Speakers’ conference
THE 47th Annual Conference of the Association of Speakers Clubs was held at the Hilton hotel, Gatwick last week.
Members from the South Eastern District organised the event which included the AGM and the culmination of all the club, area and district competitions, plus a Gala dinner.
Friday evening saw the members from the eight districts speak for three minutes on the subject “Time “. After this members were entertained to a Wine and Diamonds evening.
Talks on the history of how De Beers became the leading diamond traders in the world was followed by a wine tasting from award winning Bolney Estate near Haywoods Heath in Sussex and are stocked by Waitrose and the Coop.
The AGM was held on Saturday morning. Non members were treated with a visit to Wakehurst Place Gardens and Seed Bank. The weather held and the gardens were colourful and a joy to walk through.
Training seminars were held in the afternoon followed by the speech contest. This is perhaps the most entertaining contest as it showcases the best in the country with prepared speeches on a variety of subjects.
The winner was from Bromsgrove club in our Midlands area. His title of “What do I know about CDO” compulsive desire of the obsessional person was a humorous and observational look at the different obsessions we didn’t know we had until he pointed them out.
Who tries to get the petrol pump to the exact £ ? Do things on an angle really disturb? Do you itch to straighten a picture just out of true?
A Gala Dinner was held on Saturday evening with entertainment from raconteur Norman Nuttall from Bolton. A contemporary and friend of many of the well known comedians from the northern circuit, some of whom have appeared on TV. He kept everyone laughing with his non stop stories.
It was also a proud moment for Quorn resident Eric Baker, long time member of the Loughborough club who was inaugurated as National President for the coming year.
He will be visiting as many clubs in the country as possible during his year and may even get to our first international club in New Foundland.
Sunday morning saw the final contest which is on evaluation. A target speech from a member of the organising club was given for evaluation by eight contestants.
Another humorous speech called “The creature of Habit” was again an observational speech on the different types of people and their habits and this caused great amusement. The evaluators need to be able to praise and advise a speaker in a positive way on how the delivery might be improved.
The association is expanding as people looking to improve their speaking confidence are searching the web and joining clubs via social media. This conference was videoed by a member from Nottingham club and the speeches should be available on Youtube very soon.
Loughborough club meet at John Storer House on the second and fourth Tuesday evening. For information go to www. loughboroughspeakers.org.uk The ASC- Where you become a better speaker, presenter and leader