Monday 28 April 2014

The Speakers Club (ASC) national Conference Glasgow 2014


Delegates arrive - View of floor 0 from floor 1 Radisson blu hotel

On the bus on the first evening on the way
to the Glasgow City  Chambers
This weekend I attended the Association of Speakers' Clubs' national conference in Glasgow (you may remember my post about the national conference at York in 2010 )


(Here is a link to the ASC website that has lots of resources and info, and here to Craven Speakers Club)


At the conference I was surprised  to find how many people have belonged to the ASC for many, many years -- until I realised I was no longer a newbie myself... Indeed, the date at the bottom of the Craven Speakers Club website reveals I have been a member for nine years now.

I looked at my own copy of the ASC manual -- and discovered the evaluation of my first speech was January 2005 - thank you Mavis for doing this - and thank you other people for writing up later evaluations. It does show I have improved. I don't look down at my feet any more (I hope)


In the Glasgow Civic Chambers watching
the Topics Competition

And ("phew") - I finally attempted my "masterpiece" (the level 10 speech) last month and passed.. So I just got it in before the end of my tenth year. (It was entitled "Falling in love with lichens", and I was evaluated and assessed for it at Bradford Speakers Club, having used the same speech in our speech competition the previous week at Skipton)


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Well, back to the conference:

We were based at the Radisson Blu hotel.  But on the first evening we went to a reception at Glasgow City Chambers and watched the topics competition.
 The Topic given for the Impromptu speech was "Spring is in the air"
 The Runner up was Clive Dawson from our Eastern Region (of which Craven Speakers  Club is part). He led the topic round to leaving wild parts in your garden for nature - which was a good call to action.


Clive and his trophy and certificate


The reception
A selfie at the Galsgow City Chambers Ladies' rest room


Saturday morning was the AGM.
The 2014 ASC AGM

The 2014 ASC AGM



A group of us went to lunch at the travel agent next door - who were busy promoting a cruise



In the afternoon we had a seminar on development and publicity about the ASC.
Sue who organised it had expected 30 and was very pleased with the large number that turned up.
I brought some photocopies of my article Twenty Top Tips for Successful Publicity Posters and some posters for our club and the Table top sale on 10 May in Skipton.


Seminar

In the evening there was a Meal
Demonstration of Scottish Highland Dancing before the ASE Meal on 26 April at Radisson Blu hotel





The highlight for me was the Evaluations Competition.

 A gentleman gave an 8 minute speech "25 years of the internet" _ A really good summary I thought to getting up to date and to looking back back on the 25th Anniversary of the start of the World Wide Web.
Then eight people, the winners from each of the 8 Regions in Britain each had to evaluate the speech. (Without seeing what the other people did)
The speech was a level 6 speech - being assessed for "Vocabulary and word pictures"
But I thought it was not a suitable speech for doing a word pictures talk  There are so many long words involved in describing the computing - html  (hypertext markup language) http, etc, that to add other descriptive  and emotional phrases would have made it too complicated.


The evaluations varied - The first two people passed the speech and praised  the extremely few (well I though one actually) word picture /simile that he gave -(that  Tim Berners-Lee  finding and sorting files was a bit like playing the game Happy Families.)


The following speakers were more critical and several suggested that he repeat the exercise using a different topic. They also tried to give illustrations of how he could use more vivid language.


I enjoyed watching how the different evaluators approached the topic. I was glad to see also that experienced evaluators could come up with different ideas about whether a speaker should move on to the next speech or not.





A quick reminder of the grand City Chambers




Monday 14 April 2014

Sycamore buds will not open till 16th April - I say on 14th - and other notes

I have this theory that the main tree leaves start to come out - the buds start to burst on 16th April - well around Settle anyway, and where the majority of the trees are sycamore - then one month later by 17th of May the sycamore trees are fully out, and are giving lots of shade. (Ash takes quite a bit longer)

Well we have had a mild winter and a mild March .. so I wondered of the tree leaves would come out earlier.


