How Long is a Piece of String?

David kicked the meeting of by welcoming new members Lana and Gayle, and extending a warm welcome to guests Hannah and Alex.

Lana read the mission statement and along with Wayne, kept track of time. David gave us the word of the day: "choice", and Netta commented on the use of grammar towards the end of the meeting.


Table Topics

Netta brought along a bag of goodies from Wonderland to inspire the table topic speakers this evening; and it worked well. In the bag were hats, some big and some small.

Graeme & the Golden Hat

Ian received the wizard's hat and decided to cast a 'speak well' spell on all of tonights speakers.

Graeme's sparkly gold hat reminded him of a hat he used to wear to the Art Deco celebrations. He didn't want to return it (and may still have it).

Lana put on a tiara, and this felt special because of the memories of her daughter when she was little; all dressed up and watching movies about princesses.

David began flying around the room with his Indian feather hat from Never Never Land. He enjoyed scalping people when he was little - well I think it was pretend-scalping.

Hannah

Hannah painted a picture of a fairy castle with mallow puffs and lambs bleating, full of happiness and rainbows.

Gayle wore Aladdins hat and like David she flew to Never Never Land then visited the Grimm brothers, before ending up in Wonderland.

The table topic speakers were evaluated by Christine and James, who made a great team. There were plenty of commendations and recommendations for the speakers

Prepared Speeches

All dressed up for bed, Sarah started her speech with a bit of snoring; a great way to start a speech. There has been much to keep Sarah awake at night over the years, from sleep talking children with night terrors to snoring. It's enough to keep anyone awake.

With a mellow start to story of an event that happened 46 years ago, Craig gave us an informative speech of what happened in banks all around the country when the currency changed over from imperial pounds to decimal dollars. The pace soon picked up as the speech progressed, with the alarm that was caused by soldiers turning up at the bank to provide security when swapping old currency for new.

Predicting the Future

Steve intrigued us with the question "How Long is a Piece of String?" then went on to predicting all of our futures; death being one of the certainties we all face. As it turns out, working out your future financial requirements is like trying guess the length of a piece of string; difficult, but still possible.

With two table topics speakers flying around the room earlier, Amy also took flight, playing aeroplanes with children. Amy volunteered to teach drama to young children and compared the experience to teaching teenagers. The younger children were more creative and interactive, making animal noises and role playing, thanks to Amy's engaging antics. Amy challenged us to play with children and have some fun. You don't even have to have kids. Just play.

Four excellent evaluations by Peter, Sheryl, Graeme and Ian followed, with plenty of commendations and recommendations for the speakers to take away with them.

Business Session

The business session was kicked off by Craig. Craig thanked the members who volunteered their time on the new Executive.

Craig also mentioned the following:

• A District Promotion should we get enough club members at the Club Leadership Training (26 July)
• Executive Meeting to be held on 15 July
• Up and coming changes to the Toastmaster International education programme.

Also, please RSVP by 22 July to Sarah Hall for the Awards Dinner which will be held 29 July.

Sarah Lee presented new club members Lana with a badge and Gayle with a Competent Communicators manual.

Chris presented Sarah Lee with a Spirit of Success award for completing the first five speeches from the Competent Communicators manual.

As General Evaluator, Chris provided feedback for all the evaluators and Toastmaster David.

Congratulations go to:

Best Speaker - Amy Edwards

Best Evaluator – Sheryl Mackie

Best Table Topic – Ian Wright

Best Contribution – Ian Wright


With just about everyone fulfilling a role, and members popping out to pick up a few forgotten items, David took it all in his stride to share the grammarian's role with Netta, and to run an impromptu educational session on how to find inspiring ideas for speeches.