The Reigate Rhetoric

Meeting 13th April 2026
Our first April meeting went really well. We’re definitely in the groove of having full, fun and engaging evenings. Thanks to everyone for contributing and for playing your parts. And in particular, thanks to Heidi for organising every meeting, getting all the roles filled and taking care of everything.
The evening started, as ever, with a great opening and a quote from Julie, to set the mood. Tonight it was about mistakes and learning from failure. Thanks Julie!
The Toastmaster was Heidi, stepping in last minute as there had been some changes. Heidi’s been Toastmaster a fair few times now, and always brings positivity, fun and energy to the role.
The warm up was organised by Ritesh, who asked us about new years resolutions! Mainly because it’s his own new year this week, in Nepal. That got us thinking!
We had two great speeches. Michael shared about his mentor and role model, Bob, who seemed to be running his organisation in an ethical, person centred way. It was inspiring to hear. I evaluated him, and was happy to be able to observe and see Michael’s continuing improvements.
Second speech was by Richard, who gave us a great insight into his youth, his journey and his vision. And a rare mention of rap music at a Toastmasters meeting! He was evaluated by Alan – his first evaluation, which was great to hear. Well done Alan for stepping up.
I offered a brief tutorial about giving good evaluations, and shared some structures of how to evaluate well. We have great evaluators at the club, and I was happy to point out some of what is being done well. Evaluations are such a great way to help our speakers grow and develop.
Kieran’s table topic session was fab – all about risk, comfort zone and stretch. 5 speakers managed to offer heartfelt, engaging and interesting thoughts. Freddie evaluated them well, and managed to offer commendations and recommendations to all.
Clinton had two roles to bring the evening together. He was Hark master, and quizzed us in a thorough but also jovial way, to see how well we’re listening! And then the general evaluation was outstanding – bringing all the learning from the evening together. It was super strong.
The evening was lots of fun, we had a couple of guests, and continue to offer great experiences. Thanks everyone for coming along!

What a wonderful evening – our International Speech and Evaluation Contests evening. We showed that, although a smaller club, we can put on a good show. Everyone did tremendously well, pulled together and gave us a great evening.
We had two guests attend, both of whom have been in touch since and said they are keen to join. That’s a real testament to how everyone did.

We had visitors too – Gillian Prior, our chief judge and old friend of The Reigate Rhetoric, Rafael Guzman, our esteemed area director, our guest speaker Shona Snow, and her partner, fellow Toastmaster Dionne . They were all very welcome.
The whole event was pulled together by Heidi, our super impressive Education officer.
I chaired the competition, so was able to bring the meeting along. I’ve seen a few over the years!

Our International Speech Contest was of a really high quality. Kieran gave a strong speech about the pull and the joy of the theme park, and to be proud of this. Ruth gave us a moving and heartfelt story of how she has managed to break through the glass ceiling in corporate life. And Freddie shared his struggles and having gone through his first general anaesthetic. All powerful, impactful speeches. Ruth won!

And the Evaluation Contest was equally compelling. Our guest Shona gave a strong, story-based speech about her son and his desire to have a phobia! It was very strong, and hard for our three evaluators to find recommendations.
Our evaluators were Ritesh, Clinton and Andy. All very strong, interesting and well delivered evaluations. Andy, in his first competition, won!

We had plenty going on in the evening. A warm down, having lots of people come and give brief talks on random subjects. A contestants’ interview, when they shared the inspiration for their speeches. And of course, the award and certificate presentation.

Congratulations to Ruth and Andy. They go on to represent The Reigate Rhetoric at the area competition on 17th March. We wish them the very best!

26th January meeting. Our second meeting of the year, and it was another great one. We had two guests – Robbie and Andy – both of whom said they were going to join! That’s fab and shows that we can give a good, positive and inclusive experience for our guests.

Heidi was our Toastmaster for the evening, and ran a great session. She kept things well on track, was super encouraging throughout, and was able to bring plenty of positivity to the occasion. Kieran did a warm up, encouraging us to think of sunnier times ahead and our holidays. Then the three speeches, which were all super strong. Clinton shared a personal experience of how he manages to stay positive and focussed amongst the challenging news that we all read. Ritesh found some fascinating explanations about the complexity of AI, that we’re all grappling to understand. And Richard took us back to the Covid days, and shared the personal learnings that he took from those strange days. Richard won the speech award.

The evaluations were also very strong. Doris, Ruth and I all looked to add value to our speakers by sharing ideas, thoughts and insights. As ever, when she evaluates, Doris won the evaluation award.

Then the Marmite part of the evening – the table topics. Kieran was back up, and gave us some fascinating topics to get stuck into. Clearly he has summer holidays on his mind as the questions all revolved around travel. We had 5 speakers, all getting over 1.30 and all with interesting stories. For the second time our guest Andy won the topics award. Congratulations. Ruth evaluated all the topics speakers and brought her customary energy and enthusiasm to the stage, and offered helpful perspectives.

Before I did a general evaluation and brought the evening to an end, Clinton came back up to be Harkmaster. We’re getting used to this role, and it revolves around careful listening. Clinton had about 20 questions about things that had happened during the evening, and it was a fun and challenging way to show we had been paying attention!

Another great evening, and although I never need it, another reminder why I still love Toastmasters, 17 years on from joining.
Thanks everyone!

Our February meetings:

9th – standard club meeting. Our area director, Rafael Guzman, is visiting us
23rd – club competition night!

See you then and have a good week.