There is no Tomorrow on the Calendar

With Sarah's presence at the front of the room, we all fell silent in anticipation of a great meeting, and   great it was. Our guest Paul was welcomed as was our new member Rebecca.  With apologies from Tom, Nichola and Kane, Sarah outlined a few changes to the programme. Graeme read out most of the mission statement and ask the rest of us to fill in the gaps; a great way of seeing if we can remember the mission statement.

Grammarian Ian

Peter, our General Evaluator for the evening, warmly introduced Timekeepers Dee and Hannah who together outlined their shared role. Ian as Grammarian, gave us the word of the evening 'placate', meaning 'to appease or pacify'.

Christine's table topics gave members the opportunity to debate whether reinstating rail to Gisborne would be better than a bicycle trail.

Steve suggested that the government dish out the money to repair the track and described how we would all benefit.

Graeme adroitly dodged the disadvantages of rail by removing items of his own clothing.

Chris was the only speaker to propose a win-win solution by getting Napier's living room cyclists and their exercise machines onto the rail carriages to generate enough electricity to electrify the line between Napier and Gisborne.

Ian came up with a range of ideas to raise funds by selling the same lottery tickets many times over.

Colin was tasked with picking the most persuasive argument, but concluded with a question: 'Why would anyone want to go to Gisborne?'

The table topics were evaluated by Amy and Kim who humorously distanced themselves from each others different evaluation styles.

Amy and Kim

With prepared speeches from Sheryl, Craig and Richard, they were warmly introduced and evaluated by Tony, Wayne and Sarah respectively.

Sheryl told us about the terror caused by one of her tenants; a tenant from hell who had lost the plot. It was a powerful speech that grabbed us with it's raw beginning and equally commanding conclusion.

Craig reminded each of us of 'what lies within'. It was a passionate speech compelling us to consider taking up the leadership opportunities that Toastmasters presents us.

Richard's speech was all about sleeping on the job, 384,400 kilometres away on the moon while gazing back at the Earth. It seems that there are a number of little know facts about the Apollo mission to the moon that Richard has uncovered.

Richard

In lieu of a fourth speaker, Craig, Steve, Colin and Christine and Graeme told us about the highlights of the Division D contests in Rotorua. For Colin, the highlight was meeting Kingi Biddle; for Steve it was the food and the seamless organisation of the event. For Christine, it was the quote: 'There is no tomorrow on the calendar.' For Graeme, it was the car ride and enjoying the competitive spirit of the contest.

Sarah formally inducted Rebecca into the club. Welcome to the club Rebecca!

The evaluators gave the speakers a number of commendations and recommendations relating to:

• gestures
• pace
• contrasting quiet questions to draw in the audience and raising the voice when making a point, and
• reading notes

In the general evaluation, Peter had one recommendation for the evaluators, and that was to provide a few more recommendations.

Our guest Paul commented positively on his first experience at Toastmasters. I hope you enjoyed the meeting and hope to see you back here in a fortnight.

Sarah awarded the:

• Best Speaker Award to Richard
• Best Table Topic Award to Ian
• Best Evaluator Award to Sarah Hall, and
• Best Contribution to Graeme.

And on that note, the meeting was closed, and like Craig, we all went home with that warm buzz that keeps us awake for another hour or two.