A Meeting of Two Halves

By Sarah Hall
Greetings fellow Toastmasters!  Well, what a meeting of two halves we had last night, and Toastmasters was certainly the winner on the night!  (Not to fear, I will not be using rugby-speak throughout this report, I wouldn't do that to you all!).  Great to have two guests along - Sakiko (a Japanese exchange student staying with Danny) and James was back with bells on.

Toastmaster of the Evening - Sheryl

Sheryl ran a great meeting which pretty much kept to time.  It was Sheryl's first time in the TM role, and what a fantastic job she did!  She was ably supported by GE Christine who presented a very comprehensive and useful General Evaluation.  David was the grammarian with his theme for the night being rugby (I wonder why, as far as I've heard there's no big rugby events happening at the moment?) and everyone certainly got in to the swing of that theme, past All-Blacks were mentioned that I hadn't even heard of!  Colin was a very efficient Timekeeper and kept us all on our toes.

There were some very entertaining and creative responses to the TT questions posed by Sarah - it was great hearing about your amazing holidays!  Steve - I hope you secured a return ticket from the moon, we would miss you at TM! Adrienne - say hi to Cliff R for me.  Last night's dynamic duo of Graeme and Peter presented a highly entertaining TT Evaluation and there was much laughter heard around the room.  Although at times I feel Graeme's entertaining report deviated from the favoured 'CRC' formula to 'RRR' but we will forgive him because he made us laugh!

Paul - Only 15 Kilograms!

We were treated to four fantastic speeches last night - creative and humourous themes running throughout.  Paul presented 'Only 15 kilograms' in which he recounted his entertaining adventures of packing and flying to the Great Barrier Reef.  Lucy, our newest member, presented a fabulous Icebreaker speech 'Time for a Change' and we got to know her a lot better.  Go the Scarfies!!  All the best with your upcoming final nursing exams Lucy.  Emily presented a very informative and enlightening speech on spiders and their uses, '8-legged friend, foe or freaky?' and Ian completed the speaking line-up (line-up - rugby term - thank you) with a motivational speech 'Men are from Mars, women are from ??'  We are all very much looking forward to Part II of Ian's presentation when we recounts how he achieved great things in the Lake Taupo Cycle Race!

The four speech evaluators did a fantastic job last night: Bridget, Craig, Chris and Millie, and Colin ran an informative Business Session.

So well done to everyone, and thanks to Chess for the yummy chocolate biscuits and for doing such a great role performing as Sergeant-At-Arms.