Our Past President

Hello Everyone - It's time for an update on Bolton Banter activities.  Our most recent meeting, held on November 6, was graced by guests Jemma and Sally Ann.  We hope to see both ladies again. 

Chair Bondy Nair chose as the theme and word of the meeting, "Self Observation" and "Introspection" respectively.  As is customary, club members are urged to incorporate the theme and word of the meeting into their speaking as much as possible.  We had the opportunity to attempt this with Table Topic Master Brendan Dineen's assortment of quotes from various sources.  Our task was to craft a one to two minute speech based on one of these quotes.  As always, we heard some very interesting mini speeches. 

Carol Dowell introduced the Better Speaker series by focussing on two crucial elements of public speaking; taking the terror out of your talk and selecting your topic.  Carol suggested proper breathing and visualization techniques could be used to help control those butterflies.  She also pointed out that some nervousness is not a bad thing, rather; it can give you energy and help you focus.  As for selecting a speech topic, there are so many sources to examine.  The internet abounds with reference material and your own personal experiences are always a rich source of potential speech topics. 

Speaking of speeches, we heard four on this night.  One of our newer members, Ben Allison, put aside his original prepared speech and instead spoke about the historic American presidential election held on November 4.  His speech title, "Dawn of a New Day", captured the feelings of many who closely followed this election.  Lorraine Van Wagner, speaking "Off the Cuff" talked about the importance of shopping for locally grown food.  Eric Solowka in a speech entitled "What's Next", spoke about the information age and the need to be prepared for new challenges.  Minnie Grewal delivered a light hearted roast of our immediate past president, Jillian Lucas.  We learned many things about Jillian.  She is a horse loving, mouse fearing young woman who ran the club like Genghis Khan during her tenure.  We all admire her poise, especially when she is teetering on those high heeled boots. 

Kudos to our newest member Lesley Webb who ably assumed the role of grammarian this evening. 

The evening ended with the awarding of ribbons to our guest Jemma for Table Topics, Sheelagh Rennie for best evaluator and Minnie Grewal for best speaker.  Congratulations to all.  See you again at our next meeting, November 20th.

Lorraine Van Wagner - Webmaster