Ratiocination – if you don’t know what it means, you should have been there as ratiocination was our Word of the Day at Monday’s meeting. Two members used it, but did they use it properly?*

The evening saw another first for Salisbury Speakers: two speakers chose the same topic – failure. They differed in style and content, but used similar devices – questions, anecdotes, sayings and signposts – to argue why understanding and building on failure is a key ingredient of success.

Our third speaker talked us through the origins and dangers of Black Friday – from dangerous sharp elbows to safe online shopping. She also explained that statistics suggest that the event as not as good a deal as we might think.

Our theme for the evening was Memories. We all shared anecdotes of beach memories to warm up, but were whisked back further still to childhood memories for table topics.

One member told us about her pet, a retired sheepdog who seemed to mistake her for a sheep.

Our winning table topic led us carefully through the fields and around the cowpats that had fascinated one member when she was little.

As always there were awards, much clapping and plenty of evaluating at this last regular meeting of 2018.

* Ratiocination: The process of reasoning.