This has been a month of great celebrations at Lutterworth Speaker’s Club. Manuel, Derek and Heather achieved their first level certificates, Tom and Sue their ‘Show Piece’ Challenge, Matt was awarded the trophy for the most improved speaker and Heather was awarded the club contribution trophy.

Congratulations to Manuel for being elected as the new President of Lutterworth Speaker’s Club at this year’s AGM.

This month we proudly support Allan H. as he represents our area in the regional evaluation competition and welcome Alex as a new member to our group. Speakers are now meeting in the Wycliffe Rooms until July when we shall have a short summer break before meeting again in September.   If you would like to join us and learn to improve your speaking skills, please contact Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or see our website lutterworthspeakersclub.com

At the meeting of Lutterworth Speakers Club last month, we travelled the world investigating all of the places that we would like to visit.  Whilst we found good reasons to go to Chile and Cambodia, we were shocked to find that trains were not the main reason for Dave wanting to visit Australia! 

Matt hosted his first topic’s session, encouraging us to describe a building for others to guess, and so we visited Tower Bridge, The Eiffel Tower and The Burj-Khalifa amongst others.

We also were treated to the delights of Crete from Eileen and a ‘shaggy dog’ story as Allan contemplated the history of his beard.

Lutterworth Speakers are now meeting in the Wycliffe Rooms until July when we shall have a short summer break before meeting again in September.   If you would like to join us and learn to improve your speaking skills, please contact Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or see our website: LutterworthSpeakersClub.com

Had you spotted the gnome on the front cover of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Our February challenge resulted in talks on a huge range of characters from the gnome to Laurel and Hardy to Gandhi and a mysterious character from Southport!  Tony astounded us with his first speech about Johnny Weissmuller, humorous, interesting and informative.

This month encouraged us to find out about historical events on our birthdates and to prepare a short speech about our discoveries.

It is World Speech Day on 15^th March and our national committee have set us the challenge to produce a speech that is 15 seconds long that must have a beginning, middle and end as well as meaning what we say.  If you visit the Association of Speakers Clubs website you can hear the results of our efforts.

Speakers are continuing to meet on zoom on the first and third Monday’s of each month.  If you would like to join us and learn to improve your speaking skills please contact Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or see our website lutterworthspeakersclub.com

Lutterworth Speakers started the new year with great enthusiasm and a speech by Maggie Barlow about ‘A Right Reverend’ the Reverend Stephen Hawker, a fascinating character from Cornish past, and from Eileen Fox ‘Believe it or not’ when she told us about the different quirks and interests of some previous American presidents.   We have also had training from Allan Heggs as well as topic sessions encouraging us to talk about our careers.  

Our challenge for February was to choose a character from the album cover of ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ and create a five-minute speech using vocabulary to create a picture of that person.

We would like to welcome Tony a new member to the group and look forward to his contributions to our meetings.

Speakers are continuing to meet on the first and third Monday’s of each month.  We meet on zoom and are developing new skills to meet the challenges of this media.   If you would like to join us and learn to improve your speaking skills please contact Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or see our website lutterworthspeakersclub.com

We hope you’re all staying safe, wearing your masks and keeping busy during this challenging time. Lutterworth Speakers Club had our first Zoom meeting of the lockdown on November 9^th. Allan Rimmer gave us a great prescriptive speech helping us become more aware of the dangers of fake news. Prescriptive speeches are an opportunity to speak to a specific objective such as to persuade, entertain or inform the audience. Ruth Redmond gave us a great speech all about the Leicester University Engineering building, it’s beauty and pitfalls.

Thomas Roe provided our topics session asking people to speak on their favourite cheese, flower, furniture, word and even room in the house! This resulted in some funny and enthusiastic speeches about bookcases, beds, long walks, railways and Stilton!

Meetings: every other Monday 7.00-8.30 pm, currently online. Guests and visitors are most welcome. Call Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or go to LutterworthSpeakersClub.com.

On Monday September 14^th Lutterworth Speakers Club got back into action.

