Tall Tale Contest! a Fun evening

For those of you who couldn’t make the Tall tales contest evening on Wednesday 26^th June, you missed a treat. Our visitors described the evening as a ‘pleasant’, ‘enjoyable’, ‘interesting ‘, ‘theatre-like’ experience and boy was it exactly that!

Our very own multi-talented Flavia chaired the contest which took us on a journey around the world. We stopped in Paris and heard an empowering story from Julie of a 3 year old child having the power to transform an old lady’s view on life. Enabling this fearful vision of wisdom to grow in confidence and take risks.

The ‘risk taking’ message spread to Manoj, who urged us to take risks and open our spam emails, for we never know how rich it could make us. He is now rich enough to drive a Mercedes and take us all on holiday!

Obviously Chris has already been opening his spam email and reaping the rewards as he can afford to travel to many places including Korea where he managed to create a ‘domino effect of chaos’. Don’t worry, he assured us that no real animals were hurt in the process of him trying to catch his flight. But where was he trying to catch a flight to?

Chris is lucky he didn’t get stopped in customs carrying ‘Sterium’, which Peter passionately informed us was a powerful, expensive substance that everybody wants and that can take the form of anything. It was so potent it killed Peter in the end (well, only for a split second). I wonder if Sterium could Kill Serena's horrid ‘Jamaican Mosquitoes’? In fact, thinking logically, it might have been Sterium that was in her ‘Mus kill’ formula. It’s a pity the formula wasn’t discovered in time to exterminate  the massive mosquito that flew from Jamaica to London, Northolt to be exact  and  ended up in Gordon 'lamsey’s’ aka Richards, Champagne! It was his 25^th wedding anniversary and him and the wife had a chauffeur driven Hummer at their disposal. Stands to reason they probably wolfed down so much Champagne at Mr. Lee’s restaurant that neither of them would have even noticed swallowing the deadly mosquito! Between you and me, I think maybe the mosquito was the real reason the Chinese and champers were free because anyone with sense could never mistake Richard for Gordon Ramsey after all Gordon has way massive feet! Anyway, in my mind Richard should have done something more personal for his wife like bake her a cake because according to our winning speaker Kieran Porter from Corinthians toastmasters club, a good Cake can help repair relationships. Ones that are 25 years old, even ones tainted by world wars and politics! In essence, cakes can save the world! We voted with our stomachs in favour of this notion!

Second and third prize went to our resident, non-swearing Gordon Ramsey look alike  (Richard) and Sterium fanatic Peter respectively but all of our speakers did tremendously well and even our guests stood up in front of the big soft cuddly audience which is Lewisham Toastmasters. Were they corralled? No! Did they need Umbrellas? No! They just felt comfortable and supported. That,  as the youngsters say is ‘how we do’ here at Lewisham Toastmasters. So why don’t you allow us to help you perfect how you do – starting next week! If you are already perfect, just come along to hear for yourself what the hell I’m talking about!

Hope to see you on the 1^st Wednesday of the month.

Speak soon!

Lucinda Gray

Vice President - Public Relations

A new executive committee from 1 July

At  our last "normal" meeting for the year 2012-13. Our outgoing President Katy Woolcott handed over the baton to newly appointed President Manoj Sivaraman. New committee was installed for the year 2013-2014. The Lewisham Executive Committee for year 2013-2014 constituted of:

President – Manoj Sivaraman

Vice President Education Jason Thomson

Vice President Membership Uta Wassmuth

Vice President Public Relation Lucinda Gray

Secretary Asiimee Balinda

Sergeant At Arms - Serena Nelson

Second meeting June 2013

The meeting was terrific with brilliant speeches. All of them where of high standards and it’s first time in Lewisham Cub all the three speakers have achieved the distinction on Competent Communicator awards on a single night

Serena – Great story line, judicious mix of emotion and passion to inspire us with a sublime message as when life knocks you down, try to land on your back. Because if you can look up, you can get up. Very well done Serena.

Lukas – He emerged so fast as a great story teller, that his willingness to stuck to guns, make him a fully evolved speaker. He inspired us all with his message that doesn’t let someone else's opinion become your reality.

Uta – Great delivery, awestruck with her exuberance display of passion and enthusiasm. Her attention to details and was utterly blunt in sharing her views. Great stage presence and made a good use of invisible props.

photo by Julie70 on Flickr.

Well done, wonderful trajectory of Lucas, Serena and Uta, who finished their 10th project yesterday from the Competent Communicator manual and become from now on "Competent Communicators."

Julie – Her evaluation encapsulated her charismatic talent and wealth of experiences that she can toy with her evaluation capabilities at any depth. She gave a valuable and very succinct evaluation to Serena, I’m sure it will be very useful tip.

Manoj – Very structured and precise feedback to Lukas

Flavia – Stocky, punchy and clinical evaluation for Uta with her spreading smile. Her passion and willingness to give so much was clearly rose above her personality.

Sholem – Our warm-up leader got interesting one liner topic to wet our vocal cord. His topic weaved story from South Africa to Japan to Kenya and finally landed in New Zealand.  Good piece of work

John – Our Timer did a splendid job, he took the role at the 11^th hours and performed the role diligently. He has given a good account of time and ensured that meeting end in time.

Grammarian – Philip Landergen, very precise and gave us a concise explanation of role and cheery picked some good language from every speakers. The word of the night JOVIAL was well used throughout the meeting.

Asiime – Calm, composed and well crafted topic. He is another upcoming speaker who is consistently hitting the centre stage with his great vibe and vigour.  

Richard – Great personality and always perform his role with his signature 3E style. Electrifying, Enthusiast and Educational. His evaluation feedback was very quirky and he has given everyone a constructive feedback.

Finally Vivienne gave a very brief and solid evaluation of the night and appreciated all the speakers with fair and informative feedback.

The Winner for 21^st Night

Speaker – Lukas

Table Topic – Jason

Evaluation - Julie

Very well done All. Manoj.