At our meeting on Thursday 4th October our Club welcomed West Coast Speakers Club for a debate. The motion to be debated was "The school leaving age should return to 15." West Coast Club, represented by Anna Wilson and Jess Longrigg, spoke for the motion and Carlisle & District, represented by Richard Hunt and Ella Atherton, spoke against it. The debate was a friendly competition, taking the place of the usual format of prepared speeches. We were delighted to welcome past members and friends as guests in addition to our 'official' guests from West Coast, and our larger-than-usual audience clearly enjoyed the occasion. The audience put some tough questions to the debaters, and finally decided by ballot after the Chairman Susan Trafford had closed the debate that West Coast were the winners. Many thanks were given to Susan from all sides for her hard work in organising the occasion; watch for a repeat competition in later seasons!
Jess is our new President
'Room 101', Thursday 5th April
Our meeting on Thursday 5th April was as guests of Cockermouth Speakers Club at Hundith Hill Hotel. The evening was based on the TV show 'Room 101' and speakers, taken alternately from both clubs, had about three minutes each to persuade the audience to support their case for consigning somebody or some item to the outer darkness of Room 101. The selected 'victims' were many, varied and ingeniously chosen and there then followed questions and a lot of humorous debate from the audience before a vote Yes or No.
This was a fun social event rather than a competition, and the members of both clubs agreed that it had been very enjoyable and worth repeating in the future. Many thanks to Cockermouth Speakers for devising the format.
Carlisle Speakers go Auctioneering
At our meeting on Thursday 2nd February we invited a guest speaker, Paul Laidlaw of H & H Auctioneers and of TV fame, to share his knowledge and experience of auctioneering with us. He gave a most interesting, amusing and informative talk on his profession and then joined enthusiastically in the rest of our meeting. This was in preparation for our following meeting on 16th February when the theme for the evening was a Mock Auction. None of us had done this before, so we needed an expert to show us how it is done!
Our Mock Auction (with mock money!) got members to bring an object to 'sell' and make a sales pitch for it before President Christine Shuttleworth, our 'Auctioneer,' invited bids. The objects were very varied and so were the sales pitches, some of which were even true!
Our members' experience of speaking varies from a month or two to nearly thirty years, but as this shows, we never stop learning new skills and often discovering some quite unexpected abilities.
Workshops 21/1/12
Saturday, 21st January saw Carlisle and District Speakers Club trying out a new venture. In response to requests for some general training on Public Speaking, the club organized some business-based workshops at Morton Community Centre.
Christine Shuttleworth, club president, welcomed more than 20 people to the workshops on Chairmanship, Presentation and Impromptu Speaking skills.
The workshops, aimed at providing tips on improving techniques on Public Speaking, as well as suggestions to reduce stress and anxiety of this number one fear in life today, were warmly received with comments such as, from one participant from a voluntary organization:
“A brilliant course, I really enjoyed it, I am taking away some positive tips & skills I can go on to use”.
Many would like more sessions like these and the club will have to think about how these might be financed.
Susan Trafford, Education Director said that, “Training for skills in Public Speaking is often low on an employer’s agenda, but employees with excellent speaking skills increase opportunities for maximizing the marketing potential of any organisation, promoting their products, be it a car, increasing take up of a project, or informing the electorate of a change in policy”.
“Training of this type is difficult to source locally at reasonable cost, so we were delighted to be able to provide an afternoon of training that has been so well received.”
The workshops were attended by people from the public, private and voluntary sectors.
At the end of the afternoon all those attending were able to practise their newly acquired skills choosing whether to speak from the stage, or use a microphone, maybe for the first time.
The afternoon was rounded off by a demonstration of a Speech by Gordon Little entitled, ‘Breaking the Barrier’, a personal account of achieving public speaking competence.
As well as attendance certificates, participants were given tickets enabling them to attend the Border Area Speaking Competitions, to be held next Sunday afternoon, 29/1/12 at Morton Community Centre.