Alofa

Our Toastmaster for the evening, Sheryl, started the meeting on time in a cheerful manner, welcoming a full house including two guests (despite a particularly chilly evening).

Our president Craig, made a special presentation for best club website to a Chris, our star webmaster. Well done Chris! We are all very proud and grateful for all the hard work you put in.

The General Evaluator for the night was Sarah H. who encouraged the timekeepers to use the bell freely to keep the meeting on time.

Amy, our grammarian for the evening, reminded us that it is Samoan language week & gave us the word of the night - Alofa (love).

Christine and Ian were our timekeepers tonight. Ian explained the timekeepers role clearly and with humour for the benefit of the visitors.

Table Topics were run by Graeme Valentine. Each participant was given a color to speak about, using word association.

• Steve was up first with the colour yellow.
• Christine was given pink.
• Sarah Lee had to speak about the colour orange.
• Sheryl was given green. 
• Craig spoke in a very risqué manner about the colour red.
• When Amy spoke about silver, she told us that she is dangerous when she is cold.
• Ian spoke about mudsliding and chocolate - guess which colour he was given.

Sheryl then thanked Graeme for adding a little colour into our evening !

Peter introduced Tony, who gave the first prepared speech for the night. Tony spoke about his truck logbook.

Tony used an enlarged logbook page as a visual aid to show us how to fill a logbook in correctly.

Tony - Trucking Along

Kane introduced Rebecca who was delivering her ice breaker.

Rebecca told us of the significant events in her life with confidence and humour. She barely needed her notes, used pause skilfully, and engaged the audience in interactive manner.

Rebecca - Best Speaker

The Tables Topic evaluation was given by Chris and Wayne. They gave very positive and uplifting comments along with useful suggestions. By the way, we enjoyed your dancing Wayne.

Chris reminded us more than once to keep it clean. Aren't we a naughty bunch?

In his evaluation of Tony's speech, Peter restated the objectives and commended Tony's use of the visual aid, his clear voice, and logical speech structure.

Kane evaluated Rebecca's speech and commended her use of vocal variety, gestures, humour and pace.

Kim introduced Paul with rather a lot of Alofa.

Paul delivered Assignment # 8 from the old version of the CC manual - Visual Aids. He began his speech by saying, "What's said in the room stays in the room!" I can say no more, other than that I might be joining a wine club soon.

Paul - Looking Forward to the Wine

Netta introducing Hannah with her fifth speech - "Your body speaks!"

Hannah not only talked about sign language, she gave the TM mission statement in sign language! Did you know that NZ was the 1^st country in the world to declare sign language as an official language?

Club Officer Elections

Next were the club officer elections, run by Steve Tutbury. He explained the procedure and answered questions from the floor.

Congratulations to the incoming committee for 2014/2015:

• President: Sarah L.
• VP Education: Steve
• VP Membership: Dee
• VP Publicity: Craig
• Secretary: Sarah H
• Treasurer: Sheryl
• SAA: Peter

In her evaluation Paul's speech, Kim described it as evocative & expressive. She commented that the use of bottles as a visual aid worked very well but recommended that Paul speak to the audience rather than to the bottles!

Netta had difficulty with evaluating Hannah's speech because she had trouble speaking when looking at Paul's wine. Eventually, Netta commended Hannah for her research skills and pace.

Business Section

President Craig led the business section. We are all looking forward to the awards dinner on the 4th August. The venue is to be advised.

Christine spoke of the Christchurch convention saying, "Conventions are always so much fun!" She also updated us about the ambassadors programme. The new programme has been deferred until October and there will be a transitional period of 2 years.

Steve enjoys meeting new Toastmasters and reconnecting with old aquaintances at conferences.

For Craig, meeting the International President (and his wife) was a highlight of the Christchurch convention.

Who's keen to go to the Bay of Islands in November?

Graeme updated us about the speechcraft course planned for mid July. This will be run on Tuesday nights and we need volunteers please.

General Evaluation

Our General Evaluator, Sarah H and her team, summed up the meeting succinctly and gave a lot of great comments about a great meeting. Sarah also reminded us all not to draw attention to mistakes in our speeches because probably nobody will notice and we can just breeze on through.

Awards

Tonight's awards went to :

• Best Speaker: Rebecca
• Best Table Topic: Steve
• Best Evaluator: Kim
• Best Contribution: for overcoming technical difficulty in kitchen - Graeme

Both guests commented that they enjoyed the meeting.

Thanks everyone.

Sarah Lee