If It Is To Be, It Is Up To Me!

Dear fellow Toastmasters and guests,

An eventful and entertaining club meeting last night!  Thanks to everyone who attended and helped contribute to another successful meeting.  Great to see guests Joost and Hamish along for a second time and seemingly keen to join!  Graeme chaired the meeting with finesse.  Colin presented a thorough General Evaluation and was ably assisted by Colin as timekeeper!


Danny led a great Table Topics session getting us to relive some childhood memories and associations through a range of household/garden scents.  Some very creative responses.  Well done Danny and all Table Topics participants.  The session was extremely well evaluated by Lucy and Emily.

Peter presented his final speech for his CC award - his Icebreaker!  A novel speech where he described his lifetime passion for planting trees and encouraging others to maximise their use of land for the good of the environment, well done Peter.  Christine presented 'Why I Joined', an enthusiastic speech about Christine's love of exercise, her local gym, and most of all, the Curves Keycard!  Loved the outfit Christine! 

David presented a politically-themed speech 'The Jewel in the Crown', concepts on how to improve Marine Parade primarily through getting rid of the large trucks.  Being from Hastings, I'm not sure I wholeheartedly agree with 'All Hastings people should sneak through the back door!!' but I can take a joke :).  Another empassioned speech Mr Grant!  As Ian, David's evaluator mentioned, we look forward to you standing in the Napier City Council Elections!  Sheryl rounded up the formal speech part of the evening with 'The 3 R's' - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  Sheryl is becoming well known for her informative and educational presentations, and this was no exception.  Well researched and enlightening, great job Sheryl.  I loved the great use of props in Sheryl's speech. 

The 3 speech evaluators Chris, Ian and Steve gave succinct and very helpful evaluations.  I am always impressed with the standards of evaluations in our club, and love how we don't give 'whitewash' evaluations but strive to find some recommendations for even our most experienced Toastmasters.  What a club to belong to!

Craig delivered a great education session giving an overview of the TM programme.  It's important we always have our next goal in mind.  'If it is to be, it is up to me!'  Well done Craig.

Craig Robinson

Mid-May has rolled around again and along with it, time for our annual Officer Elections.  A warm congratulations to the newest committee members taking over as of 1st July:

President: Craig Robinson (and Area Governor for our new D2 Area)
VP Education: Sheryl Mackie
VP Membership: Sarah Hall
VP Public Relations: Jan Alve
Secretary: Christine Tutbury
Treasurer: James Ward
Sergeant-At-Arms: Rob Whaitiri

Awards for the evening:
Best Table Topics: Jan Alve
Best Speaker: Sheryl Mackie
Best Evaluator: Ian Wright
Best Contribution of the Night: Emily Murray and Lucy Macmillan

Look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting, Monday 28 May, same place, same time. 

Sarah Hall
VPEd Napier TM