Meeting Summary 10th May

Marcin Tolysz, efficiently called the meeting to order, handing over to President, Lynne Cantor, who joined toastmasters 10 years ago today. Congratulations!

Lynne linked her introduction to recent presentations from international president Mike Storkey and focused on 'Step Up, Step Out and Seize the Opportunity'.  The two guests were then welcomed with a few more joining us throughout the evening.

Being election night Lynne handed over to the Chair of the Nominating Committee, Cat Kipling, who smoothly and professionally took us through proceedings. 

Its Double Dutch!!! With President Katja Van Koten and VPE Hannah Van Der Deijl.

Congratulations to all the 2017/18 Club Officers, some new, some returning.  From L to R back row: David West (automatically elected) as Buddying / Mentoring, Freddie Daniells as VPM, Chinkata Okpara as Treasurer, L to r front row: Paul Andrea as Secretary, Hannah Van Der Deijl as VPE, Brian Skelton as SaA, Katja Van Koten as President, Monika Swiderska as VPPPR, and Lynne Cantor (automatically elected) as Immediate Past President.

VPE and VPM were contested positions and voted on by the members. All others received 1 vote by the nominations secretary on the night, Lynne Cantor, in order to make the ejection official. 

Katja gave a short acceptance speech saying how much she was looking forward continuing the great work of the current committee. She joined Excalibur due to the wealth of knowledge within the club, the quality of the evaluations being received and in learning to give.  She congratulated the amazing and diverse new committee with both current and new members. With both her and Hannah being Dutch there was humour around keeping one foot firmly in the EU!! 

We very much look forward to Katja kicking off her year on Wednesday July 12th. 

Cat handed over to president elect Katja as ToastMaster. 

Hannah was our succinct Timekeeper. 

Returning member Lyn Roseaman was Table Topics Master with the theme of politics and elections. Member to be (he's handed in his form) Ian Brown, won best TT and David West who gave a recommendation on content won best TTE. 

The speakers, evaluators and topics were;- Bob Ferguson on issue based politics, evaluated (E) by Simon Cooper, Carol West on fake news E by Paul Andreas, Chinkata Okpara on my fake story, E by Mustspha Hanafi, Errol Williamson on ballots E by Irene Bradshaw, Marc Lottig on fiddling expenses E by David West and Ian Brown on annoying elections E by Anne Bingham. 

There were two speeches this week. The first by Lynne Cantor from the PR manual, speech 5, crisis management, based on a true story on ‘Rats at Asda’. 

Monika Swiderska did speech 3, the non-technical audience, from the technical presentations manual with the intriguing title 'What was the optimum pub crawl for my requirements’. 

Tony Winyard evaluated Lynne commenting on the fact that it was probably the Morris dancers that killed the rats!! (They were dancing and jingling their bells outside at the time).  

Prakash Patel did an admirable job giving feedback on Monika's speech. 

The open feedback was run by Brian Skelton who got plenty of CRC's in for both speakers within the time. 

Lynne closed the meeting with many thank you's and congratulations with a special mention to Andrew Bennett who joined us by FaceTime. 

Join us in two weeks for a standard meeting. An opportunity to practice TTE that are everything except delivery recommendations!  Lynne will be back on the 14^th June to see progress!!!

14th June is our Past Presidents meeting - does anyone have AV ability so we can link in Andrew more easily into the meeting? 

28th July will be the last meet of the TM year with a bit of a party. A few nibbles, a bit of bubbly and a theme HATS as our president elect loves them and always wears one, so come wearing yours. If you wish to bring some nibbles to share then please contact Cat.

Cat asked if anyone wanted to be Assistant Area Director during her term of office as area director starting  In July.  Please speak to her directly. 

Lynne closed the meeting requesting that everyone likes us on Facebook. Excalibur Advanced Speakers London.

Meeting closed.   See you all in two weeks.  J