Talk about a great evening together

East Kilbride Speakers Club have kicked off their 2018 programme.

The meeting was introduced by Alex Rintoul, who accepted chairmanship of the meeting from club president Bob Hunter.

A sense of eccentric adventure was created by Ross Hammond as he delivered a well-researched and vividly described account of the life and times of Ove Joensen, who built his own boat for the purpose of rowing from the Faroe Islands to the Danish capital city, Copenhagen.

After two failed attempts, which resulted in him being rescued and brought ashore in Shetland, Ross told how Ove, at the age of 38 and rowing alone, finally succeeded in his quest of completing the 900-mile journey in 1986.

Chris Smyth then brought his creative imagination to the fore when he took his audience with him as he returned to his childhood days to explore the baffling behaviour of certain of his toys in somehow managing to disappear, only to turn up weeks later in the most unlikely of places.

This created frustration in trying to solve the mysteries as to how they got there.

Paul Munday followed with the use of sharp word pictures as he spoke of the compulsion that was generated by the enthusiasm for doing jigsaw puzzles in his household.

Laughter from his audience ensued as he told how competition between him and his wife, coupled with an urge to get more and more of a picture completed before retiring for the night, often results in them not getting to bed until the early hours of the morning.

The main speeches of the evening were concluded by David Webster, with a lighthearted talk as he reminisced on his long service in the club.

Tony Dinwoodie had obviously given a lot of consideration to the topics he had prepared to challenge the impromptu speakers and evaluators for each of the main speeches.

Anyone wishing to visit the club at its next meeting on Thursday, February 15 should call secretary Paul Munday on 01355223894.