Welcome to 2008! London Speakers Towers has now caught up with its holiday email, logged its outstanding tasks and now faces a ponderous mountain of resolutions for the new year. Even my liver feels a little more relaxed that than it did just a few short weeks ago! Yes, I think normal posts at The London Speaker can now resume!
This year promises to be a cracker for Division B. There is a lot on the horizon.
Firstly, Iain Duthie, our man responsible for Training and Education in London, has been slaving away to bring you two Division B sponsored workshops in the first part of the year.
The first workshop is entitled Sex, Politics and Religion and is to be given by Simon Bucknall on February 28th. Simon is a two times UK and Ireland Champion and he will talk about the lessons learned on the way to competing twice in the world finals . Simon is a member of our very own London Cardinals club.
The second is a workshop on Storytelling to be given by Andrew Brammer on March 5th. Storytelling is one of the most powerful weapons in the speakers arsenal and Andrew will show us how to master this important skill. He is a DTM (the highest award at Toastmasters) and a leading light at two clubs in Norfolk.
Both of these workshops will be based on speeches given at the recent Harrogate conference. Both were brilliant. People of all abilities will benefit from both of these events so please try to attend. Please put these in to your diaries. Further details will follow shortly!
Another date for your diary is the Division B (London) final for the International Speech and Evaluation Contests on April 24th. We had over 130 people at the Autumn contest - it would be great to have at least this number again. It is a brilliant event and we encourage everyone to support these contests at your Club, Area and London levels.
Which brings me neatly onto the Spring Conference, this year held at Killarney in Ireland on the 9th-11th of May. The conference will host the UK finals for the International Speech and Evaluation contest as well as all the usual cavorting that Toastmasters conferences are famous for. If you haven't been to a Toasties conference then maybe make this your first one?
Secondly, we hope to have plenty of new developments here at The London Speaker. We will continue the same coverage that you have received to date but hope to also include articles on improving speaking, tips on roles at Toastmasters and some linking to interesting articles and books on public speaking. To help me, I hope to add new authors. Please come forward if you have something you would like to share with the community! Hopefully we can continue to grow readership and page views and truly make this the place to come to learn about Toastmasters in London.
Finally, it is an exciting time in terms of new clubs. At the end of last year we had news that a new London club has been successfully chartered - NZICA Bank Speakers. Congratulations to Justin Ryan and all the folks there on such a quick success. They meet at the Association of British Insurers, 51 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HQ every second Thursday morning at 7.30 am. Please come along and give them your support.
There are also six other clubs that are currently being incubated in London to add to the current 26 chartered clubs. This is great growth and hopefully we can see a few of these get chartered before the end of the Toastmasters year in June. Please again offer any support that you can.
Overall, it promises to be a fabulous Division B Toastmasters year. We hope that you are all able to get involved. Happy New Year!
