adam Straker

Our glorious leader, Diana Lowe, recently expounded on the virtues of The Toastmasters Promise. To ensure that we, as members of Toastmasters, are aware of our solemn commitment to the club and to its members is the fine and noble sentiment of our club president. In short we all, each of us, have a commitment to each other and this understanding is of crucial importance to the essence of Toastmasters. Without it, the whole system would simply collapse.

Of course, one might cynically rebut that all members...

Despite the efforts of Toastmaster Emma Hill to keep the meeting a ‘royal wedding free zone’ coming as it did a few days ahead of the royal nuptials, the royal theme cropped up frequently during the meeting on the 27 April - starting with grammarian John Townsend’s choice of word of the night as 'Sovereign'.   Club President, Greg Ros, began the evening by outlining the case for spawning a new club. Area 33 is the most densely populated area in terms of membership in the UK and Ireland with 35 clubs, and St Paul's Speakers is a particularly popular club in the area. Noting that internationally Toastmasters aims to grow by 5.5% per year, Greg set out the advantages this could bring, including double the committee positions and speaking opportunities for members as well as access to experienced toastmasters....

It was a delightfully sunny evening in late March when we arrived at the Spectator to see Chris Walker lead us down a path of merry delight, navigating and steering the  crowd through one of the more entertaining and laugh-out-loud experiences that I'd had that week. We were even treated to some bump and grind.   Twas a full agenda, four speakers, and educational slot and a comprehensive set of  table topics (always one of my favourite slots for the night) which filled out the night, inspiring, challenging...

Greg opened the Meeting, and was pleased that the previous week’s “Speakers Flu” epidemic had passed! During this first five minutes, he explained to guests what Toastmasters do, recommended to try other clubs and also briefly went over the previous week’s meeting - a helpful overview for someone with no knowledge of Toastmasters. Greg also welcomed all new members (including myself) up to the front for all to see! A nice touch. Ben Cockfield was our trusted Australian Toastmaster for the evening and managed...

As always, Greg Ros opened our meeting with great energy and passion. Talking about trialing new ideas. As the true Toastmaster he is, he used the power of 3. Introducing your CL project when you do a role. His example was when you stand up to do timekeeper you say " Hi I am Greg, and I am completing this time keeping role for my 4th Project which focuses on Time Management, Emma will be evaluating me. . . . ." Committee met and came up with new ideas to implement which we will be working on. Meeting feedback: On the 5th speaker slot on our feedback slips, we will now be using this to find out what we enjoyed in the meeting and what we can be doing better. To improve our club....