Hollie was off for this meeting, so I’m returning to tell you about our last meeting. We had two prepared speeches – I did one all about what your book recommendations tell me about you. I also had you give me your book recommendations which you can see below if you are looking for your next read:

Nick also spoke with killer advice on writing well – you can tell from this post that I may not have taken all the advice.

Greg ran Table Topics and asked us about stepping outside our comfort zone, and we wrapped up with the usual evaluations.

The roll of honour is:

·        Best Speaker: Nick

·        Best Evaluator: Adrien

·        Best Table Topic: Duaa (a guest)

We had two guests as well:

• James

• Duaa

• Sarah

A massive hello to our newest member, Krystyna as well – welcome to the club

Non-Fiction

Who	Book	Author	Amazon
Lejla	Utopia for Realists	Rutger Bregman	https://amzn.eu/d/2IcnKrz
Karen Lee	Lucky Man	Michael J Fox	https://amzn.eu/d/cg0z3Rz
Karen Lee	What Dreams May Come	Richard Matheson	https://amzn.eu/d/aB3mEV5
Anita	Heath Robinson: Wonderful Contraptions and Extraordinary Inventions	William Heath Robinson	https://amzn.eu/d/51XZBqF
Duaa	Breaking the habit of being yourself	Joe Dispenza	https://amzn.eu/d/eihraBi
Duaa	The Magic	Rhonda Byrne	https://amzn.eu/d/37Wl5HE
Anonymous	Awaken the Giant Within	Tony Robbins	https://amzn.eu/d/btdHLie
Greg	Homo Deus	Yuval Noah Harai	https://amzn.eu/d/8gR7sxz
James	The Ride of a Lifetime	Robert Iger	https://amzn.eu/d/bPNHZzB
Elaine	Feel The Fear and Do it Anyway	Susan Jeffers	Https://amzn.eu/d/5mShxhN
Elaine	The Happy Pear Vegan Cookbook	David and Stephen Flynn	https://amzn.eu/d/2MGLiNH (there are several "Happy Pear" books – Elaine assures us the recipes are fab)
Mario	Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion	George J. Thompson	https://amzn.eu/d/gbEnCcy
Mario	The Road Less Stupid	Keith J. Cunningham	https://amzn.eu/d/0PZrjkz
Geoff	The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k	Mark Manson	https://amzn.eu/d/aAEPh1R
Geoff	Scatter Brain	Shaparak (Shappi) Khorsandi	https://amzn.eu/d/hREYQhu
Geoff	Ultra-Processed People	Chris van Tulleken	https://amzn.eu/d/e36NpRW
Hollie	The Power of Now	Eckhart Tolle	https://amzn.eu/d/5gJUDss

Fiction

Who	Book	Author	Amazon
Karen Lee	What Dreams May Come	Richard Matheson	https://amzn.eu/d/aB3mEV5
Natalie	1984	George Orwell	https://amzn.eu/d/5rbwwWu
Natalie	Wuthering Heights	Emily Brontë	https://amzn.eu/d/5hmorq7
Natalie	(all of them)	Dan Brown
Natalie	Little Women	Louisa May Alcott	https://amzn.eu/d/00X46v8
Greg	Engleby	Sebastian Faulkes	https://amzn.eu/d/g0VB9Cn
Pam	The Dogs Who Came To Stay	George Pitcher	https://amzn.eu/d/0Eka3kj
James	Orphan X	Gregg Hurwitz	https://amzn.eu/d/0gbi3Zg
Melanie	Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years	Sue Townsend	https://amzn.eu/d/8kEkEAs
Melanie	Five People You Meet In Heaven	Mitch Albom	https://amzn.eu/d/hoc9WSI
Hannah	An Orchestra of Minorities	Chigozie Obioma	https://amzn.eu/d/0t5dhxG
Hannah	Children of Blood and Bone	Tomi Adeyemi	https://amzn.eu/d/0ivKnaT
Geoff	Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury	https://amzn.eu/d/1uPG7o8
Hollie	The Great Gatsby	F. Scott Fitzgerald	https://amzn.eu/d/gENV0KH

Last night's meeting was all about welcoming our new President, Elaine, and our new committee members, Hollie and Melanie. It's looking to be a great Toastmasters year. The theme was Our Toastmasters Club.

Louise won the best speech with her talk on breaking the cycle, with special commendations to Zaki for his speech on fasting and Hannah's Ice Breaker speech. Paul led the round of table topics on the summer theme, where we learnt what Mario did on a specially-laid carpet.

I won both table topics and best evaluator and no - it wasn't me who counted the votes.

Hope to see you all on the 19th.

"Congratulations Elaine – President-Elect"

Wednesday's meeting was exciting – we had club elections for the new committee. Many familiar faces but were beyond excited to welcome some new committee members (okay – beyond excited may be a bit of a stretch, but we are excited).

