Simply Marvelous!

Greetings Toastmasters

A great effort to all those who braved going out on such a bleak, cold, rainy evening to attend Monday night’s meeting.

Steve led the night as Toastmaster chair and did a fantastic job of keeping the proceedings flowing extremely well by providing great transitions and linkage between speakers.

Bryce read the Mission Statement followed by Graeme explaining his role as General Evaluator and introducing his able team.  Joost kept the time in check, with the meeting finishing on time!  Simon set the scene for the meeting with a “Marvelous” word of the night and followed up later with a thorough report on the colourful and inspired language used by speakers during the evening. Graeme provided a very succinct and expertly timed General Evaluation at the conclusion of the meeting, covering the salient points well and emphasising the importance of being honest but positive when it comes to providing evaluation opinions.

The Table Topics Contest was introduced and efficiently run by Craig Robinson, keeping it perfectly to time!  Well done to the ten club members who took up the challenge of participating and responding to the question “Why should police give up the chase of speeding vehicles attempting to elude them?”  Congratulations to Danny Mills for coming in at first place.  Danny will go on to compete on the 15^th of September at the Area Contest.  Thank you to Craig for organising and running the contest.

We were treated to three relaxed and confident formal speakers.

The first was Chris Heath who suggested we should all improve our strength, flexibility and versatility and “Be Like Bamboo”.  The audience looked a bit worried when Chris announced he was going to take off his pants, but all became clear as he revealed his exercise shorts to give us a yoga demonstration.  Chris conveyed the benefits of yoga improving flexibility, particularly to those of us who are having difficulty reaching down to get our socks on in the morning!

Next was James Kan who transported us 50 years into the future with his speech “10 Billion People”.  James gave us a scary but informative, glimpse of the impact that the projected population growth will have on the world in the years to come!

The third and final speaker was Peter Manson presenting his first project from the Humorous Speaking Manual.  Peter told stories of “A Virtue Driven Home” – sharing some of his experiences of his many hours driving to and from Wairoa.  Peter did impart the message that patience is a virtue for all, especially when it comes to driving!

Great observations and insights were delivered by the speech evaluators being David, Christine and Danny respectively.  These included a good range of commendations, as well as helpful recommendations for each speaker to take on board for their next projects.

Craig ran an efficient business session which included:

-        A brief overview of Club Officer Training which took place last Friday.  This was well attended with 6 members from the Napier club executive attending.  If we repeat this attendance level next training we receive two complementary registrations to the next District Conventions.  A big thank you to Craig for all his time and effort in organising such a well attended and informative evening which benefited old and new executive members.

-        A reminder was given for the annual awards dinner next Monday (30^th July) commencing at 6:30 with drinks at Breakers.

-         Best wishes were given to Sarah Hall who will be attending the TM International Conference in Florida next month on her way to Canada.  We look forward to hearing all about it on the 24^th of September, when she returns.

-        The Humorous speech contest will be on the 27^th of August.  Initial indications are that there will be 6 or so people participating so……..good luck to you all in getting started on drafting those humorous speeches!

All in all, I felt that, with the exception of the weather, it was another marvelous night at toastmasters!

And the Awards for the night went to………..…

Best Speaker: Chris Heath

Best Evaluator: Danny Mills

Best Contribution: Craig Robinson

Table Topic Contest Winner: Danny Mills

Have a great three weeks and look forward to seeing you all at the next meeting on the 13^th August.

Sheryl
VP Ed