Spellbound

Thanks Paul for your super Toastmaster skills and running a great meeting. It was pleasing to see that our 3 guests Louise, Nick and Paula seem to enjoy the evening's speeches. Colin, as grammarian for the evening, introduced a new word to us all - Promulgate. I must "openly declare" that I had never come across this word before (and may never again) :-).

Colin with the Word of the Day

Christine held a great table topics session with the current hot topic of changing our national flag. She gave us a great insight into the whole process and posed many thought provoking questions for us to voice our opinions on. The soapbox was well worn by the end of the Table topics session!! 

Peter was the first planned speaker of the evening with a speech from an advanced communicators manual on selling techniques. This speech involved a role play and in trying to sell a simple cooking utensil Peter learnt from his able role play assistant Amy that the humble frying pan is also a wife's preferred weapon of choice. 

Tracey then took us on her hair raising jet sprint ride through every turn, twist and somersault!! The ride may have only been 45 seconds long in reality but the exhilaration of the story kept us on the edge of our seats for a full 7 minutes. Wow....that was exhausting! 

Tracey - Taking Us on a Jet Sprint Ride

Back to business Wayne explained how to transform an overspending business into a lean, mean competing machine. By minimising waste and maximising efficiency New Zealand companies can remain a true force to be reckoned with.

For our final prepared speech of the evening Netta left us all spellbound when she lost us in her mystical world of make believe, reciting poetry of witches and wizards, of casting spells and trickery. Harry Potter could have certainly learned a thing or two tonight! 

Netta - Left Us Spellbound

Our speech evaluators for the evening, Amy and Chris (Table topics), Steve, James, Ian & Sheryl (prepared speeches) gave some excellent feedback to the speakers full of commendations on things done really well as well as also giving recommendations on things that would enhance the particular speaker's performance even more. 

Awards went to: 

• Craig for best table topics speech 
• Netta for best prepared speech 
• Ian for best evaluation, and 
• Christine for best contribution to tonight's meeting. 

The meeting also included election of officers for the executive committee. A big thank you goes out to the existing executive committee who have done a wonderful job this Toastmasters year and congratulations to the following new executive committee members who will take care of us from July:

• President: Chris
• VP Education: Wayne
• VP Membership: Dee
• VP Public Relations: Ian
• Treasurer: Craig
• Secretary: Tracey
• Sergeant at Arms: James

Dee