The annual Speakeasy Toastmasters humorous speech contest drew a large attendance of both guests and members to the Hibernian hotel last Thursday night. As usual there was a high standard of speeches on display and the competition was keen. Liam Flynn gave a fascinating story of how he successfully turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse. While strolling through the stalls in Castletownroche his astute wheeling and dealing led him to a nice little profit. He returned home with a valuable silk purse having started out that morning with nothing more than a plastic sow’s ear that even his dog had refused to play with.
The purchase of a prize bull by Rona Coughlan’s mother gave Rona great material for her speech and gave the audience ample hearty laughs. It appears that even though this bull jumped out of the trailer in a blaze of glory, when he was confronted by a herd of cows he only wanted to “moo-ve” back to where he came from. In truth this was a speech full of “gay-ety”.
Brendan Foley enthralled the audience with his account of a return journey to Dublin after 18 months spent touring the World. What he expected to be a two hour stopover in Los Angeles airport turned into twelve hours of torture without sleep, food, or drink. Even the beggar man outside the door had more money in his box than Brendan had in his pocket. However the whole experience wasn’t wasted after he crafted the tale into belly aching laugh-a-ton for the contest.
The theme for a speech can come from the most unlikely of sources as demonstrated by Claire O Connell in her speech about “Middle Class Climbers”. Having studied the behaviour of these creatures at her local “posh” bar she demonstrated her ability to entertain an audience with the most unlikely of subjects.
In the topics contest on the night all six speakers had two minutes to discuss the success of the Tidy Towns Competition in cleaning up our country. The consensus was that we have cleaned up our act but there were some weaknesses highlighted. The condition of our streets at 3am on a Sunday morning and the ugly habit of fly tipping our rubbish on the quiet country roadsides were of particular concern.
At the conclusion of a great night’s entertainment the plaudits went to Rona Coughlan in the Speech contest and Pat Sexton in the topics contest.
Contact Noel 087 2427485 or Cáit on 087 2185178
Follow us on Facebook ‘Speak Easy Toastmasters’, on Twitter @speakeasytm, our blog http:speakeasytm.blogspot or our website www.speakeasytoastmasters.com
