It’s worth reflecting that with this meeting, the club effectively tripped the clock into a second year of exclusively virtual meetings. And while many Toastmasters clubs have subsequently struggled, Tunbridge Wells Speakers Club has risen to the challenge and not just survived, but thrived, as evidenced by another wonderful evening that saw Toastmaster Ron Mayne preside over prepared speeches delivered by Tonderai, Simon, and Charlotte.

Tonderai continued his dynamic leadership journey, in part exploring the dichotomy between human and machine thinking. Simon gave a reprise of his emotionally challenging Prejudice and Pride contest speech. And in the third of the evening’s three prepared speeches, two-time Table Topics winner Charlotte produced a very accomplished icebreaker speech. Evaluations were given by Dom, Qaya, and Marie.

Topicsmaster Qaya facilitated the impromptu speaking session of the evening on the theme of childhood. Our Table Topics Champion for the week was Danielle who spoke about her first love, Ian ….. no, not that one.

Grammarian Islay offered ‘dichotomy’ as the Word of the Day which is defined as, division into two parts or classifications, especially when they are sharply distinguished or opposed (collinsdictionary.com). It is rumoured that there were nearly 30 uses of the word through the evening, although a sizable number of those were by Ian ….. yes, that one.

Well done to Islay for stepping in at the last minute to take on the role of Grammarian and congratulations to all the speakers and everyone taking a role.