Over the weekend (9th -10th May) District 91 held it’s annual Spring Conference and we saw the first International Speech contest at Evaluation Contest awards for this new District. Held at the 5 star Grange Hotel in Tower Hill, just a short walk from our own Toastmasters venue (St Botolph’s Church).
There has been a lot of change and excitement over the past year. Due to the growth and popularity of Toastmasters across the UK particularly in London, a brand new District was created to cover UK South. Known as District 91 and effective since July 2014, this provided greater opportunities for people to take part, learn and continue being empowered to develop their communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.
So it was important for the first District 91 Spring Conference to go off with a bang; it certainly didn’t disappoint, featuring contests, workshops, dinner, dancing and good times to catch with old friends and meet new acquaintances.
The contests in the Spring Conference are for speech and evaluations; all of the contestants have battled through their Club, Area and Division contests over the past 3 months to get these finals – the winner of the Speech contest going on to represent UK South at the Finals being held in Las Vegas this year.
The calibre was incredible and plenty of inspiring thoughts. Congratulations to Jeremy Robinson (NZICA Bank Speakers) who won the Speech Contest and Alex De Jong (North Avon Speakers) who won the evaluation contest.
Coming up is the Autumn Conference in Swindon from 7-8th November and will feature the table topics and humorous speech contests. More information and details to book will be available soon – so keep an eye out.
Ga Lok Chung – Club President
