With limited time before Wendy House takes a massive three-month summer break, we partied hard post-Eurovision.
Last month I attended the Toastmasters D71 (UK & Ireland) spring conference in Torquay. It featured the district finals of the international speaking contest and evaluation contest, as well as a fancy dress disco, banquet and a series of workshops.
Torquay was quite a drive, taking nearly six hours from door to door once you include picking people up. I’ve also decided that it rains more often in Leeds than it does in Bristol – because it only really rains once in Bristol, and just keeps going forever. The weather at Torquay was a bit better, but certainly not the sun I was hoping for.
We turned up on the Thursday night, which I thought was just going to be a social. As such, we turned up an hour after the start having been to a restaurant first, and walked in to find a formal sit down meeting – a little embarrassing, but we were soon settled into our seats.
The workshops were very enjoyable. I took plenty from all of the ones I attended and would have liked to see more of them – after all, I imagine there are plenty of Toastmasters who would be willing to get some stage time to deliver one.
The semi finals were interesting too, but things really got interesting when we got to the finals as the big stage really adds something to the speeches. The winner of the speech contest, William Dempster, won with a speech entitled “Scotch, The Way To A Better Life”. It won because of it’s clear purpose and William’s beautiful delivery – must mostly because it’s just objectively true.
Torquay as a place is a bit tired, especially the conference centre. It felt a little corporate too – the big pubs seemed to be a Wetherspoon, a Harvester and a Beef Eater. We stayed at The Grand, which would have been a nice hotel, but is now dating fast. It reminds me of the Britannia in Manchester – beautiful building and huge rooms, but the endlessly creaking floors and ageing facilities make for a disappointing experience. The pool was small and too shallow to swim in properly, but to their credit the staff were very friendly and helpful.
The catering was a mixed bag. I enjoyed both the Friday night buffet and the Saturday banquette, the standard of food was quite high at both. Elina didn’t have much luck with the buffet though as everything had onions in it (which she can’t eat). We didn’t specify it as a dietary requirement as she can just eat the things that don’t have onion in, but in an unexpected twist, they had put onions in almost everything.
Some things you expect it in, but there was onion mixed in with the salmon and the pasta. We weren’t sure about the quiche, so we asked the woman behind the table, but she said she didn’t know – what is the point of her even standing there at a self service buffet when she doesn’t know what the food is? Surely her only job is to answer questions about the food?
There was a lack of younger people there and I wonder if that lead to a bit of a generation gap. I found some of the procedure a little strange – playing the national anthem, toasting the queen and saying grace before the meal. I didn’t take part in any of these and felt rather uncomfortable having them included. One guest even hit me in a “you insulent youngster” kind of way.
I also find some of the comments made by people speaking to be racist or sexist. Examples including Kwame being interviewed, “that’s not a British name – where are you from? How long have you been here? 20 years – that’s pretty settled then!” Or an area govenor being described as having “hot little hands”, down to little things like people refusing to sit down at dinner before the women sat down (needless to say I just sat down) or a steam of jokes that that reinforced inaccurate gender stereotypes on both sides.
That certainly isn’t a reflection on the majority of the conference though, which on the whole was a very pleasant and professional experience. The conference team did an excellent job of organising everything, all the events ran smoothly and you felt you were in competent hands throughout the event. They can be really proud of the event that they put together.
In summary, I did enjoy the conference and look forward to attending further conferences in the future.
Last month, I attended QED for the first time. I’ve not been in previous years due to the cost, but having more disposable income now, I’m making an effort to get round the various conferences.
They certainly had a good speaker line up. I don’t think it was as good as TAM, but is better than the BHA’s conference this year, and both TAM and BHA Con are twice the price that QED was. In value for money terms, it was OK. There was no food provided during the weekend, so the £99 ticket price is actually more when you factor that in.
I also attended the Gala Dinner, which was supposed to have Brooke Magnanti on our table. She missed the dinner, which I didn’t mind too much as I was hosting her at Leeds Skeptics a few days after, but I might have been rather disappointed if not.
The speakers themselves varied in quality. Natalie Haynes was a bit of a disappointment because her speaking style is incredibly erratic – she was constantly darting back and forward on the stage and her talk had very little structure. It was still interesting and funny, but could have been a lot better. Rose Shapiro also seemed a bit out of her depth when it came to public speaking.
Stevyn Colgan justified his place as opening keynote though, with a brilliant talk about applying skepticism to police work, Rachael Dunlop was as entertaining and charming as ever, and Carrie Poppy delivered a brilliant talk too. Brian Thompson was a delight as Master of Ceremonies as well – imagine an American version of Andrew Copson and you’ve got a pretty accurate picture.
The star of the show for me, and I imagine many other people too though, was Lawrence Krauss, who presented an outstanding talk on how you get a universe from nothing. Well worth watching the video for that once it is posted.
The Cheltenham Festival is the biggest event in the racing calendar. Only the Grand National can top it for prize money, and none can top the Gold Cup for prestige. Having spent the past four years in the gaming industry, it’s always a big week.
Most of the betting companies had a smooth week technical wise. Corals had some real problems with their website, and Bet Victor and Paddy Power had some big outages too – but everyone else came through it rather smoothly.
I made the mistake of following the tips from the racing team – and ended the week rather down. But it’s all in good fun, and I did manage three winners, just not particularly well priced ones.
Recently, Leeds Engage hosted Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association. It was a good talk, as we would expect from Andrew, though it would have been nice to see more people there – I don’t think Leeds Engage spoke to Atheist Society as they had 25 people at an attend the night before, and only a few of us turned up to this.
Where better to celebrate a birthday than Blackhouse?
I’m pleased to report that White Rose Speakers experienced great success with our Open Meeting last week!
The agenda finally came together, albeit with only one prepared speech as the other speaker dropped out on the morning of the event and included lots of our regular members returning as well as a visit from our Area Governor Shelagh, who it is always a pleasure to have along.
More importantly however, we signed up two brand new members and one-relapsed member, giving a positive boost to our numbers. We have lots more exciting plans in the works too, so the future for the club is looking bright.
A big warm welcome to Chris and Martin!
Last week, we attended BettaKultcha for the first time.
It’s an idea that seems to have sprung up across the UK – the idea is that you have lots of speakers, usually at least a dozen, and they each get to speak for five minutes. They have twenty sides, and these automatically transition every 15 seconds – so you have to fit your talk around that!
This event was the first one they had held at Leeds Town Hall, and an audience of 100-150 people were probably there. Talks included competitive dominos, fashion blogging, things you can do your body in the name of art, pet psychics (mocking of) and many others. All in all, a really good night of entertainment.
For some reason, Miah’s Kitchen had a limo. Bryce wanted a picture next to it, but I couldn’t fit the whole car in lol.
With our most recent meeting being the last of the year, I had organised a meal at Miah’s Kitchen after the meeting, so we could celebrate the festival season at Leeds City.
