Meet some of our members - a mixture of novice and very experienced speakers

What happens at the Clitheroe Speakers Club?

Below is a typical programme for some of our meetings. Further down is a description of what goes on.

So what actually happens? Read on and hopefully you'll get some idea. Ideally you should pay us a first visit to merely observe us. You can be assured of a friendly welcome and you can sit quietly without saying a word. You are welcome to remain a member of the audience for as many meetings as you want - to treat the evenings as interesting and entertaining social occasions.

People start arriving from 7 pm onwards and there is the arranging of tables in the meeting room. At 7.30 pm the President calls for order and together with the secretary launches into the business session, dealing with matters arising from the last meeting, correspondence and the speakers club calendar.

The meeting is then handed over to the chairman for the evening who controls things from then on.

First a speech by one of the members. Our Speakers Manual guides us through ten assignments. The guide does not say what you should speak about, the subject is up to you. What it does explain is that each assignment asks you to concentrate on a particular aspect of speaking - vocabulary, humour, gestures and other useful skills for the speaker. Speeches should last no more than 8 minutes. Whether you think you were good. bad or absolutely awful you will get sincere applause because many in the audience have been there, done it, have themselves been awful, bad, or good. We know how you feel - we sympathise - we have all been there!

Each speech is evaluated by a more experienced member who offers helpful and constructive observations on such points as stance, voice projection and clarity, speech construction.

The topics chairman asks those who wish to participate to speak for three minutes on a subject he or she springs on them out of the blue. Sounds frightening? It gets better with practice, but anyone can and does dry up after only a few seconds.

There is no compulsion to speak in front of the audience. Social members are valued as members of the audience - what would we do without an audience?

What isn't voluntary ? Paying the subscription - after a couple of visits as a visitor we do ask for the annual subscription, which is currently £30 for 2011-12. (New members pay extra for their Speakers Handbook as soon as they join.) In the interval we make tea and coffee in the adjacent kitchen for which we ask 50p.

After the speeches and the topics session come the evaluations. This, really, is what our speakers club is all about - making use of a more experienced member to look out for your strengths and weaknesses. Again the Manual gives guidance for both the speaker and the evaluator, so that a newish speaker doesn't get a too-strict evaluation, and conversely a long-serving member is guided away from developing weak points in his or her presentation.

Finally the General Evaluator gives an overall impression of the evening, and soon after 9.30 we all go home, although social chatter can go on a bit!