By Peter Thomas, Member of TPR Speakers
TPR Speakers, now in its third year as a corporate club, is starting to make waves both internally and externally. The club has evolved from a platform for senior staff to refine their public speaking skills to a much broader and organisational wide learning and development tool.
A new committee has also brought renewed energy, attending three separate training workshops over the summer and actively promoting the club internally and externally. Attendance has almost doubled at our fortnightly meetings with a greater emphasis on engagement leading to a more focused and productive environment whilst still maintaining an element of fun.
In April we welcomed Toastmasters International CEO, Dan Rex, to Brighton on his world wide tour and our own CEO, Lesley Titcomb gave us a public recognition recently – TPR Speakers is driving forward!
The club gained its first two Competent Communicators, prior to the introduction of Pathways, as Juliet Mullany led the way in completing her ten speeches. We were also represented at the Area 55 competition round by Melanie Jarman for her humorous speech and Kimberly Middleton in the table topics contest.
The club has welcomed guests and representatives from many other clubs in Sussex over the past year and also received a speech from a professional Toastmaster. Thanks to the endeavours of VP of Education, Ollie Martin, we already have two workshops and an awards meeting planned for 2019. Should anyone like to come along, you are more than welcome!