The evening opened with the Table Topics contest and the question was “Conservation or Development, which do you favour and why?” Scott Bryant from PowerTalk was the first contestant and his view was that you could not really have one without the other. Sue Voloczi, representing Western Founders followed a similar line to Scott believing that it was more a question of balancing one against the other.

Beth Colegate, from my home club Cannington Communicators was the third speaker and as all us Cannington Communicators knew, this was right up Beth’s street. Beth argued passionately for the Conservation route the first of the speakers to express a definite view. Vicki Post followed as a Fremantle Gourmet member and she also took the conservation view, talking about the Russian Geese who used to migrate to Mandurah but found their wet lands had been ‘developed’.

Then Judges left to give the counters time to tally the votes and then we took a break before the Humorous Speech contest was underway. I was tasked with warming the audience and used my short inspiration speech, “I’m Starving” anyone who has seen me will know how funny this is!

Lila Byart representing Cannington went on to relate the story we (at Cannington) have all now come to love about “My Dad’s Car Yard”. What made the whole story even funnier was that Dad was in the audience. Diana Veitch from Fremantle Gourmet entertained us with the story of her misbehaving pet parrot, who imitated phones and confused passers-by. Diana even managed to fashion herself a rather fetching red tail.

Sue Voloczi representing Western Founders was the next speaker and she told us all about her family’s early attempts at a caravanning holiday and the joys of parking. The final contestant was Glenn Wright from Power Talk. Glenn relayed a tale of his medical struggles with steroids and the effect on his weight. He was eventually able to come to terms with the fact that he was “Too Sexy for My Shirt”.

Once again the Judges retired for a few minutes before re-emerging to announce the results. In the Table Topics contest, Vicki Post was announced as winner and Sue Voloczi as runner up. In the Humorous Speech contest, Sue Voloczi was awarded the winner’s trophy with Diana Veitch runner up.

It must be said that Cannington Communicators did the Area proud by basically supplying almost the entire audience and with Sandra and Naomi both ‘stepping up to the plate’ to fill in for officials who had failed to put in an appearance.

I’ve just finished my first round of Governors visits to the four clubs in my Area, W28, and I’m pleased to say they are all tracking well. Not without some issues but as one ex-Prime Minister said “Life wasn’t meant to be easy”.

It’s the challenges and how we rise to meet them that makes the job of Area Governor so interesting. Having assumed the role of Area Governor besides visiting all four clubs (at leat twice) I have also gone along to other clubs and it really does make you realise that there are lots of different ways of achieving objectives.

This afternoon we are holding our first Area Executive meeting of the year and I am really looking forward to the Exchange of ideas from our various Executive members. Everyone brings a different experience to the table.

I’ll be sure to keep you all posted!

Cheers,
Gerry