So wowow! That was fun. On Wednesday evening we had about 120 people congregate at the St Stephen’s Church Hall for Division B Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest finals. There was barely a spare seat in the house.
Liz Hobbs, Area 34 Governor whipped us all into a state of frenzy before launching into the Humorous Speech contest. We had five brilliant speeches as follows:
Clive Broadbent’s (Canary Wharf Communicators) humorous look at the joys of dealing with unwanted deposits left by babies.
David Jones’ (Excalibur Speakers) romp through the History of Art in 7 minutes 29 seconds
Ola Aralepo’s (Tube Talk) hilarious tale of comparing being an English student in Africa with being an English teacher in a school in Peckham
Joydev Nandi’s (West London Speakers) general mocking of the US style of presidential candidates
Ian Halliday’s (Broadgate Speakers) dry wit about the signs that we see around in our everyday lives and his literal responses to them.
The winners were:
1st David Jones
2nd Ola Aralepo
3rd Ian Halliday
(in the pic from left to right is: Joydev, Ian, Teresa Dukes, David, Liz, Ola and Clive)
After the break, Hilary Briggs, Area 33 Governor, kept us all at boiling point as we ran into the Table Topics session. Again we had 5 brilliant Table Topics Contestants in Ian Halliday of Broadgate Speakers, Saskia Wiriadidjaja of Citi Criers (only her 6th Table Topic since joining TM!), Rees Ward of Athenians, Chris Boden of Holborn Speakers and finally David Jones of London Olympians.
The topic was: George Bernard Shaw said: It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid. Do you agree? The winners were:
1st David Jones
2nd Chris Boden
3rd Rees Ward
All in all I think everyone had a great time. And if you measure an event’s success by how many trek off for the drink after, then with nearly 40 folks in the Prince Regent afterwards, the evening was a great success.
I’d particularly like to thank Sandra Lawes, Division G Governor for being a wonderful Chief Judge. Also a huge thanks to Teresa Dukes, our District Lt Governor for Marketing for joining us and being chief prize giver. And finally thank you to Dave Sellman, Dorothea Stuart, Asst Div B Governors, Paul Carroll of Athenians and Rory Marriott Of Canary Wharf Communicators amongst others for the huge help they gave in getting the contest organised.
(the photo has from left to right: Saskia, Ian, Chris, Teresa, Rees at the back, David, and Hilary)
