Meeting Report for Wednesday 24th April 2019

Our packed meeting was called to order by Brian, before President Monika took to the stage with some inspiring observations. After she had spoken she handed over to our Toastmaster for the evening, Harsha - who introduced the theme for the evening, prompted by the arrival of spring: unconditional love.

Lynne, performing the Meet & Greet role, then invited our five guests on stage, who told us a little about themselves. 

Timekeeper for the evening was Prakash. Gosia, as Table Topics Master, then continued the unconditional love theme for the evening, with a series of well chosen questions that teased amusing and thoughtful answers from the participants.

Four high quality speeches were then delivered. The first was by Robin: "The Barnabus Finkley Award" (Special Occasion Speeches #5 - Accepting an Award). This was followed with a speech by Cat: "Failure Isn't Fatal" (Presentation Mastery Series #2 - Evaluation and Feedback 1). Nick then took to the stage with "Potent Presentations" (High Performance Leadership #2 - Presenting the Results). Our final speaker was guest and former Excalibur member David, who was practising his Division-winning speech "Summer Daze" before he competes at District level. Good luck to him! 

The speeches were evaluated by David, Ian, Simon and Errol (who was getting in a final evaluation before he proceeds to the District Competition representing Excalibur in the Evaluation Contest).

Freddie then took the Open Feedback session which is an opportunity for members and guests to make additional commendations and recommendations on the speeches. 

Our guest Ajay delivered his general Evaluator report - in which he evaluated the club in general and anyone who had performed a role on stage, who hadn't been previously evaluated.

Toastmaster Harsha then handed back to President Monika, who presented a Distinguished Toastmaster Award to Simon - many congratulations to him. This increases the number of Excalibur DTMs to seven.

Finally, it was time for the prizes. Lynne won best Table Topic, Errol was best Evaluator and Robin won Best Speaker. Congratulations to all and good luck to Errol at the District competition!

Our next meeting is at 19:00 on Wednesday 8th May at The Fitzrovia Community Centre, 2 Foley Street, London W1W 6DN. Guests are very welcome!

As we will be holding club officer elections at the next meeting, it is essential we achieve a quorum of members, so to all Excalibur members: please attend!