The London Speaker

London Toastmasters Educational Awards June 2009

Posted by Dorothea Stuart

30 June 2009 marked the end of another Toastmaster year...not surprisingly it focused our minds and we achieved more educational awards than in any other month in the year!  28 people have become Competent Communicators, 13 have completed their Competent Leader award, and 12 have completed advanced awards.

And what does all this add up to?  Toastmasters in London Division B have collectively gained 129 educational awards in 2008/09 - even more than the previous year!

Congratulations to everyone gaining awards in June.  And congratulations to the committees and club members who have supported and encouraged all of us (myself included) to get those last speeches or leadership projects completed.  We look forward to continued success for all our members in 2009/10.

Competent Communicator

James Barnett. London Cardinals. Area 6

Christopher Boden. St Pauls Speakers. Area 33

Anne Daly. Women in Banking and Finance. Area 31

Catherine Desson. Citi Criers. Area 31

Roger Harding.  Early Bird Speakers. Area 34

Maria Hemming.  Riverside Communicators. Area 29

Simon Holliday. London Cardinals. Area 6

Guy Hutchinson. London Olympians. Area 6

Carlos Johnson.  Broadgate Speakers in the City. Area 33

Julian Lamb. Broadgate Speakers in the City. Area 33

Kojo O'Hene. Trojan Speakers Club. Area 29

George Metcalfe.  Early Bird Speakers. Area 34

Marina Morozova.  WIBF - City. Area 31

Bill Moss.  Ciy of London. Area 34

Helen Mullins.  WIBF - City. Area 31

Michal Misztal. Polish Your Polish. Area 6

Rachel Ormrod. London Cardinals. Area 6

Anabela Pinto. Women in Banking and Finance. Area 31

Imal Ratnayake.  Trojan Speakers Club. Area 29

Christoph Ruedt. London Communicators. Area 33

Pamela Smith.  Riverside Communicators. Area 29

Caroline Swain. Broadgate Speakers in the City. Area 33

Adolfo Tunon. Citi Criers. Area 31

Joann Walsh.  St Paul's Speakers. Area 33

Paul Walsh.  London Cardinals. Area 6

Errol Williamson.  Trojan Speakers Club. Area 29

Rachel Whitehouse.  WIBF - City. Area 31

Himanshu Vora. Trojan Speakers. Area 29

Advanced Communicator Bronze

Nicola Bishop.  WIBF - City. Area 31

Jacyntha Crawley.  London Athenians. Area 29

Sean Kennedy. London Communicators. Area 33

Kerry-Anne Smith. Trojan Speakers. Area 29

Dorothea Stuart.  Riverside Communicators. Area 29

Advanced Communicator Silver

David Bennett. Tube Talk. Area 34

Clive Broadbent. Canary Wharf Communicators. Area 31

Jeremy Jacobs. London Corinthians. Area 6

Desire Lan. London Corinthians. Area 6

Deepa Srinivas. Women in Banking and Finance. Area 31

Competent Leader

Camilla Allwood. Women in Banking and Finance. Area 31

Armando Armellini. MLP! London Bridge Speakers. Area 33

Ola Aralepo.  TubeTalk Toastmasters.  Area 34

Iwona Dolecka.  Polish Your Polish. Area 6

Peter Girvan.  TubeTalk Toastmasters.  Area 34

Bela Patel.  Women in Banking and Finance.  Area 31

Rory Marriott.  St Pauls Speakers.  Area 33

James Mills. London Corinthians. Area 6

Maria-Jesu Rojo. Citi Criers. Area 31

Kerry-Anne Smith. Trojan Speakers. Area 29

Deepa Srinivas. MLP! London Bridge Speakers MLP. Area 33

Ogango Thigo. Citi Criers. Area 31

Himanshu Vora.  Trojans Speakers Club. Area 29

Advanced Leader Bronze

Ola Aralepo.  TubeTalk Toastmasters.  Area 34

Richard Stacey. Early Bird Speakers. Area 34

Educational Awards	Last year 2007/08	June 2009	Division B year to date
Competent Communicator	51	28	65
Advanced Comm Bronze	13	5	12
Adv Comm Silver	8	5	6
Adv Comm Gold	3		3
Competent Leader	15	13	28
Old Comp Leader	21		n/a
Adv Leader Bronze	4	2	8
Adv Leader Silver	1		2
Leadership Excellence Award	1		4
Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM)			1
Total	117	53	129

