Tuesday 23rd April 2019 by Sonja Bonin
My club keeps amazing me. Officials and members alike kept up the contest season momentum with a special speech marathon or rather: speech “iron man” as Nicola fondly called it, last night. 10 speeches, 10 speed evaluations of only 1 minute and an elaborate moderation by toastmaster of the evening Nicola von Lutterotti.
The line-up couldn’t have been more diverse and exciting, ranging from one very successful icebreaker to several impressive Pathways projects to some competent communication and advanced communication speeches such as a hilarious “roast” of another member by Margherita Brodbeck Roth.
Who would have thought that so much hard work and excitement could deliver so much fun in the end! Seems like our energy level just keeps on rising, even after we’ve just completed an extensive set of competitions this season.
Which reminds me: Chapeau to our club founder, Lesley Stephenson, and our acting president, Michelle Sabatini, travelling to Genoa to represent us at the District level!
Concluding our ultra-long speech night (which, by the way, will be repeated due to high demand, on May 14th!), Lesley addressed the elephant in the room: When she founded this club, she reminded us, it was with half of the original club’s 60 members – because the club had simply grown too large. It was time to split then, she said, and, given that we’ve just accepted our 62ndmember and had to impose a temporary admission freeze until fall, it might be time to split this one soon, too. Which would break our hearts, obviously, because we have all grown so fond of each other over the years.
Perhaps we can postpone that measure by adding repeated speech “ultras” in the future? Rumors have it our lovely and energetic club officials are already at work to implement just that … so stay tuned!