Colonial
Toastmaster
John
Graves, CTM
October, 2004
(With
English accent)
Lady
Vaughn,
Fellow
Citizens, and visiting Lords and Ladies of the Colonies,
The
chill winds of November are almost upon us, all Hallowed’s eve gallops towards
us with relentless speed. And through some unreasonable and deceptive trick of
tyme and space, from the rapidly igniting fires of the American revolution,
directly to you I have come.
King
George the 2nd, in an attempt to maintain the loyalty of the citizenry, has
vowed and sworn to cut further our taxes, but his capricious war with France has
for our British nation been disasterously ‘xpensive, and our citizens sharply
divided tween loyalty to King George, or revolution!
For
my part, I am undecided, but we have not come here this evening solely in
furtherance of political discussion. I can pr-haps put these matters aside for a
couple of hours and enjoy the simple pleasure of your company.
Indeed,
it is my fondest hope that the evening’s festivities here at Toastmasters will
forever banish your fears of speaking in the public square, for here have we a
forum where we shall attempt to stretch our brains beyond the meager limits of
our undergarments, seeking most essentially the truth and p’haps a few tall
tales.
As
for our shedule, our Topicmaster will first lead a forum of fascination for
those of quick wit and mercurial mouth, then our program of speakers of the full
term will commence under my personal jurisdiction, and finally our public
speaking trauma counselors will evaluate the evening’s proceedings with the
steadfast guidance of Gen’ral Evaluator Carrison.
Now,
we here at Toastmasters prefer an oratorical engagement with proper English, and
to insure that we do just that, our grammarian will enforce the rules of good
grammar upon you, so I’ll now introduce our surrogate English teacher and
language dominatrix, Lady Laurie Clarke.
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If
one opens one’s mouth, an intelligible word should come out of it! Sometymes
an utterance will come forth which is neither fish... nor fowl, and upon that
event, our tongue flap... regulator will leap into action, punishing you most severely with the sound of a little bell, and
much as a pickpocket, eager will she be to rob you of your loose change if your
tongue escapes you. So beware this little troll, who I must now introduce, Erin
O’Neill.
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On
this eve it is my fondest hope that none of us exceeds the tyme limits to which
he has been allotted. An award may to you be denied if you step beyond the
bounds of our speech tyme executioner. So pay close attention to the cards of
many colours. Mister Blackford, explain please your heinous rules and
regulations.
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At
last we come to our final and most foolish monitor, our solit’ry confynement
escapee and resident lunatic, who thinks she has a slight chance of amusing us
with her jestful horseplay, hoodwinkery, and burlesque amusements. Miss Deen, I
urge you to admit defeat before you even begin!
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Now
that we have cleared these matters from our agenda, let us move on to the verbal
salad of our evening’s consumption, fellow Toastmasters, a man in whom I have
the fullest confidence, a hearty welcome please for...
Topicmaster David Defore!