Our final ‘formal’ meeting of 2015 was on the theme of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and the two main speakers delivered very different interpretations of the topic.
Alyson Dugmore spoke about Sir Titus Salt, who founded the village of Saltaire, near Bradford. She contrasted his business and technical sense, which he used in the construction of Salt’s Mill, and his sensibility for his workers, for whom he created a whole village with a church, school and park.
Sally Jenkins took Jane Austen’s novel, ‘Sense and Sensibility’, as the trigger for her speech and compared Jane’s life to that of the modern day author. She explained that ‘Sense and Sensibility’ was similar to the self- or indie-published books of today because the Austen family had to guarantee to make good any financial losses suffered by ‘Sense and Sensibility’ if it failed to sell enough copies.
Our education director, Gary Allmark, gave us an extended ‘Tip of the Week’ and described how he constructs his speeches, focussing on an arresting opening, logical but entertaining ‘middle’ containing information and examples to which an audience could relate, followed by a strong conclusion.
The following week we had a ‘Xmas Do’ at the home of Molly Cooper. There was lots of lovely food, including lasagne, samosas, roast vegetable salad, cheesecake etc. etc.! The company was good and the conversation flowed.
Looking forward to seeing everyone again on Thursday January 14th.
Merry Christmas!