PREP - Poker, Rewind, Education, Professionalism

Welcome Fellow Toastmasters and Guests

Thank you to those who attended and contributed to an extremely entertaining and inspirational meeting last night.  A big welcome to guest, Dee, fantastic to have you along, great to hear your positive comments about the meeting and we hope to see you back again soon.  Also welcome to our “special guest” – our Area Governor – who also happens to be our very own Craig Robinson.

Our very professional Toastmaster for the evening was Sarah Lee. Sarah had a calm and confident approach. She created great flow and kept the audience well engaged through-out the meeting by adding the odd appropriate “speech” related quotes in between speakers. Well done on a marvellous first effort as Toastmaster, Sarah.

Peter Manson introduced his role as General Evaluator for the benefit of our guest and newer members and provided a very thorough General Evaluation at the close of the meeting. Peter was well supported by Amy Edwards and Netta Brown as the Timekeeper and Grammarian respectively.  Amy kept us to time, even though she was a little off time herself for the start, and Netta, as Grammarian, ensured a great deal of “INTEGRITY” was spoken during the night.

Steve gave us a formula to use for answering Table Topics – PREP (Point of View, Reason, Example and Point of View).  Speakers were given a choice of two options to speak about and were required to structure their answer by applying the formula.   

• James K decided he would rather fly around the world with superman than be marooned on an island with a loved one!
• Amy spoke on how she preferred someone with a good heart rather than lots of money.
• Christine chose to go back in time an meet her ancestors from Ireland rather than go into the future to meet her great grandchildren.
• Netta wanted to use both a rewind and a pause button to go back and re-do certain things in a different order/way.
• Sarah Lee was very decisive with her answer – she wanted more time rather than more money.
• Sheryl wanted to travel round Europe and visit its rich history rather than relax on a Caribbean island.
• Peter M wanted to be a super popular “normal” person rather than an unloved celebrity.

A great selection of topics, that provided a really entertaining and fun session – well done everybody.

Craig and Wayne were an awesome combination for table topic evaluation, providing some praise worthy commendations and recommendations for all of the impromptu speakers. 

We were treated to three amazing speakers:

First, James Ward gave us a poker lesson with his speech “Check, Raise, or Fold – Your Call”.  James demonstrated he was comfortable with visual aids with his simulation of a poker hand, he showed us there is a lot of strategy and feeling involved in poker, not just good luck.

Graeme powerfully told us of some regrets after his usual visit to the library did not go as it would normally thanks to some rather rowdy and disruptive youths in his speech title “What would you have done”.  I think Graeme would have found Netta's Rewind button handy as he passionately recounted this story..... and it sounds like the youths would have benefited from the modern version of Ian's 3 R's.

The final formal speech was by Ian Wright who gave a purposeful and well-structured speech that got to the point - “The 3 R’s of Education”.  Ian contrasted the “old” 3 R’s of education, (being Reading, wRiting and aRithmatic) with a modern day version of the 3 R’s being Respect, Responsibility and Relationships.

Speeches were well evaluated by James K, Christine and Sheryl respectively, providing succinct and insightful commendations and recommendations for each speaker to take into their next projects. 

Our Area Governor, Craig (looking very Professional in a tie), gave us some highlights of his background, career, achievements and toastmaster journey with his talk entitled “Success”.

The Business session was professionally and efficiently run by our President Craig:

• Craig advised the outcome of the Evaluation Contest and International Contest from his visit to Whakatane. Congratulations to Lawrence Baccuss from Hastings who came first and makes it through to the next round in the Evaluation Contest.  Judith Bartlett from Hastings represented the Area in the International Contest but did not place.
• Craig presented a ribbon to the club
• Craig reminded us of the upcoming Convention in Wellington in May.
• A reminder that there are 5 Mondays in May so next meeting is 3 weeks away.
• Craig read out an email from Bryce updating the club on his further retraining opportunities.
• Craig urged us all to invite and encourage new people along to toastmasters so as to continue building our membership.

 Thank you everyone for your participation in a terrific and fun night!

The Awards for the night went to……

Best Speaker: Ian Wright

Best Evaluator: Sheryl Mackie

Best Table Topics: Amy Edwards

Best Contribution: Sheryl Mackie

Congratulations to you all.

Have a great 3 weeks everyone and we look forward to seeing you all on the 13^th of May with lots of invited guests!