Archive for December, 2013

Club Speech and Topics Contests 2013/14

Wednesday, December 18th, 2013

Two contests in one night! On Thursday 5th December the club held its annual Speech and Topics Contests featuring some high quality speaking and entertainment.

Niki Boersma won the speech contest with her beautifully observed “Home for Christmas” and John Holian was runner up with “Whither the Weather?”.  The judge was Chris Clissitt.

Peter Wilson chaired the Topics Contest and asked members to speak for three minutes on topics based on phrases beginning with “Under….” such as “Under the Thumb” and “Under the Impression”. Votes were cast by all present and the winner was Chris Clissitt with Jocelyn Brooks runner up.

Niki, John, Chris and Jocelyn will represent the club at the Area Contests to be held in York on Sunday 12th January.

Club report – Annual Speech and Topics Contests

Monday, December 16th, 2013

Niki Boersma, the President opened the meeting and welcomed everybody to the Wetherby Speakers’ Club Annual Speech and Topics Contests. Peter Wilson was the Chairman for the evening and Chris Clissitt, the winner of 2013 National Speech Contest, was to judge those taking part in the competition with prepared speeches

 The audience thoroughly enjoyed the range of speeches from those who entered the competition and following a helpful general evaluation of all contestants Chris announced that the winner was Niki Boersma with her speech Home for Christmas and the runner-up was John Holian who spoke about Whither the Weather.

 The second part of the evening was devoted to the Topics Contest. Participants had to speak for three minutes on a given subject without any time for preparation. The audience then had to vote for the winner, which was Chris Clissitt and the runner-up which was Jocelyn Brooks.

 Niki Boersma, John Holian, Chris Clissitt and Jocelyn Brooks will now represent Wetherby Speakers’ Club at the Vale of York Area Speech, Evaluation and Topics Contest on Sunday 12th January 2014 in York. The contest for the two people to represent Wetherby in the Evaluation contest will take place shortly.

Evaluation Contest – change of date

Sunday, December 15th, 2013

The Evaluation Contest, originally scheduled for 9th January, has been brought forward to Thursday 19th December. This could be the earliest that the Club has settled on the line up for the Area Contests!

Club Report – Wetherby Speakers Club 21.11.13

Sunday, December 1st, 2013

On this occasion Wetherby Speakers’ Club hosted the York RI Speakers’ Club at their meeting at the Days Inn at Wetherby Services.

 Amongst those attending from the York Club were the National President, Lindsay Dutch, the York RI President, Ramana Sundara, Vale of York Area President Mary Donahoe and founder member, Clive Dawson.

 Howard Herbert, the Education Director was the first to speak and his subject was astronomy and he was being evaluated by Clive Dawson specifically for his use of voice. It was a fascinating speech and Clive, as a very experienced speaker, gave a very in-depth and helpful evaluation.

 Ramana Sundara presented a highly amusing speech to demonstrate his use of humour entitled Same Species…Different Worlds about the differences between men and women and the evaluation was given by Terry Ryan, who was a previous winner of the National speech Contest.

 Chris Clissitt, this year’s winner of the National Speech Contest, was an excellent Chairman of the whole meeting as was Peter Wilson who chaired the Topics session. Peter chose to give each member one of the new words recently accepted for inclusion into the Oxford Dictionary and for two minutes, they had to speak on the meaning of the word and give suitable examples. This proved to be a lively and amusing session with everyone having to stretch their imagination to the full.

 Lindsay Dutch evaluated the whole meeting and his comments were appreciated by everyone as it was a great privilege to hear what the National President thought about the Wetherby Speakers’, Club meeting. Chris Clissitt, as chairman thanked everyone and commented on the quality of all participants before handing the gavel back to Niki Boersma who, as President, closed the meeting.