Shopping for diets can be dangerous!

A smaller than usual turnout of members at our meeting on 27th March, with some obvious ‘extenuating’ circumstances, however a great meeting was still held and it was highlighted by the induction of three new members, Jane, Daniel & Mengying and we are sure that they will enjoy and benefit from their time with the Club. All three participated in Table Topics proficiently already demonstrating their value to our membership! We also entertained a guest Andrene, who appeared to enjoy the meeting and we will hopefully see her back again.

Induction of new members. L-to-R: Mengying, Jane and Daniel

The meeting was under control of first time Toastmaster Kate and she handled the meeting extremely well, particularly as she had to cover some late withdrawals and also ran the Table Topics Session. This session got us underway and Kate had a jar full of alphabet letters and the participants had to tell us about a ‘date’ going to or including something starting with the letter they withdrew from the jar. It worked very well and all the speakers spoke well to their selected letter.

Jane had nachos; Emma talked about yo-yos on a yacht (double whammy there!); Ashley first visit to McDonalds; Daniel fish-n-chips; Paul date at Vidals; Craig Wanganui; James good date with a great girl with lovely lipstick! Finally - Mengying, about places visited in New Zealand. An excellent idea from Kate and the first time I have seen that particular idea used in many years of Toastmasters.

Emma - An almost proposal on a yacht!

Paul - A date in Wanganui

Daniel - Fish and chips at his "date"

Graeme gave an excellent all round evaluation of table Topics, including an explanation of what Evaluation involves for the guests, and had commendations and recommendations for all the speakers delivered with humour.

The first prepared speech was presented by Emma, introduced and evaluated by Craig. Emma was completing Project Five from the Competent Communicator Manual ‘Use of Gestures’ and her speech was entitled “Licensed to Shop”.

Emma gave a very humorous and entertaining account of the dangers of shopping(particularly in a supermarket) and had “four key hazard areas” to watch out for. She certainly utilised plenty of excellent body language, gestures, facial expressions and eye contact, which were all part of her objectives and entertained us as well. Emma felt that along with many other activities that you require to be ‘licensed’ for there should also be a graduated form of license for supermarket shopping. Excellent choice of subject for this assignment and extremely well carried out by Emma, well done!

Our next speech was presented by Ashley, introduced and evaluated by Paul. Ashley was doing Project Three “Get To The Point” and used that as his title for the speech. Again a very interesting and humorous (plus educational and healthy!) presentation that told us about Ashley’s change from ‘unhealthy’ to ‘healthy’ eating habits over the past twelve months and that has enabled him to lose 20% of his body fat and feel so, so much better. This was the type of speech that could almost encourage one to give ‘healthy’ eating a go, particularly as Ashley came across as very genuine and sincere in what he has achieved with obvious benefits. Well done Ashley both on the results you have achieved and on the speech.

Ashley - Talking about eating healthy

James then gave us a very comprehensive Educational on Evaluating, this was very useful for the newer members and I believe some of us ‘old timers’ could also benefit from this session. I particularly liked the way James demonstrated the reasons for Evaluations clearly (to assist the speaker to improve) and the demonstrations he gave of different ways of undertaking the tasks of an evaluator i.e. introducing the speaker, wording your evaluation etc. Well done James, a most worthwhile session, which could have been enhanced by a Handout covering the basics of your session. (I will see what I can do at the next meeting!)

After the break, Craig Evaluated Emma, and firstly told her she had well and truly  achieved the objectives of her assignment. Craig had lots of well deserved commendations for Emma and was able to give her a suggestion for improvement as well. Paul, evaluated Ashley’s presentation and commended him for the way he put his message across plus suggested that he look at setting up prior to the Introduction as an area of improvement.

During the business session, Craig reminded members of the Division Conference coming up at our venue on Saturday 8th April when the Division finals of the Evaluation and International Prepared Speech Contests will be held 12.00 to 4.00pm. No cost!!! Anyone is welcome to come along and have an entertaining afternoon.

Craig - Promoting the division conference.

The General Evaluator, Craig, then summed up the meeting giving due praise to Kate for her running of the meeting and commenting on the Evaluator’s efforts. He was assisted by the Timekeeper, Rob, who gave a very indepth description of the Timekeeper’s role at the beginning of the meeting and reported clearly on the times that participants took during the meeting enabling us to finish right on time. Well done Rob, the preparation showed.

We also had a report from the Grammarian Graeme whose word of the night was “extenuate, extenuating, extenuation etc”, which was utilised regularly by some members! Graeme also tested our listening skills with questions about ‘who said what?”

Awards for the night went to: 

Table Topics: Jane.                                              

Speaker: Emma

Evaluator: Graeme

Contribution: Craig

As mentioned, meeting closed on time and we do it all again on 10th April.