Our Club meeting on 18th November was Competition Night: our annual Speech and Evaluation competitions were held, with four entrants in each. In a first for the Club, it was a family affair - the Speech competition was won by Richard Hunt, and the Evaluation by his wife Margaret. The Runner-up in both competitions was our Club President Susan Trafford. It was a first for Richard too; he only joined the Club in 2009 after being, as he would claim, "the most experienced non-member of ASC," as he had supported Margaret, one of the founder members, from the beginning. It is also the first actual trophy he has ever won in his life!
Many thanks to our Judges, Frank Grace of West Coast Speakers Club together with Liz McDonald and Ian Hodgson of Annan Speakers Club - also to Mairi Mole of Annan SC, Border Area President, who kindly gave the speech for the Evaluation competition.
We are grateful, too, to our guests who helped to swell the audience and create a lively and encouraging atmosphere.
The winners will go on to compete at the Border Area Conference to be held in Carlisle on Sunday 30th January 2011.
CDSC Guests of University of the Third Age
Carlisle University of the Third Age (U3A) very kindly invited Carlisle & District Speakers to their monthly meeting in the afternoon of 18th November, to show what we do and how we do it. Our President Susan Trafford introduced the Club and gave a short history, then members presented a demonstration speech and an evaluation of it, as would be done at a Club meeting. Following that, three volunteers from U3A bravely stood up and spoke to topics of their own choice - to such a high standard that we would very much welcome them as members of our own Club.
Many thanks are due particularly to Gordon Little, a member of both CDSC and U3A, who acted as link man and chaired the presentation, for his hard work and meticulous preparation, as well as to U3A Chairman David Stevens and his fellow members for their kind welcome and hospitality.
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A Brief History of CDSC
The Club was founded in September 1982 and was originally known as Carlisle Ladies Speakers Club. We started with five ladies, three of whom are still members, and over the next five years increased to a membership of twenty-seven, our highest so far. It is our ambition to reach that level again soon. In the early years our Club was part of Ladies Council No 5 but we became full members of The Association of Speakers Clubs in May 1987.
In 2002 we voted to become a mixed club, which over the last eight years has brought many benefits and enriched our meetings. The gentlemen have played a full part in the running of the club and we have now had two male Presidents.
The members of our club have contributed to the running of The Association of Speakers Clubs at all levels. We have provided four Area Presidents, two District Presidents and a National Officer. On two occasions we have hosted the National Conference in Carlisle. The first, in 1992, broke all attendance records and we like to think of it as the most successful National Conference ASC has ever had! The biggest-ever dinner to celebrate Speaker of the Year was chaired by one of our members at the Central Hotel in Glasgow in 1996.
The National Contests have had a representative from Carlisle Club on over twenty occasions and five trophies have been brought home, four of them in the last eight years. Evaluation has been our forte and Carlisle members' names appear on all the National evaluation trophies.
We estimate that 130 people have joined our Club during the last twenty-eight years. All of them have learned to speak to an audience with confidence and many have moved on to achieve success in other fields - most notably Mayor of Carlisle in 2006.
Over the years our club has met in a number of venues: a variety of hotels, a club, the lounge of a residential home, and even a church vestry. Now we are settled at Morton Manor Community Centre in Wigton Road. We meet in the Robert Chance lounge, recently registered to hold weddings, for which it has been beautifully furnished, and it is very comfortable. We meet on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays from September till May. Meetings start at 7.15pm. Guests are very welcome.
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