Before I tell you the results, we have had a meeting.

In two prepared speeches, we heard from Muhammad, who talked about Ramadhan, why millions of Muslims worldwide dedicate themselves to fasting every day for a month from sunrise to sunset and how non-Muslims can benefit from fasting too. This allowed me to tell everyone my fascinating (really) fact that Muslims who live in the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai must fast for 2 minutes longer if they live on the 80th floor or above and three extra minutes if they live on the 150th or above as the sun takes that bit longer to set.

Even though it wasn't his first speech, Nick H delivered his Ice Breaker, where he introduced himself to the club and told us several stories about his life.

We had a few table topics on "opportunities", and everything was evaluated.

Then we had the annual club committee elections. I'm pleased to announce your committee next year will be:

President: Elaine

Vice President Education: Karen Lee

Vice President Membership: Pam

Vice President PR: Hollie

Secretary: John

Treasurer: Geoff (me)

Sergeant at Arms: Melanie

Immediate Past President: Natalie

Thanks to everyone for stepping up, and welcome to the committee to Hollie and Melanie.

The next meeting is Wednesday 21st; why not come down and see what it's all about

-        Geoff

Nick, Nisar & John

Last night we had a really full room, filled with loads of members and quite a few guests, for a night of inspiration and learning. Franci our Toastmaster for the night used the theme of Environment to bring many issues to light, which was continued by Karen Lee in the Table Topics section of the night.

We had 3 cracking speeches on a variety of subjects. Anita brought us an inspiring ‘use them or lose them’ speech about the benefits of resistance training when getting older. Next up was long time member, Susan, who reminded us not to wait to do something,as sometimes time runs out. Lastly Muhammad talked about how in our ultra-connected lives people can still be lonely, and what we can do about it.

It definitely was a thought provoking night.

Winners

Best Evaluator - John Champion

Best Speaker - Susan H.

Best Table Topics Speaker - Nick Harvey

As one of our newest members, Nisar Khan received his First Timer ribbon for doing his first role in the club, Timekeeper.

Perhaps we shouldn’t disclose who has an extra girlfriend in reserve, although this was talking about this person’s youth (and may have been tongue-in-cheek). I can disclose that we had three prepared (or not, in one case) speeches, table topics and evaluations.

New member Paul gave his Ice-Breaker speech – “The Boy In Holland”, telling us about a trip to the beach in Holland and how it nearly ended in disaster if not for a mysterious intervention.

Anita is a new-ish member. She’s been with Toastmasters for a long time but took a break recently. She’s back, and we forgive her break – especially with her speech about rebuilding her life.

Then there was my speech – my prepared speech needed props. However, frozen points on the train line meant I didn’t have time to go and get them after work (and was a wee bit late to the meeting, sorry – blame the weather). Instead, I improvised a speech I had been thinking about delivering – how to write a speech when you have that dreaded blank page and no ideas.

Table topics were delivered by Hollie using a Christmas party game she never got to play. We drew out a card which described a historical event, and we had to create a two-minute speech around this subject – it could be a made-up story, something it reminded you of, the historical event acted out in a combination of speeches, interpretive dance and mime (okay, maybe not this last one). Either way, it was fun.

We started with three guests this meeting but ended up with two – Nisar joined in the break, so welcome to Nisar – our newest member. Chris and Nick were our other guests.

Ribbon Winners:

-          Lejla, Muhammad and Nisar: New Members (Muhammad joined a few meetings back, but the ribbons were still on backorder)

-          Lejla: First Timer

-          Natalie: Best Evaluator

-          Nick (guest): Best Table Topic (joint winner)

-          Paul: Best Speaker and Best Table Topic (joint winner)

Next meeting 1st Feb – drop me a message if you want to come as a guest

-          Geoff

#publicspeaking #toastmasters #confidence #leadership #didsbury #manchester

We've had our first meeting of the year, and it didn't quite go according to plan as festive illnesses had felled many members, meaning members were relatively low, and there were some last-minute changes. We usually open with the president's welcome – on the rare occasions she can't make it, the past president fills in. On this occasion, we had to rely on the past past past past past president (i.e., me), who also filled in as Toastmaster for the evening, acting as master of ceremonies and (hopefully) not forgetting anything.

We also had a prepared speech drop out (again due to illness), so we had an educational session as well by Karen Lee.

There were two prepared speeches. One by Karen Lee and her thoughts on motherhood, whilst Elaine told us about the American Dream.

For Table Topics, we used the deck of table topic conversations – random questions drawn from the pile.

It was a great evening; despite a few of us doubling up on roles, and even with all the members off poorly, we were still packed with 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞 guests joining us – I hope I don't miss anyone out on the roll call below.

If your new year's resolution is to speak more confidently publicly, improve your presentations or do some self-development, why not come to our next meeting (Wednesday, 18th January) to see what we're all about?

