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Monday, 5 October 2026

Speakers Clubs in Yorkshire & NE England - Tips, Confidence & Fun: - Practice in Public Speaking - Meeting Times

Frightened of speaking in public?

Article updated in October 2026

You are not alone. So are 80 percent of the British public.

Gain a "New You"  by joining a friendly supportive Speakers Club
    and gain confidence, encouragement and skilled feedback.

 The  Association of Speakers Clubs is divided into six regions. We are in the Eastern Region. 
2026: Note the division of clubs into different regions  of the National Association is currently being changed slightly  and I will report on this once it is sorted.

The Eastern Region is divided into two Areas:

1. Yorkshire Dales Area   with three clubs:- (plus a fourth related club)

 Craven (at Skipton), Bradford (online by Zoom) and
Halifax-and-Huddersfield,  
(and fourth club::-Keighley - NB this one is not registered as an ASC club, )

2. Yorkshire and North East with five clubs:-

Tyneside, Newcastle, York, Wetherby, Sheffield 

For meeting times and locations,  
keep scrolling down
      -----

Why you should Join a Speakers Club:


  • Tongue-tied and frightened to speak? 
  • Experienced, but want challenge and mental stimulation?
  • A wedding, a new job, or a school presentation demands a speech?
     We can help!
Our clubs are good value, good fun, and a great deal cheaper than attending a commercial speakers' course which could easily cost £800 or more. 

We offer what you need:
practice, motivation, feedback, encouragement, fun & practice, the chance to experiment
.. and did I say.... practice?

Enquiries AND MORE FUN And Friendship!
If you wish, you are very welcome just to sit and listen. No need to speak
All clubs welcome new members.
For those who relish a challenge the clubs offer:-
... occasional interclub competitions
... the chance to help others in their journey
... the chance to analyse and experiment with one's own speeches.

West Yorkshire Area:

Skipton: Craven Speakers Club

NEW LOCATION:
Skipton Quakers: The Ginnel, Off Newmarket Street , BD23 2JA 
Directions: 
From the bottom of High Street  (Roundabout)  walk along Newmarket St past Devonshire (Wetherspoons) pub and turn right on the Ginnel (1/4 mile).

Autumn 2026 programme:- All meetings now live in Skipton: 


14 Sept

28 Sep;

12 Oct

26 Oct;

9 Nov

23 Nov

7 Dec


Mondays: 6.45pm - 9.00pm 
Currently the group has no website, 
But it does have a facebook page
facebook.com/cravenspeakers

But here is a link to a website from long ago, 
and here are posts on this blog about speakers club
 posts about speakers clubs on this blog apart from a page on this blog


2014: National conference Glasgow
2025: Area meeting at Huddersfield


 Fortnightly Monday evening
 Enquiries    07494 335 853
It has a facebook page 





Bradford: (currently by zoom - )
email
Bradford Club meets on the second and fourth Wednesday each month at 7.30pm
(It used to meet at Baildon Old Hall Club, Hallfield Drive, BD17 6NH and met the second and fourth Wednesday each month)

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Halifax and Huddersfield
Meetings are held on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month from September to June 2024 (inclusive) at
Waterhouse Homes Community Lounge
Harrison Road
Halifax
HX1 2AZ

Contact number: 07800 808569

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Keighley - 

This group is not affiliated to the ASC. They meet on the second Tuesday of the month between 1.30pm - 3.30pm at: Keighley New Church,  Braithwaite Road, Keighley,

It mostly comprises members of the other three ASC Yorkshire Dales Groups. If you want details of how to contact them, please contact me



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Yorkshire and the North East Area 

Wetherby 1st,3rd,5th Thursday Linton Memorial Hall, Linton Lane, Linton, Wetherby LS22 4HL
Meetings commence at 7.45 for 8.00 pm and finish at approximately 10.00 pm. Contact


York Speakers Club:
York RI Bowls Club, Ashton Lane, Holgate, York, YO24 4HX https://www.yorkspeakersclub.com/
contact@yorkspeakersclub.com
Phone: 01904 270300

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Sheffield Speakers:
Sheffield Speakers Club is about to launch a brand new website.. Come back in a few days/weeks 
Second Tuesday of each month. Come along and have a free session. After that if you wish to join the membership fee is £5.00 a month payable by direct debit.
Sheffield Speakers Club website is here:
2nd Tuesday 19:45 "St Timothy's Community Hall 
136 Slinn St, Crookes, Sheffield S10 1NZ"  Contact


Newcastle Mett monthly on Wednesdays 19:30 by Zoom


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Competition winners and runners up and judges at the Eastern Region Contest in March 2023




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State of Technology and everything: 14 Sept 2025

 A "State of technology" post.  September 2025

It is 3 years since the last one. This is an account of technology as noticed by me now.. So I can look back again in another 3 years and say "Hasn't that changed"

1. AI: This is befuddling me
            1.1  Plant (bird/lichen) recognition software
            1.2  Searches on internet
            1.3  Everything sucked up
            1.4  Energy demand
            1.5  Data Control
            1.6  Language learning
            1.7  Advert targeting
        

2. Changes in Lichen Names

3. Money

4. Teeth

5. Message overload

6. Info overload

1.1. Identifying species: .

Apps for recognising plant species using a phone camera have been around for five years -but now they are getting quite good. Five years ago I would have said "They can be helpful, but often the correct answer is third or fourth choice. You have to be a botanist  to know if the answer is correct or not.

Now, the answer is much more likely to be correct (but still not always).  I am very tempted to be lazy and wave my camera at any unknown plant now.