2009 Division B International Speech and Evaluation Contest Winners

Last Wednesday’s Division B International Speech and Evaluation Contest Final was a truly marvellous evening.

We were greeted by our friends at Citi Criers who did a brilliant job of ushering everyone through in an efficient way. A glass of vino was there waiting for us, which in the true Division B style, everyone used as used as lubrication for their vocal chords – these would be needed for the raucous evening that lay ahead.

I started with a little exercise that had virtually all of the 170 people there boogying away – they were truly warmed up! Thank you to Julie Holness for the idea!

The first half was the International Speech Contest. Led by our Contest Chair, Assistant Division Governor, Dave Sellman, the Speakers in order were:

1. Ola Aralepo of Area 34 and Tube Talk
2. Simon Bucknall of Area 6 and London Cardinals
3. Agnieszka Rees of Area 31 and Citi Criers
4. Franco Vaccaro of Area 29 and Riverside Communicators
5. Sarah Green of Area 33 and Broadgate Speakers

Ola entertained us with a speech about how power comes from revealing ourselves. Simon discussed a fraud that is parents had suffered and what he had leant from it. Agnieszka discussed being bullied and Franco told us of how he had become like his father, needing to control everything. Finally Sarah inspired us with her personal journey of overcoming shyness, urging us all that we could achieve our goals too. The quality of the speeches were amazing.

After the break, we returned for the Evaluation Contest. Led by the ever ebullient Contest Chair, Paul Carroll of Athenians, the contest started off with a rousing speech from Alastair Watson-Gandy, Area Governor of Area 4.

While we waited for the contestants to come back to give their evaluations, Joe Gibbs, Lt Governor Training and Education for Toastmasters District 71 introduced himself to the Division and told us we still all had time to follow our esteemed leaders (Gary Sander) chant of ‘the courage to make a difference’. Inspiring stuff indeed.

Then the Evaluators fed through one by one. They were in order of speech:

1. Julie Holness of Area 33 and London Communicators
2. David Bennett of Area 34 and Tube Talk
3. Kerry-Anne Smith of Area 29 and London Trojans
4. Simon Bucknall of Area 6 and Excalibur Speakers
5. Clive Broadbent of Area 31 and Canary Wharf Communicators

While we waited for the votes to be counted, I suitably embarrassed myself and the contestants while handing out the Certificates of Participation.

In no time our Chief Judge, Sammy Babister, Division H Governor returned and she together with Joe Gibbs announced the winners. They were as follows:

Evaluation Contest

1. Simon Bucknall
2. Clive Broadbent
3. Julie Holness

International Speech Contest

1. Franco Vaccaro
2. Simon Bucknall
3. Sarah Green

Needless to say, a large group retired to Cafe Rouge for a little after contest analysis.

It was a great evening and I have to say thank you to Dave Sellman for leading the arrangements, Dave and Paul Carroll as Contest Chairs, Alastair Watson-Gandy for being brave enough to do the Test speech, Sammy as our Chief Judge, all of our judges, Himanshu Vora, Nigel Cutts and John Craddock as our Counters, Hilary Briggs and Iain Duthie as our Timers and Catherine Desson who acted as Sergeant at Arms. Indeed, a BIG thank you to Catherine and her merry band of helpers from Citi Criers who helped make the evening such a success. Finally, thank you to Joe Gibbs for flying in from Ireland especially for the evening.

