The meeting was opened by the Vice-President Jocelyn Brooks in place of the President, Niki Boersma whose car had broken down on her journey to the club meeting. After a short business meeting, the gavel was passed to Jeff Denton, the Chairman for the evening.
Chis Clissitt was called to the lectern to give his speech which was to be evaluated for his use of voice. The speech was one that he may decide to give in the Speech Contest at the National Conference in Castle Donington on April 27th and it was evaluated by Neil Wilson who will also be taking part in the Evaluation contest at the same Conference. This was good practice for both contestants who are very experienced and fluent speakers. It is the first time the Wetherby Club has had two contestants in the national final and we all wish them well.
Paul Holmes, a new member gave his very first speech at the club entitled Hurricane and this was evaluated by Jan Millar who was full of praise for his excellent maiden speech.
The third speaker was to have been Niki Boersma who was still stuck on the A19 so the Topics Session was introduced slightly earlier by Jocelyn Brooks who chose to give each member an opening sentence and they were asked to use their imagination to continue the story for two minutes. This was a departure from the usual format but everyone took up the challenge including the two new members Judith Robinson and Paul Holmes. Peter Ryans once again, with little notice, rose to the occasion to be the Topics evaluator in place of Howard Herbert who was ill.
Peter Wilson presented a thorough general evaluation of the conduct of the whole meeting which was then closed by Jocelyn Brooks.