Archive for March, 2015

Evaluation and Judging Training Session 5th March

Wednesday, March 25th, 2015

On Thursday 5th March we had a change to our normal meeting at Wetherby by taking advantage of the Education Training Workshop. After our area meeting Area President Peter Wilson announced that as Clubs, Areas or Regions we could have workshops presented by Immediate Past National President Lindsay Dutch in the south and Graham McLachlan in the North. As a proactive club we jumped at the chance to be able to have personal and club development training.

We decided that it would be good to have a workshop on Evaluation and Judging presented by Lindsay Dutch. We invited other clubs in our region to join us so that we could all share in the training.

Lindsay started the session with enthusiasm and energy, he found out about what we wanted to learn and what our challenges were when we carried out evaluations. We were able to discuss problems and issues that each of us had or experienced in the club and all agreed on best ways to enhance our evaluation skills and by this improve our speeches. Many of us had not judged before and the training gave us guidance and confidence not to be intimidated with the process and hopefully we will be able to put the training into practice next year.

It’s great that the ASC have listened to its members and made this training available to us all, there are a vast number of topics that can be chosen from that will enhance your club and you. The main point I will take away from the night is to read and keep reading the Speakers Guide; it is there to help us and we don’t make enough of its advice and resources or at least I don’t.

The training we received will encourage our club and remind us all on how to be better evaluators. The training has reinforced that when we follow the guidelines and put them into practice, together with the tips and skills Lindsay has shared with us, we will be looking forward to a stronger club. It was impressive at our District competition to see one of the attendees put the training to use and to see the improvements in practice as this enhanced the evaluation.

I would recommend all clubs to tap in to the free resource as soon as possible

Niki Boersma, Publicity officer

State of the art super hospital for Yorkshire – After Dinner Speech Contest

Sunday, March 22nd, 2015

Dr Hu (Peter Wilson) receives the trophy from the judge Dr Finlay (Bill Mitchell)

Wetherby has been chosen as the location for a new super state of the art hospital for Yorkshire. At this dinner to celebrate the commissioning of the hospital, five renowned doctors are pitching for the position of Executive Medical Director, responsible for setting the medical strategy for the hospital.

This was the scenario for the annual After Dinner Speech Contest held at the Bridge Inn, Walshford, on Friday 20th March.  Speakers adopted thinly disguised characters and delivered light hearted speeches as they described their plans for this amazing new (and fictitious!) facility.

Congratulations to the winner, Peter Wilson, who made the strongest application for the position as Doctor Hu. The other speakers were Doctor H Lectern (Howard Herbert), Doctor F N Stein (John Holian), Doctor Flopster (Niki Boersma) and Doctor Nope (Neil Wilson).

The MC was Doctor Doom (Chris Clissitt) and the judge was Doctor Finlay (Bill Mitchell).

Double win at District? Mustn’t grumble…

Sunday, March 15th, 2015

Jan Millar and Chris Clissitt took the Eastern District Topics and Speech titles respectively on Sunday 8th March at The Bridge Inn.

Jan was technically representing Yorkshire Dales Area as her primary club is Bradford, but she is nonetheless a member of Wetherby SC too, so we are claiming at least part of her! Jan won speaking on the topic “The trick is to breathe.” Chris Clissitt was second.

Chris won the speech contest with his speech “Mustn’t Grumble?” and goes through to the National Speech Contest at Southport on 25th April. Anne Todd of Halifax was runner up.

The Evaluation contest was won by Sylvia Walker of Craven with Ramana Sundara of York RISC runner up.

The chief judge was the ASC National President, Margaret Robertson.

Click to enlarge

Contest winners – Jan Millar (Topics), Chris Clissitt (Speech), Sylvia Walker (Evaluation) and Chief Judge & National President, Margaret Robertson