Mole Valley Speakers Club
I went to the first meeting in a long time, last night at Mole Valley Speakers Club.
This club had been recommended to me by Norman R. of Maidenhead Speakers; I believe he played some part in helping to found it.
Anyway, it was a very interesting evening. It was the first time I’d been to a club other than Maidenhead Speakers and it was helpful to see another way of going about Toastmasters.
One thing I liked was the warm-up. At the start of the evening, everyone in the audience was encouraged to stand up and talk for a short time on their favourite recollection of something they missed. That’s not something I’d seen at Maidenhead. It got everyone involved, evoking nostalgia for steam locomotives and Starsky and Hutch.
There were clearly some very experienced speakers. In fact the overall quality was very high; it looks like Maidenhead doesn’t have a monopoly on highly talented people.
As at Maidenhead, everyone was very welcoming, and I even got the chance to give a Table Topic. (Alison, the club president, was very kind in warning me this might happen at the start of the evening.)
Having not spoken for over six months, I was a little worried I might be nervous, especially in front of a new audience. In fact, this was the first time I’d spoken to anyone other than Maidenhead Speakers Club.
Mercifully, it was an easy topic: “My favourite meal in a restaurant”. Alison was generous, even warning the audience beforehand it would be about food, to give us time to think.
And I relaxed and really enjoyed it. It was a gentle re-introduction and it seemed to go down okay. Public speaking, it seems, is like riding a bike 
