A Top Quality Night

Welcome Fellow Toastmasters and Guests

What an extremely entertaining and inspirational meeting on Monday night!- A big welcome to guests, Catherine, Elizabeth and Matthew, fantastic to have you along, and awesome to hear you enjoyed your first experience of Toastmasters. We hope to see you back again soon.  Also welcome to our newest member Dee.

Our capable Toastmaster for the evening was Christine Tutbury who provided a warm and friendly welcome.  Christine was well organised and efficiently maintained the flow of the evening with a very full agenda.

Ian Wright introduced his role as General Evaluator for the benefit of our guests and newer members.  Ian was supported by Chris and Netta, as the Grammarian and Timekeeper respectively.  Chris’s word of the night was not a word but rather a focus on the appropriate use of pause, while Netta watched the clock to keep us moving and on time.

  

Table Topics were introduced by Wayne, where impromptu speakers were allocated a children’s story book character and had to portray what they, as that character, were doing at a specified time of the day.  This set the theme for some creative situations leading to a very animated and lively table topic session.   

• Steve gave his impression of Garfield, the cat, waking up in the morning and demanding his breakfast.
• Sarah Hall made a delightful Peter Pan from Neverland who demonstrated some great flying antics between breakfast and morning tea.
• Graeme Valentine was the super strong French comic book character Obelix.  Graeme managed to avoid speaking about what super strong feats he was doing between morning tea and lunch.
• Dee described her likeness to that lovable dog, Hairy McLeary from Donaldson's Dairy. 
• Chris portrayed Poo Bear who loves honey and particularly manuka honey which he was having for his evening dinner.

Some fantastic body language and use of sounds exhibited by speakers although a little tough for some to keep to topic and fill the time required – but well done to everybody who participated.

Peter Manson and Jan Alve teamed up to provide a great table topic evaluation and summary with some praise worthy commendations and recommendation for our impromptu speakers. 

We were treated to four top quality formal speeches.

Sarah Lee’s delivered a well-structured speech titled “Inter-actions with the Internet” which described how 3 specific internet sites had changed and impacted her life, Sarah’s speech featured some great examples of body language and gestures along with some well-timed touches of humour.  

Our second Speaker was Paul McPherson who applied his research on “Security & Stability – Banking on It”, and provided some interesting facts, statistics and examples to encourage us to bank with NZ owned banks and stop the flight of money to Aussie.

James provided us with a well-paced, persuasive speech that, with a “Tick, Tick, Tick” urged us to” just do it, as this is the first day of the rest of your life”. As usual there were plenty of enthusiastic morsels of James unique brand of humour throughout, resulting in a very entertaining speech.

Amy gave us a dramatic insight into the Blinding Darkness of Depression.  A snappy opening grabbed the audience, followed by some thought provoking content that recounted a personal experience of her being there for a friend, which combined with an effective use of lighting, created an especially powerful and touching speech.

Speakers were introduced and evaluated by Sarah Hall, Sheryl. Steve and Graeme respectively.  Ian’s general evaluation concluded that evaluators' provided good text book introductions and evaluations that all used the CRC method  (Commend, Recommend, Commend) to providing feedback.  Clear examples were provided with recommendations which will help each speaker prepare for their next projects.   

Craig facilitated the Club Officer Elections.  A great bunch of keen volunteers were nominated and all agreed to step up and into the role they were nominated for.  The new committee effective from 1^st July 2013 will be:

President: Craig Robinson (re-elected)

VP Education: Chris Heath

VP Membership: Sarah Lee

VP Public Relations: Steve Tutbury

Secretary: Wayne Bickers

Treasurer: Christine Tutbury

Sgt at Arms: Graeme Valentine

Craig gave an efficient business report

• Awards night date has been set at 29^th July – a choice of venues of  Off The Track in Havelock North, Speights Alehouse in Ahuriri and Breakers in Napier were presented for members to have a think about – Venue to be voted on and decided on at next meeting
• Tonight was possibly James last meeting prior to heading overseas
• Craig provided some comment and feedback from the judging form received for the best website
• Chris was presented with his Competent Communicator Certificate
• Sarah Hall was presented with her Advance Leader Bronze Certificate
• Next executive meeting is 17^th June as Sarah’s place. New committee members welcome

 What a terrific and fun night!

The Awards for the night went to……

Best Speaker: Amy Edwards

Best Evaluator: Graeme Valentine

Best Table Topics: Dee Ford

Best Contribution: Not Awarded

Congratulations to you all.

Have a great fortnight and look forward to seeing you all on the 10^th June 2013!

Sheryl 

VP Ed