Ron chaired the meeting with the theme “Times are changing”, the day after Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. He quoted the current change of seasons, between covid and flu, change of monarchy, and said a change is as good as a rest, and change is good for the soul.

Along with 2 members and a guest online, there were two guests with other members in the hall.

Grammarian Angela had urban slang words for people under 25 and rattled off a few for us to ponder and use.

Kathy introduced and evaluated Jacqui who was giving an educational on “ideas for table topics”. In this speech Jacqui said that speakers need to put their butterflies into formation and think clearly about the topic. Speakers need to listen to the topic, then pause and take a deep breath. Confirm the topic and begin to tell your story, and finish with a summary. Evaluator Kathy complimented Jacqui on the structure of her speech and how she reiterated the value of pausing before speaking while you are thinking. Kathy’s recommendations were about the speaker’s positioning near the lectern by defining a speaking area, and that screen sharing is letting us down and that we need to do this more efficiently. Kathy loved having the educational before table topics as it was useful information.

Table Topics by Dale was “reflections on a queen”.

Angela had a highly embarrassing story of when she met Princess Diana, it was back in 1997 and she had just arrived in London and she lived across the road from Kensington Palace, when Princess Diana appeared at a nearby hairdresser. Angela and her friends stalked the Princess.

Paul met his Queen and she smiled at him as she walked down the aisle all dressed in white.

Dirk isn’t really a royalist but has seen a few castles in the UK, has seen Prince William drive past but he wondered what the fuss was.

Darrell said the Queen has been his queen for his entire life and has been a royalist all his life. He said the Queen deserved our respect and admiration.

Guest Nico is not a royalist but loves the idea of having a public holiday next week.

Evaluator Darrell said it was a little different tonight, but very few spoke about the Queen. But the others spoke about various aspects of royalty. Paul won Table Topics speaker of the night.

Speaker 2 was Angela introduced by Paul. “My Car Story – Part One” – a Pathways descriptive language project where she described a rear-ending in her vehicle at the Terrace Tunnel on a dark and stormy night on the way to basketball. Evaluator Paul thought that Angela gave a great story but he said Angela should just pause a bit more, and look at the audience to allow them to think about what she was saying. Overall Paul thought it was amazing and the audience was hanging on every single word.

Speaker 3 introduced by Darrell was Jacqui again. Title “40th invitation”. In this speech Jacqui remembered a big storm on 11 December 1982 – the date of their wedding. However she invited everyone to come to their 40th anniversary celebration to be held later this year. Evaluator Darrell thought Jacqui’s story was well told of a vivid moment in her life, and he loved the invitations being handed out.

Speaker 4 was our guest Gary on “39%”. Evaluator Dale said that she loved the story he told about our beautiful Gully, and how he moved on to driving on the Gully and the speed limits and the light in the middle of the road. But it was really about getting out there and vote because 61% of us actually don’t vote. If you’re going to complain, you should at least have voted? He got a bit tongue tied over his numbers at the end but his call to action was timely as the local body voting papers have now arrived in our letterboxes.

General Business by Katina covered how everyone is stepping up to cover roles and how the club managed to keep things going through COVID, how we have become a hybrid club using Zoom, how the club has shrunk in numbers. But she thought everyone was doing amazingly well keeping the club going during these difficult times.

General Evaluator Katina complimented the chairperson Ron for sending out a well organised agenda in plenty of time. She suggested that evaluators should provide more detail with their recommendations to help the speakers.