Dorking ToastMaster's Contest speaker: A story to tell.

Gavin Meikle, gave us a speech at the Dorking contest "A Story Worth Telling": it was my personal favorite. I did not vote, and he did not even got to be between the firsts three.

Of course, each speech was wonderful. I did learn a lot from all six speeches, five to compete and the sixth one to be evaluated. The messages remain in my mind but also, or even more, the masterful delivery of each.

The winner was Ade Adeyemi, a doctor now, having arrived to London with almost no money and, as he said in his an empty baggage. But willing to do what it took, even work as transporting bikes for very little money, to gather the fee for giving the exam. He failed, then crushed wanted to give up, but did not. His message 'there are more doors" and the way he delivered it got him the first place.

Gavin's message is more general and more simple but as important: we all have a story in us, our story. We are all individuals and no one can tell the same thing the same way. "You have a personal story to tell which will interest the others. Yours. Tell it. Do not hesitate."

I felt with each of them. As someone who arrived in France as him in England, as a storyteller believing I have a story to tell too.

I may be not the only elder woman arriving in London at almost 75 but for sure no one has my mixed European background, and experience, sorrows and joys, and has been a Toastmaster thirty year ago. So, yes, I have also stories to tell.

Story, that no one can tell exactly like me.