Shout out to all our guests: Niyesha, Nirvana, Kate, Abby, Shell, AJ, Leila, Ethan, Nick

Role of Honour:

-       Best Table Topic: Nyesha (Guest)

-       Best Evaluator: Franci and John (a tie)

-       Best Speaker: Elaine

See you at the next meeting

-       Geoff

 Our penultimate meeting before Christmas, with table topics, two prepared speeches and evaluations. We had a few last-minute dropouts due to the football and people pretending they were ill when really they were watching the football. I (Geoff) was the Toastmaster for the evening and was only 10 minutes late – thank you, President Natalie, for filling in for me; you can blame the tractors blocking the road where I live (and not me setting off late).

We also had two guests – Paul and Nissa, with Paul joining us at the end of the meeting. Welcome, Paul.

Both our speakers were Ice Breakers – the first speech given by our newest members. Muhammad gave us his speech “Inspiration for Mastery”, and I can’t believe he hasn’t done this before. Sarah was second, with her speech “Proud to be British” – again, how can this be her first, and it was funny too. Well done both of you.

Karen Lee held our impromptu speaking session – Table Topics – on the topic of ‘-itions’ – words that end in ‘ition’, and had a snazzy ‘pick a door’ board to play along with too. I think the whole room got a chance to speak tonight.

If you’re not a member and what to improve your public speaking, confidence or leadership skills, why not come to our next meeting as a guest for free? It will be our Christmas meeting, which means we aim to have a lot of fun, and there may be nibbles (even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, it doesn’t matter, come and have nibbles and join in the fun).

Role of Honour:

-        Best Table Topic: Susan

-        Best Evaluator: Natalie

-        Best Speaker: Muhammad and Sarah (it was a tie)

-        Ice Breakers: Muhammad and Sarah

See you all on the 21st of December

-        Geoff

The ribbon winners. Left-to-right Sarah, Muhammad, Natalie.

We were indeed introduced to Little Dylan at this week's meeting in the form of an Ice-Breaker speech – the first speech by a new member. Dylan and Milangu both gave us an Ice-Breaker. Dylan talked about his childhood and his little brother. Milangu spoke about her struggles in answering the question, "Where are you from?". Adrien started level three in the Pathways Educational Programme and gave us his pitch for a job.

Elaine's table topics were related to Pam's theme of the evening "eeek – it's nearly Christmas" (no, it's not Pam, it's November). It was great that all our guests who wanted to speak got a chance.

We had six guests at the start of the meeting but only five at the end. No – one didn't chew through her restraints and escape; Iram converted to a member at the break. Big shout out to our other guests: Ayushna, Nissa, Owen, Katrina, and Chris.

Also, a big Didsbury Speakers welcome to our brand-new members tonight: Muhammad and Iram.

Ribbon roll call:

• Ice Breaker: Milangu and Dylan

• Best Speaker: Milangu and Dylan (joint first place in the vote)

• Best Evaluator: Geoff

• Best Table Topic: Hollie

Why not come to our next meeting and see what all the fuss is about? We had five guests tonight, so you won't be the only one

The Ribbon Winners

There was no report last meeting as I was at Chester Speaking Club sharing my experiences with them (whether they liked it or not) and, more importantly, eating their cake.

Tonight I was back as Didsbury Speakers, lamenting the lack of cake. Still, there was one prepared and two unprepared speeches, table topic impromptu speaking and a new member to celebrate. A slice of Battenburg cake would have helped, but you can’t have everything.

Congratulations to Holly, who is through to our division contest on Saturday for both the Humorous speaking and Table Topic competitions. Our prepared speech tonight was Hollie’s refined and hilarious speech as a practice run.

I (Geoff) delivered two impromptu (or unprepared) speeches. This wasn’t because I was lazy, or caught unawares – my latest project was to give two short, impromptu speeches incorporating humorous anecdotes, one straight after the other. I talked about self-confidence and different perspectives on the same situation.

Pam led our table topics session for 1-2 minute impromptu speeches without planning. There were unexpected confessions and talks about praying wherever you happen to be at the time of prayer – even if that’s in B&Qs car park. Several guests had a go with brilliant first-time speeches.

Everyone was evaluated, and there were tips for future evaluators and impromptu speaking.

If you didn’t make it this week, why not come along next time – 16th November, 19.15, Withington Golf Club, Manchester.

Roll of Honour:

-        New Member: Dylan (welcome to the club)

-        Best Table Topic: Muhammad

-        Best Evaluator: Karen Lee

-        Best Speaker: Hollie

Good luck on Saturday, Hollie.

For 3 years running Didsbury Speakers have won the award of being a President’s Distinguished Club, which means we gained the highest level of recognition available, as the club met the membership prerequisite, and the committee and members achieved at least 9 of the 10 goals set by Toastmasters International.