Needless to say, Franco and Simon will both be competing in the Dictrict finals this coming Saturday. I will be there supporting them – hopefully so will you!

(a bunch of very happy Area 29ers with the winners)

April 2009 Toastmasters Educational Awards

A  dozen more educational awards were achieved by London Division B Toastmasters in April 2009.  It's good to see Club Presidents, VPEs etc. completing their awards as well as encouraging other club members to do so. Congratulations to everyone!

Lots of people will be completing awards as we approach the end of the  Toastmasters year (30th June).  Remember to get your awards submitted as soon as you complete them.  Don't want the Toastmasters International computer going into melt down in the last week of June!  If you have a personal goal to complete a speech or leadership award this year and would like the  opportunity to perform outside your own club also remember that we have some new clubs that would love to hear you speak or undertake a role.

Competent Communicator

Robert Griffiths. Early Bird Speakers. Area 34

Julie Holness.  London Communicators. Area 33

Sue Mannering.  Northern Lights. Area 33

Nazia Soon.  Holborn Speakers. Area 34

Richard Stacey. Early Bird Speakers.  Area 34

Ewan Wong. Tube Talk. Area 34

Advanced Communicator Bronze

Dave Brooks. Excalibur Speakers.  Area 6

Jilly Shaul.  Northern Lights.  Area 33

David Sellman.  London Cardinals.  Area 6

Competent Leader

Chris Jolly.  West London Speakers.  Area 29

Jason Peck.  Grosvernor Square Speakers. Area 34

Richard Stacey. Early Bird Speakers.  Area 34

Educational Awards	Last year 2007/08	April 2009	Division B year to date
Competent Communicator	51	6	33
Advanced Comm Bronze	13	3	7
Adv Comm Silver	8		1
Adv Comm Gold	3		2
Competent Leader	15	3	14
Old Comp Leader	21		n/a
Adv Leader Bronze	4		4
Adv Leader Silver	1		2
Leadership Excellence Award	1		4
Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM)			1
Total	117	12	68

Results from the Area 34 International Speech and Evaluation Contests

While many clubs were still holding their club contests, Area 34 shot out of the blocks (unlike their Division Governor who has just managed to write this!). On Tuesday March 31st, they held their Area International Speech and Evaluation contest and what a night it was!

Our friends at Holborn Speakers kindly hosted us (thanks Heike!) and the room was bursting at the seams! There must have been close to sixty people in the room. And this in a room that normally struggles to hold more than 40! I was more than glad that Health and Safety were nowhere to be seen! ;)

Our Contest Chair was Rory Marriott who did a fabulous job of keeping the evening motoring along.

First up was the International Speech contest. The contestants were:

• City of London – Rick Payne
• Early Birds - Richard Stacey
• Grosvenor Square – Alan Thomas
• Holborn Speakers – Jeremy Robinson
• NZICA Bank Speakers – Justin Ryan
• Tube Talk – Ola Arelepo

There were many fine performances with the speeches, Richard telling us of how he dealt with tragedy, Alan making us think about noise and Justin talking about the things that he had learned about finding the perfect place since moving to London.

As ever, there can only be one winner. The results were:

1st Justin Ryan of NZICA Bank

2nd Jeremy Robinson of Holborn

3rd Ola Aralepo of Tube Talk

This was particularly exciting for the folks from NZICA as this was the first winner from their club at Area level. Given they only chartered last year, an excellent result!

Unfortunately, Justin will be sunning himself on some far and distant shore the week of the Division final so won’t be able to make it. Jeremy Robinson will therefore represent the Area at the Division final.

(pic of Justin with Paul Carroll of Athenians and myself below!)

Next up was the Evaluation contest. Our contestants were evaluating a speech about what we could learn from the Indian gurus by John Craddock at Riverside. A great speech that must have been hard to evaluate!

