Clitheroe Speakers Club, Lancashire,  England

CLITHEROE SPEAKERS CLUB ..... a typical programme for one of our meetings, & lower down this page a description of what goes on:

		AGENDA
	Hostess & timekeeper		Penny Ogden
	Wecome & business items		The President
	Chairman for evening		Gordon Taylor
	First speech		John Adey
	Second speech		Dorothy Gertson
	Topics		Stanley Blackburn
		Interval
	Evaluation of first speech		Margaret Banks
	Evaluation of 2nd. speech		Dennis Ogden
	Evaluation of the topics		Stephen Clarke
	General evaluator		Chris Carr

What actually happens ? Read on, and hopefully you'll get some idea
Ideally you should pay us a visit, where you can be assured of a  friendly welcome and you can sit quietly without saying a word -  merely observing. You are welcome to remain a member of the audience for as many meetings as you want - treat the evenings as interesting and entertaining social occasions. People start arriving from 7 p.m. onwards, with much arranging of tables in the meeting room. At 7.30 p.m. the President for the current year calls for order  and together with the secretary launches into the business session, dealing with matters arising from the last meeting, correspondence, dates in the diary and so on. The meeting is then handed over to the chairman (chairperson ? chairlady ?) for the evening who controls things from then on.
First  a speech by one of the members. Our 'Speakers Manual' guides us through 10 assignments. The guide doesn't say what you should speak about, the subject is up to you. What it does explain is that each  assignment asks you to concentrate on a particular aspect of speaking - vocabulary, humour, gestures and so on.
And  each speech is evaluated by a more experienced member - helpful and constructive observations on such points as stance, voice projection and clarity, speech construction.

Speeches should last between 6 and 8 minutes. Finally .... applause !!!

Whether you think you were good. bad or absolutely awful you will get  sincere applause because many in the audience have been there, done it, have themselves been awful, bad, or good. We know how you feel .  . . we sympathise.
Now our chairman for the evening hands over to the 'topics chairman'.

The topics chairman asks those who participate to speak for 3 minutes  on a subject he or she springs on them out of the blue. Frightening ! ! ! It gets better with practice - but anyone can and does dry up  after only a few seconds.
(If I grind to a halt after only 10 seconds, experience in the Speakers Club means I don't worry about it).
Like most things in the Club it's voluntary. If you don't want to  speak, or answer a topic, tell the chairman.  Social members are valued as members of the audience - without an audience we would be very much worse off !
What isn't voluntary ? Paying the subscription . . . . after a couple  of visits as a visitor we do ask for the annual sub. (£25 for the 2003/04 session, for example but a reduced sub. if you join after the half-way mark).
In the interval we make tea and coffee in the adjacent kitchen for which we ask 50p.

After the speeches and the topics session come the evaluations. This,  really, is what Speakers Club is all about. . . . making use of a more experienced member to look out for your strengths and weaknesses.

Again the Manual gives guidance for both the speaker and the evaluator, so that a newish speaker doesn't get a too-strict evaluation, and conversely a long-serving member is guided away from developing weak points in his or her presentation.

Finally the General Evaluator gives an overall impression of the evening, and soon after 9.30 we all go home, although social chatter can go on a bit!