Toastmaster of the evening , Chris had an excellent programme arranged (copies were sent out in advance) and got the meeting off on time with the Mission Statement being read by our newest member Nick.
General Evaluator, Christine advised us what her role involved (particularly important with several guests in the audience) and also acted as Grammarian with her word of the night “rejuvenate” (apparently according to Google a difficult word to utilise!). Co-timekeeper, Paul,fresh back from warmer climes, advised us of the Timekeeper’s role.
Apologies were received from Peter, Sheryl, Sarah H and Wayne (and they missed a great meeting!)
The fun part of the evening is Table Topics (an Impromptu speaking exercise) and tonight was no exception. Steve posed the questions utilising common(to him anyway!) sayings and to reduce favouritism each contestant choose a number and then had the appropriate saying. Netta (There are two sides to every question), Chris (There is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge), Peter (Give credit where credit is due), Tracey (There is no such thing as a free lunch) and Craig (If you can’t beat them join them) spoke well to their sayings (some of which were not altogether common to the speakers!)
Our first prepared speech was presented by Martin (a fairly new member) this had the intriguing title of “Forget about the elephants-what about the humans?”. A very good presentation about a subject not discussed often enough these days “Bowel Cancer’', a very personal insight into this problem with three excellent examples of family and friends he has known who have suffered. Martin is showing significant improvement every time he speaks and certainly put his message across about “BE AWARE”.
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| Martin |
Sarah L was next speaker and she was working from an Advanced Manual ‘Speciality Speeches’, specifically “Introduce the Speaker”. What a tremendously successful way of presenting this assignment by Sarah, when she used an actual situation she encountered in April and she certainly showed how Toastmasters has assisted her in her career advancement and where it is taking her. (to Vancouver in Canada next year to present at an International Convention for Reading Recovery Tutors). Great effort Sarah and wonderful to see yet again what Toastmasters can do for an individual.
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| Sarah |
Graeme and Netta evaluated Table Topics in fine fashion with plenty of commendations and several suggestions for the speakers on how they might improve their presentations. (Netta declined to evaluate herself!)
Next prepared speech was presented by Amy, from the Entertaining Speaker Manual and we were not disappointed by Amy’s speech. Intriguing title again “Sandwich” (don’t titles wet your appetite to hear what is coming up?) when she spoke about an occasion where she was asked to take a small part in a Touring band’s production at Girls High (the band were all males) and ended up being the ‘female meat’ in a ‘male sandwich’ with 900 girls salivating in the audience! Very well put across Amy, we will look forward to further presentations from this Manual.
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| Amy |
Our final speaker was Ian with a speech entitled “Exercise- Your Right”. Yes this was about Amalgamation of the Councils in Hawkes Bay, which goes to a resident’s referendum late in August and Ian was imploring us to vote. He did not put cases for or against but was just encouraging us to exercise our right, and so keep this mind when the voting forms arrive Yes-No-Yes-No who knows!. Well done Ian on outlining this important issue to us in such a clear and concise manner.One thing Ian neglected to tell us was that if more than 50% of the votes are against amalgamation then ‘that’s it’-it don’t happen!
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| Ian |
In the business session President Sarah L reminded us about the Awards Dinner on 20th July (and thanked Sarah H for doing the invitations-again)-do come along and enjoy a great night at “Off The Track”. Sarah also handed the reins of the Club over to Chris (the incoming President) somewhat gleefully it would seem! but she has done a great job this year and led us to be a Select Distinguished Club, 20 members and seven goals achieved, congratulations to everyone involved with the Club.
As we were slightly ahead of the clock at this stage, Steve conducted some more Table Topics and excellent answers were provided by Guest, Alistair (he volunteered) “We must all learn to walk before we can run”, James “You can’t tell a book by its cover” and Paul “The best things in life are free”, Amy & Netta evaluated Table Topics Round 2.
Christine then gave her thoughts on the night’s meeting as the General Evaluator, concentrating on the Evaluators and the Toastmaster. She felt that all the Evaluators introduced their speakers well with a bit of personal info.,objectives of the speech assignment and a insight into what it was all about. She then had good feedback for all the Evaluators including those doing Table Topics with some worthwhile suggestions for improvement. As Grammarian she commented on use of the word of the night “rejuvenate’' used quite regularly and was assisted by the co-timekeeper James who told us how long we all spoke during our assignments and that some of us went overtime!!
The meeting concluded with comments from the guests (who seemed to enjoy the night) and two actually completed “Application Forms”.
Remember as we meet 2nd and 4th Mondays next meeting is three weeks away on 13th July.
- Best Table Topic; Peter
- Best Speaker; Amy
- Best Evaluator; Dee
- Best Contribution; Craig (that’s milking an award!!)
What an excellent meeting on a chilly evening, we were really entertained (and educated) with energy and enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteGreat meeting everyone. My friend Jasmine will likely join Toastmasters after coming along as a guest....but she lives in Taranaki so she won't be joining our club.
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