Given the task were the following:

• City of London - Rick Payne
• Early Birds – Richard Stacey
• Grosvenor Square – Phillip Smee
• Tube Talk – David Bennett
• Holborn - Jeremy Robinson

Again, it seemed close but the winners were:

1st Jeremy Robinson of Holborn

2nd David Bennett of Tube Talk

3rd Richard Stacey of Early Birds

So well done to Jeremy who will be represent the Area at the Division final.

(Jeremy and Paul making me look scruffy!)

Thank you to Paul Carroll for stepping in at short notice as Chief Judge and to Rory as Contest Chair. Thank you to our nameless judges. Thanks to all the helpers – Nazia, Andrea, Michaela and Graham etc etc (trying to remember them all now is not easy!). Particular thanks to Jody Belka of Holborn who specially traipsed over London to buy lighting and extension cables. It made a huge difference.

Next up are more Area contests this week and next, followed by the Division final next Wednesday. Did I just mention the Division final for the third time in this article? Aha, maybe that because there are still loads of empty seats waiting and with your name on! Please buy your tickets by following the link here:

Giving support to our Area representatives makes such a difference to them and the evening so please try to come along. It will be a great evening!

PS. A thought to Liz Hobbs, our Area 34 Governor. She has put her back out badly (a slipped disc). She was desperate to come but she is currently struggling to move at all. With her usual humour, she tells me that her pain killing medication is quite fascinating. Liz isn’t old enough to have been there in the 60s but it sounds like she is having a good time recreating the experience!!

2009 Division B International Speech and Evaluation Contest finals – get your tickets NOW!

Most clubs have now completed their International Speech and Evaluation Contests. As usual the quality of speaking is incredibly high.

Additionally, our first area, Area 34, have already held their contest. I will post details shortly. Three Area contests are booked for next week and one for the 27th.

After these, of course, the next stage will be the Division final. The event will be held on Wednesday, April 29th.

Doors will open at 6.30pm and the event proper will start at 7pm. We expect the evening to over by 9pm. No doubt a local hostelry will benefit from a little after contest celebration drink or three!

It promises to be a fabulous evening with the cream of London’s speakers competing to be the best in the capital city. Who will be representing your Area?

Last years Division winners were David Jones for the International Speech Contest and Hilary Briggs for the Evaluation contest, as seen in the photos above. Hilary went on to become the UK and Ireland Evaluation Champion keeping up our Division’s brilliant record of competing in the District finals.

Catherine Desson and the wonderful crew at Citi Criers have again offered the same amazing venue that we had last year. Thank you again to the good folks at Citigroup for their help.

Those who were there last year will remember that we had over 200 attendees on the evening. It would be great to have this level of support for our speakers again this year.

I am also excited that Joe Gibbs, current Lt Governor Training and Education and prospective District 71 Governor for 2009/10 (the head honcho in UK and Ireland Toasties) will be joining us, flying in from Ireland that afternoon specially.

The address is:

Citigroup Centre

25 Canada Square

London E14 5LB

Travelling to Canary Wharf is a doddle with the Jubilee line taking you to just around the corner at the Canary Wharf tube stop. Alternatively you can catch the DLR from Bank or wherever takes your fancy! The best stop is DLR – Canary Wharf.

A map to the venue is here:

There is a charge of £5 as a contribution to the cost of the evening. However, this will include a glass of wine for those who arrive at 6.30!

You can now book this event directly from this page (how cool is that!):

I am really looking to this event. It is the signature event of the Toastmasters year at a Divisional level. I have booked my ticket already, get yours now! :)

PS We will update the contestants as the Area Contests take place. Keep an eye out here on The London Speaker!

An Evening of Music and Verse with Berkeley Square/Early Bird Speakers

You are warmly invited to an evening social event jointly hosted by Early Bird Speakers and Berkeley Square Speakers.  Friday 20 March 2009.  6.15pm to 8.30pm at Brown's Brasserie and Bar, Covent Garden.

We very much want to open this up and would welcome guests - both members of Toastmasters and non-members (who will have a chance to find out more about how they could benefit from joining one of our clubs).

