What an epic meeting!

One could almost say it was an "EPIC" meeting as this was the word of the night chosen by our Grammarian Ashley, with four guests plus three visiting judges from Pania for our International Speech Contest.

The programme was well put together by our Toastmaster for the evening Christine, who also showed her experience in keeping the meeting running smoothly with the changeover to the Contest Chairman Ian for the running of the International Speech Contest.  This contest involving prepared speeches is considered the most prestigious on the Toastmasters calendar as the winner at the club has the potential to represent New Zealand at the World Championship of Public Speaking finals, held later this year in Canada.

Chairman Ian showed his experience in ably ensuring the judges and other contest officials were aware of their duties and in explaining the rules to the participants and the audience.  Our winner was Amy with her speech "Starlight, Starbright", the story of a little girls relationship with her grandmother and the stories she was told and now her grandmother has passed on, she retells those stories to her children. The other speaker was Craig who gave a wonderful insight on "His Fifteen Minutes of Fame", story about his teenage event involving racehorses.

Amy - on her way to winning the club contest

At the conclusion of the contest, control of the meeting was handed back to Christine, who introduced James to run Table Topics.  James introduced us to his theme, completely new to most of us. He explained he was the "anchor" at the TV studio and the Table Topics participants were the outside reporters. He had prepared a series of three flip charts for each participant who had to come up and make up a story for the TV audience based around the flip chart drawings.  A great innovation with some great imagination once members got the hang of what they were meant to do. The award for the best "news reporter" went to our newest member Delan.

Ashley - reporting on the release of flying solar cars by Tesla

Delan - reporting on the winning try at a rugby match

An enjoyable "cuppa" break was followed by an educational presentation from Emma on the benefits of having a mentor and being a mentee. A first for Emma and a very positive and well thought through presentation on how mentoring and being a mentor/mentee can be of benefit not just in Toastmasters, but in our personal and professional lives. Well done.

Emma - on being a mentor/mentee

President Craig reminded us in the business session about the next level of contests - the Area Speech contests on Friday 10 March and we should all be there to support our club representatives in the International Speech and Evaluation Contest Area finals. We should also be registering now to take advantage of the discounts for the District Convention and national speech finals in Wellington 12-14 May. Lastly, Craig reiterated upcoming changes to the educational programme in the form of Pathways.

A great general evaluation of the meeting by Steve who gave commendations and suggestions to all participants who had not previously received evaluations. He was assisted by timekeeper Kate who revealed which of us had gone over or under our allotted time and grammarian Ashley who reported on the wonderful use of the word of the night - "EPIC" and other use of grammar and the English language.  Final words were left to our guests who all thought it was an "epic" meeting and indicated they would be coming back.