2. Identifying lichens - this is still very erratic. But at the Kilnsey Bioblitz day I tried it and the App spotted some Protoblastenia rupestris that I had not noticed in a photo.

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Asking Groc (in twitter/X) or asking the AI bit in search engines. or Chatgpt.com

I asked Groc to distinguish Flavoplaca arcis and Flavoplaca flavocitrina.  They used to be called Caloplaca

David Hill had sent me a powerpoint about the Flavocitrina group and I had spent a lot of time (hours) reading his power point and looking up in the downloadable chapter on Teloschistaceae  in LGBI3  and looking at pictures on line of these two species.

I was quite surprised when when Groc compared these two species - similarities and dissimilarities - Actually the only useful difference that I could understand (or at least had already worked out) is that C arcis has bigger  blastidia/propagules than C flavocitrina. And the references that Croc had used were the same ones as I had been using, including many references from the britishlichensociety.org.uk website.

So Ai can suck up information form the internet.

Even what I write here. Maybe I should not publishe this just yet.

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2. Change in Lichen Names and Lichen books

 Lichens of Britain and Ireland 3 is the British Lichen Society  Bible - big Book -  Edition 1 was published in 1992, Edition 2 (which I have) in 2009. Edition 3 has last year I think been put on line in separate chapters as they were written and they are downloadable as pdfs. I think the last ones were completed and put online this/last year. 

At this (Sept 2025) I will note that I am torn between using old names for Lichens (the ones that are in books written in 2010 maybe 2015, and ones that are used in books since 2024.. 

The sheets we download form the BLS website have the new names, but most of my reference books have old names.

Back to AI

Anything one puts up on the internet is going to get sucked into AI and used by it.  People who have written books and articles at great effort and expense are having it used by AI.

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Posters

A friend in Speakers Club has taken over being publicity officer for Craven Speakers Club. She produced a very nice poster. I congratulated her. She said "I used AI".

I have asked her to show me one day. I have tried just by doing a search and then using the programs that Ecosia came up with .. and the posters they produced for me were not helpful.


I had a go on the internet myself.. and the Posters it produced followed the law "Rubbish in rubbish out" --

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3. Money:

The maximum amount you can spend on a credit card without your pin is now £100. They are talking about increasing this amount. I hope they don't. It is a lot of money to worry about if your card gets stolen.

I went for a meal with a friend and realised I had left my credit card at home. and my cash - He paid with his. But I realise I could probably use  Google Pay. I must learn how to use it. Apparently half of young people use their mobile phones.

I suspect ordinary people have been using Google pay for several years already.

I-----------------------

I continue using Paypal  when I can.

I have been using BACs on my phone for a couple of years no. It is easier to pay using my phone than using my laptop.

But I should practise using these more so that I do not forget.

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Most of my accounts - both bills and savings - have encouraged me to go online. that means they don't send me letters anymore saying how much I have saved or owe.

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Tooth implants

Over last year and this I have had three more tooth implants - to add to the two I had done 14 years ago. 

But more teeth threaten to break some off so low that they cannot be crowned.  Where is the limit?

I now use a water flosser (squirts water at your teeth) use and electric toothbrush, and have learned to use larger interdental brushes.  (They told me to stop using mouthwash a year ago).

My dentist showed me a scanner so that next time I have a crown he will use that instead of my sticking my teeth into "Plasticine" to get an impression - Said it cost in the region of £50,000

I wish someone could scan my feet and make a pair of shoes that fit.

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Message overload:

Four email accounts: Daelnet, Gmail, Green Christian and @britishlichensociety.org.uk

Spam for these four accounts. 

and check "All emails" for these four accounts in case emails have been put in different folders.

Whatsapp - for lots of different groups: Craven Speakers; And remember to check fo individuals  ; BBS earlier this year, Calalonia last year.

Facebook:
1.notifications,
2. comments
3. Facebook Messanger

Other Facebook Accounts: Green Christian; Speakers Club: Churches Together:

That comes to about 20 a day.


Then weekly:-

Then I could always check Bluesky (My own mostly lichens, and Green Christian)  and Twitter (My own, Green Christian and Speakers Club)

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I will follow the same format as my Jan 2023 post 

Internationally:

Russia is still invading Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed. on both sides. 

 Israel , Gaza. At least 64,656 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023 Including some now dying of starvation. Israel bombed some of Hamas in Qatar last week


On 7 October 2023 Hamas killed 1200 Israelis and took 250 Israeli citizens and soldiers who were brought to the Gaza strip.

At the time I innocently thought "Why can't Israel forgive them (or at least control them in some peaceful way ...  otherwise there will be a bloodbath.

There has been a bloodbath. And countries of the world have stood by and watched.

While Israel invaded, bombed and starved the Palestinians. I imagine that many ordinary Palestinians did not choose their government (Hamas) any more than many Israelis chose their leader.

At least 64,656 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023 (10 Sept 2025) and the number of injuries is 163,503 in the Israeli onslaught. The ministry also noted that 12 Palestinians were killed and over 30 others injured by Israeli army fire while trying to get humanitarian aid in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed while seeking aid to 2,456, with over 17,861 others wounded since May 27. from MiddleEastMonitor

Israel bombed with drones somewhere in Qatar last week, in an attempt to kill some of the Hamas leadership who were there for peace negotiations.

Israel continue to be aggressive to places in the West Bank.

I bought some more "Zaytoun" Olive Oil from Palestine.  We sell it at our Fairtrade Coffee Mornings once a month at St Johns - next one Wed 24 Sept. A lady will come from the Coop with fairtrade samples 

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