The music will be provided by our member Andrew Bennett, tenor.  Andrew will be accompanied by Danielle Perrett on the harp. Both are international musicians.  Poetry and monologues will be added by other club members.

Held at Brown's Brasserie, on St Martin's Lane it will include a one course meal and glass of wine for £20.  Tickets and full details are available at http://earlybirdsoiree.eventbrite.com.  The venue can hold a maximum of 46 people.  As we will be publicising this event widely we suggest booking now to guarantee a place for you... and your guests!

We are looking forward to a fabulous evening.  Hope to meet you there.

Toastmasters Educational Awards January 2009

Seven more educational awards were achieved by London Division B Toastmasters in January 2009.

It's good to see the balance of communication and leadership awards.  And that two more of our members have completed the High Performance Leadership program to achieve their Leadership Excellence Award - an essential part of gaining the Advanced Leader Silver and becoming a Distinguished Toastmaster.

Congratulations to everyone who gained the first awards of 2009.

Competent Communicator

Olufemi Asaolu. Holborn Speakers. Area 34

Jessica Bass. London Athenians. Area 29

A.C. Gaskell. London Athenians. Area 29

Advanced Communicator Silver

Iain Duthie. Tube Talk. Area 34

Competent Leader

John Craddock. Riverside Communicators. Area 29

Leadership Excellence Award

Hilary Briggs. Grosvenor Square Speakers. Area 34

Pedro Casillas. Grosvenor Square Speakers. Area 34

Educational Awards	Last year 2007/08	January 2009	Division B year to date
Competent Communicator	51	3	18
Advanced Comm Bronze	13		4
Adv Comm Silver	8	1	1
Adv Comm Gold	3		1
Competent Leader	15	1	8
Old Comp Leader	21		n/a
Adv Leader Bronze	4		2
Adv Leader Silver	1		1
Leadership Excellence Award	1	2	3
Total	117	7	38

Toastmasters Educational Awards December 2008

 Four more educational awards were achieved by London Division B Toastmasters in December 2008. 

We look forward to hearing our competent communicators Anita and John making speeches from an advanced manual in early 2009!  And Franco continuing to make progress towards his AC Silver.  Congratulations to Alan for attaining the accolade of Advanced Communicator Gold which he completed when he ran a workshop at Grosvenor Square Speakers last month.

We are now half way through the Toastmasters year. As you will see from the table below Division B as so far recorded just over a quarter of the awards that we achieved last year.  I know that we have some awards that have been completed and which have not yet been submitted to Toastmasters International.   Let's see them coming through in January and get the full picture of our success!

Competent Communicator

John Craddock. Riverside Communicators. Area 29

Anita Grainger. Speakeasy @CreditSuisse. Area 31

Advanced Communicator Bronze

Franco Vaccaro. Riverside Communicators. Area 29

Advanced Communicator Gold

Alan Thomas. Grosvenor Square Speakers. Area 34

Educational Awards	Last year 2007/08	December 2008	Division B year to date
Competent Communicator	51	2	15
Advanced Comm Bronze	13	1	4
Adv Comm Silver	8		0
Adv Comm Gold	3	1	1
Competent Leader	15		7
Old Comp Leader	21		n/a
Adv Leader Bronze	4		2
Adv Leader Silver	1		1
Leadership Excellence Award	1		1
Total	117	4	31

Toastmasters Educational Awards November 2008

Ten more educational awards have been achieved by London Division B Toastmasters this month. 

Congratulations to our new CCs and CLs. We look forward to hearing our competent communicators make their first speech from an advanced manual in the near future!  We also hope we'll see our new competent leaders making educational speeches and taking the next steps on the leadership programme. 

Congratulations to Jason Peck and Gilly Cutts for their advanced awards.  If you decide to attend the Speech Masterclass this coming Saturday afternoon 6 December (see post below) you can hear Jason giving his next speech.

