Lest we forget

Despite the unexpected presence of another event at the community hall, the meeting started on time with the venue being the adjacent room (the traditional "holding" room for speech contests). The meeting was also attended by four guests (Brendan, Desiree, Heather and Lee), of which Lee is Kate's "significant other" (as introduced by Kate herself). In view of the smaller room, it was a full house of 16 members and guests for the night! Hopefully a positive sign for membership count for the future. Apologies were received from Emma, Sarah, Ashley, Paul, Christine, Steve and Dot and were seconded accordingly.

ANZAC Day was the theme of the evening. Craig started the meeting by explaining the significance of ANZAC Day and how the poppy came about. Various interesting facts about ANZAC Day were described throughout the meeting between items on the agenda, of which commendation must be given to the smooth delivery of the transition. Well done Craig!

Graeme - being the grammarian - challenged the audience to sneak in ANZAC Day associated words and phrases such as "poppy" and "lest we forget" into the meeting.

Building on the theme of the evening, our table topics master Peter asked participants to talk about various subjects in relation to ANZAC Day, ranging from describing a dawn service experience to the effect of ANZAC public holiday on a typical week. This was later evaluated by Ian, in which the importance of evaluation was explained and the CRC formula was used during the evaluation itself. The highlight (pun intended) was members should not attempt to extend their speech delivery by talking about the light system used by the timekeeper as the topic itself tends to be... off-topic and does not add value to the speech quality. Kudos must be given for Ian's eagle eye on the speakers' body language (e.g. the smile on his/her face and hands in the pocket) on top of trying to listen and understand the speeches. More importantly, Ian acknowledged Heather (one of the guests) on her bravery in coming up to the front to do an impromptu speech, of which the encouragement given to her will hopefully instil some confidence for future speeches. Well done Ian!

The first prepared speech was delivered by Rob. Graeme (two roles tonight!) gave a very good introduction to the competent communicator manual, the objective requirement, and the speaker himself. Rob, completing the very first project of the CC manual, described his NIMBY battle of pylon installation in his backyard.

NIMBY (an acronym for the phrase "Not In My Back Yard"), or Nimby (as a word, instead of an acronym), is a characterization of opposition by residents to a proposal for a new development because it is close to them often with the connotation that such residents believe that the developments are needed in society but should be further away.

Due evaluation was given, of which commendation was given to Rob's confidence and giving the audience an insight into his NIMBY legal battle. Well done Rob and Graeme!

The second prepared speech was given by our pharmacist Delan. Amy, being the evaluator, gave the audience a very succinct introduction to the speaker. Borrowing from what the previous evaluators had already covered, Amy went straight to the matter of "This is Delan" - "He is here to give us his ice breaker speech" and quickly shifted the attention to the speaker himself.  Delan gave us an account of what he does for a living and even dished out free advice on cold and flu products to the audience! Well done Delan on completing your very first project. The evaluation was straight to the point - what Amy liked, what could be improved. We look forward to Delan's future speeches (especially more about himself!)

Business session was conducted by our very own Toastmaster Craig, of which members are reminded that two of the members at Napier club (Craig himself and Amy) will be representing at the District level of Evaluation Contest and National Speech Contest respectively in Wellington. Craig also mentioned a special publication on Craig and Amy's effort to date will be published in Napier Mail in the very near future (keep an eye on the Napier Mail website for those without access to the physical copy).

[Edit] - Napier Courier, second page.

James, the General Evaluator, concluded the meeting by giving commendation to Craig for his running of the meeting in view of the slight change of venue of the event and for the excellent use of ANZAC Day theme throughout the meeting. Various comments were given to the evaluators for their evaluation effort. Timekeeper Daniel - not hesitant to use the bell at all during the meeting - gave us his timekeeper report and made sure we finished the meeting on time (with seven minutes to spare!). Graeme then gave his grammarian report by quizzing us "who said what".

Awards for the evening:

Best Speaker - Rob

Best Evaluator - Amy

Best Table Topics - Kate

Best Contributor - James