After months of online meetings we were finally able to meet face-to-face in our new venue, the Wycliffe Rooms. We were all delighted to gather again and are looking forward to meeting every two weeks in a nice big room to accommodate all our speakers and any newcomers or visitors. Our first meeting had two lively speeches, an A3 from Matthew Hall about how to go about retiring early and an A9 from Emma Thompson introducing the club to Chinese. We finished with some great topics speeches where we learned Eileen Fox is a 007 fan and Liesl Carr’s arachnophobia is hereditary.

We meet every other Monday at the Wycliffe Rooms, George Street, Lutterworth, 7.30-9.30 pm. Due to the current situation we ask that visitors contact us in advance. Call Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or go to LutterworthSpeakersClub.com

While lockdown may have slowed down Lutterworth Speakers Club, it was only for a couple of weeks. The team quickly got Zoom worked out and and the club was up and running again. Some Zoom training was required but everyone quickly adapted to life in lockdown.

Speakers Club continues on Zoom with people giving speeches from home and even our very popular topics sessions carrying on. Topics is an opportunity to practise your impromptu speaking skills with very little time to prepare but only 1-3 minutes required to speak so it is a great way for members to increase their confidence and get practise thinking on their feet. It certainly does get the blood flowing!

Meetings: 1^st and 3^rd Mondays of the month 7.30-9.30 pm, currently online but hopefully back at Karter’s Café soon. Guests and visitors are most welcome. Call Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or go to LutterworthSpeakersClub.com.

On the 29^th of February the team were delighted to support Allan Rimmer at the Area Speech Contest. Allan did well, competing against three other speakers, but Austin Ogbata from the Leicester Club prevailed. We wish Austin the best of luck in the District contest.

Meanwhile in Lutterworth, March got off to a hilarious start with an unusual topics session run by Heather Moore. Heather started off a story by giving us it’s setting: The Greyhound Inn. Each person had just one minute to add to the story from their own imagination. We started off quietly but it wasn’t long before we had masked raiders, runaway horses, bags of stolen booty and a runaway bride!

We meet on the 1^st and 3^rd Mondays of the month at Karter’s Café, Church Street, Lutterworth, 7.30-9.30 pm. Guests and visitors are most welcome. Call Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or go to LutterworthSpeakersClub.com.

Best wishes to everyone for 2020 from all at Lutterworth Speakers Club!

At our first meeting on Jan 6th Heather Moore gave an excellent A6 speech (word pictures and vocabulary), reminding us of Christmas Day with vivid imagery of big meals and family gatherings. We enjoyed new member Matt Hall’s first speech, he chose ‘doing a first speech’ as his topic; talking about something relatable to get us all engaged and laughing. A practice run of new member Leisl Carr’s interesting PhD presentation received tips to limit words on visual aids to avoid audience distraction and take your time. Best of luck Leisl! Our topics session, designed by Ruth Redmond, set us up for success.

We meet on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month at Karter’s Café, Church Street, Lutterworth, 7.30-9.30 pm. Guests and visitors are most welcome. Call Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or go to LutterworthSpeakersClub.com.

In early November we held our two annual contests on Evaluation and Topics. For the Evaluation contest speech Eileen Fox gave a fascinating and at times rather alarming account of the Cango Caves in South Africa, a vast subterranean network filled with paintings, stalactites and stalagmites, bats and creepy-crawlies.  And they turn the lights out. Not a place to visit if you have certain phobias!

Her speech was then evaluated by 5 of our members, and in a field of very high standard Allan Heggs was judged the winner.

This was followed by a Topics contest on the theme of ‘Night’.  8 members took part, making a lively session. Interpretations of the theme included the influence of the moon, dreaming, the strange creatures encountered in night-diving, and the business of clocks going forward and back, but it was Gary Hayward who won the day with a gentle and funny account of his daughter’s recent Hallowe’en night.

Congratulations to Allan and Gary who go forward to the Area round later in the year.

We meet on the 1^st and 3^rd Mondays of the month, September to May. To see us in action come along to Karter’s Café, 20, Church Street, Lutterworth, 7.30-9.30 pm. Guests and visitors are most welcome. For further information ring Allan Rimmer on 01455 324495 or see our website LutterworthSpeakersClub.com.