Competent Communicator

Lynne Cantor. WIBF-City. Area 31

Azjargal Erdenebaatar. Grosvenor Square Speakers. Area 34

Miriam Lo. Holborn Speakers. Area 34

Jim McCluskey. Riverside Communicators. Area 29

Competent Leader

Lynne Cantor. WIBF-City. Area 31

Julia Kowalle. WIBF-City. Area 31

Alexander Lowry. London Cardinals. Area 6

Dorothea Stuart. LBS Toastmasters. Area 29

Advanced Communicator Bronze

Jason Peck. Grosvenor Square Speakers. Area 34

Advanced Leader Silver

Gilly Cutts. London Cardinals. Area 6

Educational Awards	Last year 2007/08	November 2008	Division B year to date
Competent Communicator	51	4	13
Advanced Comm Bronze	13	1	3
Adv Comm Silver	8		0
Adv Comm Gold	3		0
Competent Leader	15	4	7
Old Comp Leader	21		n/a
Adv Leader Bronze	4		2
Adv Leader Silver	1	1	1
Leadership Excellence Award	1		1
Total	117	10	27

Report from the Three Castles Conference, Kilkenny

And so it is time for another conference report. Another mad and bad weekend with more food and wine and less sleep than is probably healthy!

Mrs Fred and I decided to fly over on the Thursday. We arrived at Luton airport to be confronted by a turbo prop plane. A friend had warned us about this but we thought they were joking! Luckily the flight out wasn’t too bad. At Luton we bumped into Sandra Lawes, Division G Governor, and several folks from her Division.

Waterford must be about the smallest airport in the world. We didn’t quite have to get the bags off the plane ourselves. However, the baggage reclaim was not mechanised and so required passengers to push the bags along!

We all jumped in a cab to Waterford station before getting a train to Kilkenny. Isn’t it amazing what you learn from cab drivers? If ever you want to hear about the racial tensions in a country, a good bet is to ask your local cabbie!

Eventually we got to Kilkenny. For us, Thursday evening and Friday were spent relaxing (bar the hour I spent in the gym!). We thought Kilkenny a very pretty town and well worth a weekend away.

The hotel itself was first class. Congratulations to Lucia Hughes and the conference team for a great choice of venue and fabulous organising skills.

As Mrs Fred and myself only see each other once in a blue moon (being Div Guv means you sign away your evenings!), we decided to skip the Friday dinner.

However, on the way back through the foyer, we were greeted by a foyer full of folks in 70s disco outfits. Some had really gone to town, including, not surprisingly the folks from Tube Talk. We had a good laugh with (or was that at?) Dick, our Immediate Past Division Governor.

Yeah, peace man! :)

I heard the next day that Peter Girvan of Tube Talk’s partner, Juli, won the prize for best costume. The prize was a weekend for two. Peter spent the rest of the weekend being particularly nice to her to make sure he was invited!

Saturday started at 8am with the Area and Division Governors breakfast. Rumours circulate that Dick managed to make it to bed at about 7am!

We had a good session learning that the amounts of money available to new clubs and troubled clubs is going up. Additionally, more help will be available for events like Club Officer Training.

Last year, District Council made a real effort to focus resources on the places that would most benefit from them. However, they took small steps because while they figured out the impact on District finances. This year, with more confidence, they are expanding these programmes. I think it is encouraging to see this and is a very positive step by the District Council.

At 9.15 I attended a workshop given by Alison Lavick, a DTM from Oz. The subject was Speech Structure and I thought it excellent. Plenty of tips that you can’t hear enough of plus a new look at areas I hadn’t thought of. In particular, I liked the Table Topic structure that she outlined – Past, Present, Future. I had not heard this one before but will be using it in future.

Amazingly, Dick is already circulating!

At 10.15 our own Hilary Briggs, Area 33 Governor, ran an Evaluation workshop. I wasn’t able to attend as I was now worrying what I was going to say in the District Council meeting that followed. However, I heard from multiple sources that it was a great success.

