City of London Speakers

Tonight, I opened my first meeting as president of this club. It was both more nerve-wracking and smoother than I had anticipated. Here is the substance of what I said:

Good evening everyone, and welcome. My name is Philip Hellyer, and I am the president of this club, the City of London Speakers.

Recently, I overhead a conversation. A man was telling his friend how much he wanted to buy something at amazon, but just couldn’t. And what was stopping him? It wasn’t a lack of money, or an absence of knowledge or comfort with e-commerce. It wasn’t a failure of high-technology.

It was his doorbell. A broken doorbell that he’d been meaning to get fixed. Without a working doorbell, he feared that he would not hear the delivery arrive, and so he did not order.

And yet, how easily fixed. How easily worked around. And for ourselves, how many small things stand between us and what we want to achieve? That is partly why we are here, to help one another surmount the small things that we are avoiding, to provide mutual support.

I’m sure that I also spoke briefly about leadership and communication, which forms part of the mission of our (and every) Toastmasters club. The General Evaluator (Robert Gothan) suggested that I ought to have been more explicit, although happily the Toastmaster of the evening (Natalie Clue) took it upon herself to include such things in her opening remarks.

Thanks to all for a successful beginning of this, our new year.