I was asked if I could be the Charity Toastmaster at the Chester & District Samaritans Charity Tea Party in Chester recently and I obviously yes. This a fantastic organisation is run by volunteers for the greater good of the community. They require £100 a day to run the local office; nationally someone phones the Samaritans every 16 seconds so their help really is very important and I was happy to help in any way what so ever.
The guest speaker was Edwina Currie, who I had had the honour to introduce as the Toastmaster at the Liverpool Law Society Dinner at the Adelphi Hotel in November last year. That night she had to leave early to catch the plane of Australia for “I’m a Celebrity, get me out of here!”
She was great, mixing with the 120 guests, and then speaking about her time both in politics and subsequently, either on the small screen or on the radio. She was then very happy to take questions from the floor which she answered with humour and was happy to take a swing at herself!!
One of the organisers very kindly sent me the following testimonial:- “Thank you so much for making the tea party run so smoothly. You were organised ,humorous and simply delightful. The function raised £1739.50 ,which is amazing and Edwina is keen to make it a yearly event ,which is incredible too. It is so heartwarming that people like yourself are prepared to give freely of their time and expertise and I simply can’t thank you enough.”
The pleasure was all mine to be the Charity Toastmaster!!