After the mid morning coffee break was the District Council meeting where accounts and budgets and such sorts were approved. I think I got away with my bit!

After lunch (in a very nice wine bar called The Grapevine) I got soaked in the famous Irish rain, running back to the hotel. No time for that though. It was now the Humorous Speech contest.

We had eight competitors and, as ever, the standard was amazingly high. Our own David Jones was representing us and Excalibur and went second with his speech ‘The History of Art in 7 minutes and 29 seconds’. I thought he did a brilliant job. Gary Cooke of Cardinals had tidied up his slides and they looked great. David’s delivery was typically brilliant. However, there were other brilliant efforts and in the end David came third. He was very pleased with this.

The winner was Michael Cronin with a masterful speech about how men don’t read manuals and in particular his woes with a laptop of his. I am not sure I can remember seeing an audience laugh so much at a speech at a Humorous Speech contest before. I thought his first place well deserved. You can read about his success here.

After this I ventured to the gym. Bad mistake. The lack of sleep and excess of alcohol was taking its toll and after just a few measly minutes, I crawled back to my hotel room desperately in need of a rest!

The evening dinner was great fun, particularly as we were seated with the Tube Talk madcaps. At about 10pm I sensed that Dick was flagging. However, it is amazing what that extra glass on vino can do and sure enough he kept going 3am on Sunday morning. Almost an early night for him! Mrs Fred very sensibly suggested we retire at about 2am.

At 8am I had a judges briefing (why do I volunteer for this!???). Dick was there, all nicely rested!

After brekkie, it was into the Table Topics contest. The question was ‘Who has had the greatest influence on your life and why?’ As the contestants came through, one could sense the tension. Eventually David Jones came to the stage, representing us and London Olympians this time. He toyed with the question, twisting it one way and then another, bringing in loads of humour. When the results were in, there was a loud cheer as he was announced the winner. He was genuinely excited and pleased and in my unbiased opinion (moi?) a worthy winner.

After this excitement, we went into the Hall of Fame session. Last years District Governor, Mary Murtagh, gave awards in recognition for all the great things that have happened in our Clubs, Areas and Divisions as well as thank her District Council.

We started with individual achievement before heading to the Clubs and Areas. When the awards where given out for achievement under the Distinguished Club Programme, it was great to see how good a year we had last year. Dave Brooks, last years Area 31 Governor, Dave Sellman, last years Area 6 Governor and myself all achieved the highest award, the Preseidents Distinguished Area award. Additionally, Dorothea Stuart, achieved the Select Distinguished award. It was great to collect their awards on their behalf.

What followed was very funny. Mary talked about clubs and had awards to give to the largest clubs in the UK and Ireland as of June 30th. In first place was an award for Ratan Lele of Holborn Speakers for having the most members. I collected this on his behalf. I was just walking back to my seat when the second place was read out – Tori Craddock of London Cardinals! I duly turned round to collect this award too. Finally, as I am returning to my seat the third place is read out – Hakan Akbas for London Athenians. Aha! There was much amusement amongst the audience. Fabulous - it was a clean sweep for Division B.

Just before the end of the session, the main awards were given out for Area Governor of the year, Division Governor of the year and Toastmaster of the year. There was a huge round of applause and cheer as it was announced that young Dick Dixon was the Division Governor of the Year for 2007/8. He was very surprised and pleased and again it was highly deserved.

The flight back was truly horrendous but I shall save that for another day.

In summary, this was yet another massively successful conference for us in Division B. A successful workshop from Hilary, a first and third for David Jones, Div Guv of the year for Dick, lots of other awards too. This Division is truly on top of its game. Thank you to all of you for helping in making that a reality.

PS Alan Bywaters, President of Grosvenor Square Speakers proposed to his girlfriend Anetta in the grounds of Kilkenny Castle on conference Saturday. Madly, she said yes! Congratulations to both of them. It was a nice added bonus to a great weekend – perhaps we should make it a regular feature!