Updates & Posts

We will be adding more articles to this page. To start: here are articles on speaking and articles giving personal views on the on the power of Toastmasters and an exciting joint meeting between London and Namibia.

D91 Speakers Bureau

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As the District 91 PR Manager, I receive requests for speakers from local interest groups, clubs and institutions for example Oddfellows, London Ashridge Circle, Rotary and WI. Such organisations usually request a list of speakers and their topics. My solution is to create a page on our website with available speakers that I can point them to – a kind of Speakers Bureau.

The intention is to offer our members the opportunity to speak outside of their Toastmasters clubs and gain even more experience of public speaking. However, you will of course be representing Toastmasters. A fine balance is therefore required on quality and eagerness. As a consequence, I have drafted some criteria for those wishing to be listed in the Speakers Bureau.

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Meet a Leader – Ola Aralepo

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Ola Aralepo is a very funny man, a cheeky chappie, so no wonder he recently won the District 91 Humorous Speech Contest. Our D91 PR Manager, Nigel Oseland, caught up with him over a hot chocolate at Royal Festival Hall on a damp cold November morning.

You have an unusual name, where does that come from?

Yes Ola is unusual, by English standards, but it is very international: Nigerian, Sierra Leonian, Norwegian and Polish. In Yoruba it means riches and the full name Olatokunbo is “wealth acquired overseas”. It’s also a bit like “hola” in Spanish meaning hello, but Ola is also Dutch for “Walls” ice cream.  Oh you mean Aralepo, that means “fulgurite” or “thunderbolt”. So my full name implies I am wealth waiting to be discovered (hopefully soon) or simply “ice cream thunderbolt”. I was born in London, raised in Lagos and I’m now back in London.

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DLT Dispatches – November 2017

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Pedro Casillas (District Director)
 

For those of you who attended the Autumn Conference at Gatwick, I hope you will agree that it was a wonderful showcase of all that is great in D91: superb Table Topics; very humorous speech contest and well run and received workshops. I am very much looking forward to our Spring conference on 5-6 May! Hope you will all join us there!

Farewell Autumn Conference

With the close of the Autumn Conference for the last time, we are in the process of setting up a committee, let by Area Director, Dee Alimi, to review how we will handle District business from 2018, with no Autumn Conference. Watch this space for updates over the coming months.

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What a Day, What a Conference! By Paul Rhys-Taylor

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Our last Autumn Conference was held at Gatwick Airport. This one-day event was packed full of value to inform, educate and entertain members and guests from across the District and beyond. Next year, districts will only be required to hold one annual conference, the Spring one in May.

As the Conference was held at Gatwick Airport it had a flight theme and by the end of it we were flying high. The keynote speech was brought by Aletta Rochat who flew in from South Africa to join us. Aletta is the Region Advisor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Toastmasters International – and what an inspiring and affirming keynote it was! Aletta described and gave value to a range of essential service leadership qualities and then she invited District Director Pedro Casillas, to recognise members in the room who exemplified each one. There were also edifying Communications and Leadership workshops run by well-respected district leaders.

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