I am now a member of Toastmasters International

I joined East Midlands Speakers’ Club last year to support two friends with whom I had worked in the 1980s. We chartered to Toastmasters International in June, celebrating by holding our first speech contest and  a charter dinner at the end of September.

East Midlands Speakers Club - Charter Dinner

Here are the members of East Midlands Speakers Club ‘dressing to impress’ at the dinner with the exception of me who was taking the picture.

Two of our members won our Area speech contest held on 5th October.  Judy Dyer won the humourous speech contest with her tale of Gregory, her green parrot, and Stuart Webb proved that he could speak extempore by winning the table topics contest.

They both went on to take part in the divisional (UK and Ireland) contest in York on 19th October.  Stuart came third in this national competition.

As for me, I have been participating in all the ‘leadership’ roles as required by the competent leadership award, and reached my Level 5 speech in the competent communicator programme last Monday October 20th.

The objective of the Level 5 speech is ‘Your Body Speaks.’ The evaluation concentrates on posture, gestures, body movement, facial expression and eye contact. I chose to speak about gothic bellydancing, which naturally gave me scope. Watch the YouTube video to see how I performed.

My camera had been set to video-email, which explains its tiny dimensions.

First published 25th October 2008.

I look forward to the summer as a quiet time, but this summer has been anything but.  Perhaps it’s just that I’ve been using the time to catch up with tasks that I haven’t had the opportunity to tackle before.

This summer, I have finally succeeded in downloading video from both my JVC Everio (read how awkward that episode managed to be) and also from my JVC tape camcorder, which was used to film my show last year – How to Get On In Society! – a review of the life, poetry and broadcasting of Sir John Betjeman.

I was able to edit the files to produce videos of five of the songs that I sang, musical settings of Betjeman’s poems by Madeline Dring and Mervyn Horder, and uploaded them to YouTube.  Watch them at my YouTube channel. 

Performing at How to Get On In Society!, Leicester, September 2007. Song of a Nightclub Proprietress, poem by John Betjeman, music by Madeline Dring.

I also uploaded a video of Tom Chambers, a friend of my son George, reciting A Subaltern’s Love Song.  He really was the right age for it.  JB sounds just a bit too old and leery when you listen to him.

Well done Tom!

First published 21st September

Excerpts from the first seven performances at Gothla UK 2008, British Theatre Dance Association, Leicester, 18th July.

Excerpts from six of the later performances at Gothla UK 2008. Deva Matisa expressly asked not to be filmed.

Video and editing by Sue Hutton. Videos uploaded to GothlaUK YouTube site.

First published 24th July 2008.

The second Gothla UK event took place in Leicester, UK, this last weekend, 18th-20th July 2008.

The hafla was held in the theatre of the British Theatre Dance Association.  Fourteen acts included some of the foremost exponents of gothic bellydancing – Ariellah, Sashi and Tempest from the USA, Deva Matisa from Germany and Morgana from Spain, as well as performers from around UK.

I have been the webmistress for Gothla UK since the beginning of 2007 and instrumental in setting up the online payment system.  I print the tickets, design the posters, send out the newsletters, maintain the blog and generally liaise with managers of the venues in Leicester in partnership with my daughter Rosie.

Over the weekend, I’ve stood on duty in the booking office at BTDA, been ‘chick on the door’ at Studio 79 and minded the Gothla stall at the souk (bellydance accoutrements).

The event passed off very smoothly. We had ladies coming from as far afield as the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy and Sweden as well as from all over UK.  It looks as if it will become an annual event.

I’m very pleased and proud to air this video I took of Rosie, stage name Aarachna, dancing at the hafla on Friday evening.  Her backing track was Exterminate, Annihilate, Destroy by Rotersand. As her intro stated, there’s not a cyberman, doctor nor dalek in sight!

First published 22nd July 2008.

I travelled with the Leicester Bach Choir to Germany between 13th-16th June 2008. We visited Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where J S Bach worked for the last 27 years of his life

We sang a concert of accompanied and a capella pieces of European Sacred Music in the Stadtkirche of Meiningen on Saturday evening to an audience of over 100. The acoustic was tremendous.

We also sang the accompanied items in the morning service at Georgenkirche in Eisenach on Sunday. J S Bach was baptised at the font in the church.

View the photos on Flickr.

The video shows some of the more informal moments of our tour around Eisenach.

First published 18th June 2008.