Patience rewarded!

written by aseem kapoor

Club President Croydon Communicators

The meeting theme was 'Patience' and we have been waiting patiently this year to welcome our Area Director Debbie Williams to  a meeting of Croydon Communicators!

Our patience was also rewarded by the announcement of a first new member this Toastmasters year,  we welcomed Pamela Graham (sister of our very own VP Membership Norma!).

Sadly Pamela hadn't yet joined the meeting, hopefully I'll get to use this welcome video again very soon!

As mentioned in my opening remarks, Toastmasters are currently offering everyone that renewed their membership recently a free Pathway! Please do remember to select it and add it to your education transcript as soon as possible.

I handed over control of the meeting to our Toastmaster Matt Clark's assured hands who guided us all through the agenda expertly.

Our Grammarian Gina introduced us to an unusual but interesting Yiddish word of the day 'Meshuggener' a mad or foolish person. A comprehensive report followed in the second half.

Florence made sure we were all warmed up for the meeting by asking us all to tell us what 'patience' means to us.

We were treated to three wonderful speeches, with Afia talking about her 'lockdown adventures', Aminat introducing us to 'Annalise Keating' and Mustafa with 'Pebbles in his mouth'.

Feedback to the speakers was provided by evaluators Norma, Luqman and Gina.
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Following the break Susan engaged our guests Kat (who recently joined neighbouring club Purley Speakers) and Carol (from Liberty Speakers) and of course Debbie (Speakers of Croydon).
 
Sandra told us the importance of practicing impromptu speaking and led the Table Topics session with speakers getting immediate evaluations.
We were challenged with some very interesting and creative 'would you rather' questions about aliens, losing our ability to read or speak, having fur or scales, talking to animals, travelling on a shoe-string budge v staying at home in luxury.

​Carol our visiting Toastmaster was very impressed with Sandra and complimentary in his comments at the end of the meeting. Well done Sandra!

Finally Debbie provided very comprehensive feedback both with her General Evaluation hat on and as Area Director with some very useful recommendations to ensure we can be even better, and it was great to hear we impressed as a club, with numerous commendations for role players:

• President's innovative use of graphics and multi-tasking
• Matt for doing an exceptional job as Toastmaster displaying energy throughout the evening
• Gina's exceptional listening skills as Grammarian
• Florence's energy and flow in the warm-up
• Norma's confident and articulate evaluation
• Luqman for great eye contact while delivering his evaluation
• Sandra's warm presence throughout her topics session

It was a pleasure having her at the meeting and we hope to see her again soon.

Well done to our meeting award winners:

Best Speaker: Mustafa Soomro
Best Evaluator: Gina Rocque Drayton
Best Table Topics: Gina Rocque Drayton
President's Award: Susan Harris

See you at our next meeting on 26th November.
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