The sloe is just starting to come out on the 1st April -
View from Castleberg Crag/Gardens in Settle


View of St John's Church Hall from Castleberg on 1 April

Sycamore tree by Ribble on 1 April - no leaves


But look what is growing at the base of the tree - Syntrichia latifolia!!!






These buds are breaking on 11th April - but that's down at Settle so maybe that does not count.




The sycamore trees outside my house
on 12th April have leaves swollen waiting to break

However at Ripon on 14th April there are sycamores with unbroken buds.
The tree on the right is horse-chestnut but the tree on the left is sycamore,
And on our walk to the river Skell at Ripon on 14th
all the other shrubs may have been starting to
come out but the sycamore was not coming out.
It's great to get out and see the flowers.

Friday 11 April 2014

Wildflowers of Ingleton Churchyard Walk - 24 May 2014



Ingleton Overground Underground Festival 2014: 24-26 May www.ogug.co.uk
Wild Flowers Of Ingleton Churchyard 
Sat 24 May 6pm
Short walk round Ingleton churchyard led by - Doris Cairns Doris will display her book of watercolour paintings of the wild flowers of the Ingleton Churchyards followed by Light refreshments. Free/donations
Venue: 
St Mary’s Church, Ingleton
Left: Maidenhair Spleenwort, Ivy-leaved Toadflax 
and Wall Rue. Below: Early Dog-violet

Thursday 10 April 2014

Flowers of the Settle Carlisle Line: Illustrated Talk - Ingleton -24 May

Ingleton Overground Underground Festival 2014: 24-26 May www.ogug.co.uk
Illustrated Presentation
Flowers of the Settle Carlisle Line 
Venue: St Mary’s Church, Ingleton
Sat 24 May - 7.30pm- 8.30pm: Doors open and refreshments from 7pm
by local botanist - Dr Judith Allinson
£5.00 / Donations to St Mary’s Church and the Rainforest Fund.
Judith and members of Craven Conservation Group took part in survey work in the 1980s when the line was under threat of closure

Other posts relating to the Settle Carlisle Line

Carlisle Mosses - (Superb Syntrichia part 1) 24 Feb 2014

Settle Water Tower on Settle Carlisle Line 18 Feb 2012


Wednesday 9 April 2014

Mosses Beginners Course 24 May Chapel le Dale Church Ribblehead



Ingleton Overground Underground Festival 2014: 24-26 May www.ogug.co.uk

Discover the Secret World of
Mosses

Absolute Beginners’ Workshop at
Chapel le Dale Churchyard

2pm-4pm Sat 24 May

Join Judith Allinson
of Craven Conservation Group to learn tips to help you identify a dozen of our common big mosses. Absolute Beginners Welcome. Hand lenses available for loan. Judith has large paper models to explain the structure of different species. Cost: £10-00 (includes coffee/tea and hand-outs) Indoor session in St Leonard's Church  followed by short walk in churchyard. Booking requred  - 01729 822138 info@craven-conservation-group.org.uk

Lichens: Beginners Workshop 24 May Ingleton N Yorks




Ingleton Overground Underground Festival 2014: 24-26 May: www.ogug.co.uk:

Discover the Secret World of Lichens

Beginners’ Workshop at
Ingleton Churchyard
10am-12pm Sat 24 May

Lichens under a hand lens: see the beautiful shapes and colours.

Join Judith Allinson

of Craven Conservation Group: First, for an indoor session in St Mary’s Church-room, introducing the structure of lichens and showing some lichens brought in on twigs. Second, for a walk to test the newly written Lichen Trail around the churchyard. Hand lenses provided. Learn tips to help you identify different species. Cost: £5-00 (includes coffee/tea and hand-outs)

Booking necessary: 01729 822138 info@craven-conservation-group.org.uk

A poem on the web about lichens