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Cottonwood Speakers News
Latest Meeting 25th August 2010 PDF Print E-mail
Thursday, 26 August 2010 11:34

We had another great meeting on 25th August,with club President Tony Peters giving great advise on how to do better at area and district competitions.

Judges at these competitions have specific areas of a speech to evaluate and each  carries a different weighting.Knowing what these are will help improve your chances of winning.Speech development and effectiveness get heavy weighting but don't forget body language vocal variety and the "appropriateness"of the words you use.

Please note the next competition for humorous speech and table topics speech is on September 22nd and you can see the judges evaluation criteria  by going here http://cottonwoodspeakers.org/resources/

There were two great speeches one by Olga Taylor on art and science and one by Melanie Austreng on training for long runs.Dave Hassal won the best evaluation for evaluating Melanie's speech and Greg won best table topic for his account of being arrested on Dartmoor by the Royal Marines.

We had two guest one Christoph  who came all the way from Switzerland.We seem to get a lot of visitors from the Language schools in Bournemouth so I think we need to get some publicity out to them.

Next meeting is on 8th September.Committee members please note there is a committee meeting at 630pm that day.

 
Political debate continues at Cottonwood Speakers PDF Print E-mail
Thursday, 13 May 2010 22:52

The General Election may be over but the election of new officers at Cottonwood Speakers has just started.

 At the Cleveland Hotel in Bournemouth on 13th May Cottonwood members past and present and some welcome guests heard candidates for the new committee  say why they should be voted on.

This was a special meeting away from our usual venue at the Hallmark Hotel and included some great food even for us veggies!

Everyone was welcomed by outgoing President Steve Osborne who is passing on the baton to Tony Peters.

Tony said he wanted to hear lots of Icebreaker speeches during his tenure and no is to hide behind the lectern.

The other the candidates were Kem for Secretary or could it be Maureen?

Dan is to become VP Education taking over from Shirley who is to become Area Governor.Well done Shirley.

Andrew is moving from VP membership to Public Relations a role he will share with Efe.

David Mitchell will take over as VP membership.Anyone for SAA? 

We had two prepared speeches one from a former member Sally Kavanagh who spoke on the proper use of the Queen's English nah wot I mean?.A new member Marc spoke on his desire to become a teacher.Great speech and go for it Marc.

Greg did his first evaluation of Sally's speech,well done Greg and David Singleton Smith evaluated Marc is his own unique way.

Dan did the warm up and asked people to talk about where they come from which was a great idea as we have members from all over the world Canada Nigeria and Australia as well as up north like me.

Alex kept things in order as TM and after the break we were treated to a bit of stand up by former member Keith Hart.He had us laughing telling how voting should be like boarding a plane "people in ages 55 to 90  please vote at 7am as you are the only people who are up"

Then we had a Question Time with various panelists and a David Dimbleby style MC to keep things in order.Lots of topical subjects such as should have compulsory voting? 

The evening ended with awards from Steve for the best question and the best Question Time MC.

We wrapped up about 945pm.A great meeting and hope to see you all again on 27th May.

Andrew Collinson VP Membership ( soon to be PR) 
 
Speech & Evaluation Competition: 10th March 2010 PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 16 March 2010 08:30
Chaired by Lesley Lyle with Robin Thirlwell as Chief Judge the evening ran smoothly and on time.  Plenty of other Club Members adopted roles to help the flow.

Four entered the Speech Competition, including David Singleton-Smith and Tony Peters who have both won other Competitions previously.  However, the Competition this year was won by Club President, Steve Osborne and Efe Ohwofasa came a close second.

The Evaluation competition saw five entrants, including Andrew Collinson, Tony Peters, Soroosh Farid in his first competition at the Club and Dave Hassall who many thought should have won.  To his surprise, Steve Osborne won the Evaluation Competition too and now represents the Club at the Area Competition on 27th April The Empire Hall, Library Road,Totton, Near Southampton SO40 3PY.

Whilst Cottonwood Speakers currently runs just two Speech Competitions each year, the participation by Members in various roles at our bi-weekly meeting prepares everyone for such events.
 
Meeting 10th February 2010 PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 19 February 2010 09:48

With 3 really impressive speeches, choosing a best speaker was difficult.  Patricia Galbraith completed her Ice-Breaker beautifully, certainly a new talent.  Anyone who wins a speech content which includes Efe Ohwofasa must have performed well; and that is exactly what happened when Alex Langer won best speaker wish his 'The Thunder down under' speech.

Table Topics Master Steve Osborne chose a single word subject for each speaker.  A guest, John Kane won with a well constructed true story about an International Incident.  Quite how John took the word 'holiday' to be his cue for an International Incident story nobody was sure, but it was certainly entertaining and well deserved to win.

Best evaluator was Tony Peters who evaluated Table Topics with something good and something helpful for all participants.

Shirley Thompson was Toastmaster with her usual effective style.  Maureen Crunden and Olga Taylor were the dynamic duo handling the Timekeepers role.  Special mention to Dave Hassall who explained 'Social Media' and how it can help the Club in just four minutes.
 
Helping someone speak out PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 19 February 2010 09:26

Member Lesley Lyle CC came up with a great idea to help promote the Club, public speaking skills and help a local charity too.  So, we're offering one year’s free membership to someone who works for a charity or caring organisation.

Not only do the Members think this is a good idea, so does the Daily Echo who published details here.

Well done Lesley and we'll be pleased to hear from anyone wishing to take up the offer.

 
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