Life is more than Chocolate Mint Biscuits...

If the biggest highlight in your Toastmasters meeting is supper, then something needs to be said – but finish your mouthful first!

The evening was opened in a timely manner by our Toastmaster, Ian, who was the first to use the word of the day – Loquacious – and in like manner gave apologies, welcomed guests and put them at ease while explaining activities as they were presented. Guests included Chandra, Collin, and Jakkii as well as Patrick’s fan club, Alison, John and Hunter. There were several changes to the printed program which did not disturb Ian as he, with quickness of hand, rearranged activities to best advantage. Let the speaking begin!

Steve organised a well-structured Table Topics session asking simple questions such as: What is the perfect age, what is a beloved childhood memory, what is your kiwi dream??? His aim was to get brains thinking within a framework, an opening, a middle and conclusion, in an impromptu situation. Table Topics Evaluators, Ian and Daniel (first time T.T evaluator), were an able duo of teacher and student who demonstrated their listening abilities by being able to commend and recommend each speaker. They proved how gracious they were by thanking the Table Topics Master, Steve, the attentive audience and themselves, setting the tone for warm encouragement throughout the evening.

Patrick with the Best Speaker award

Following this Graeme, Best Evaluator of the evening, introduced Patrick and his Ice Breaker while providing an outline of the objectives, for the benefit of the guests. In his speech, Patrick, took us through his early life of science, photography and aqua-scapes. Patrick delivered with confidence and kept well away from his notes on the lectern. He won Best Speaker of the evening award with such phrases as "Zen Zone" bedroom and photographically "capturing nature as nature captured him". I happened to have the opportunity to witness (call it spying) Graeme reassuring Patrick before the meeting demonstrating to me what it is to be vastly experienced, a mentor and evaluator. More than that... it is Graeme, Sergeant-at-Arms, who is responsible for our cookie selection and, in the absence of home baking, I would like to highly commend him on his choice.

With the shuffling of the program Craig presented a Q&A style Educational Session on Speech Preparation. He called upon different members to share their secrets. Steve (vastly experienced) told how he looks at the speech objectives, does research over a few weeks while taking notes under headings.  He doesn't write a script or try to memorize instead delivers what has now become a familiar topic because he has investigated, reviewed and reread topic material. Craig also suggested that notes can work to free you up to focus on presentation. Jane (newbie) also started with speech objectives and then wrote down every idea she could and then spent a lot of time reducing length to fit her time limit. Brenda has suggested that 100 words is equal to one minute as a rule of thumb guide. Graeme (vastly experienced) talked about topic selection - taking the common place, from the newspaper for example, and generating interest by looking at things from a different angle. Craig left us with Prepare, Practise x 5 and present. To paraphrase the super villain Mega Mind "Oh, you’re a speaker all right, just not a super one..." with the difference... presentation!

Second speaker, Layeeq, showed us all what commitment is, rushing from another meeting to deliver assignment number five – Your Body Speaks.  Dressed to impress in a suit with button hole rose his topic was "Falling in Love Again". With brutal honesty he shared relationship insights from a reformed egoist's point of view. Brenda gave an excellent introduction out lining the objective for lesson five and arousing our curiosity. Her evaluation was wide, with positive comments about his body language, speech structure and use of props – the fragrant rose – and recommendations on how to emphasize the emotion of the speech using voice and gestures.

A Business Session was the last major item on the agenda lead by Craig. Bread and butter details about next meeting, executive meeting and the coming conference on 11th/12th November in Gisborne.

  

Finally, our Grammarian of the night Christine reported on the um/ahs, pointed out some clever word usage, and the use of her word – loquacious which means: full of excessive talk or given to fluent or excessive talk.

Carol, our first time, Time-keeper reported back on timing of events. She kept us all to time as well as managed to win the Best Table Topics Speaker of the evening.

Awards for the night went to:

Best speaker - Patrick. 

Best evaluator - Graeme. 

Best table topic speaker - Carol. 

Best contribution - Layeeq.

Meeting Closed in timely manner.  Looking forward to our next gathering

Quote of the evening: Sir Edmund Hillary - I will come again and conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow, but as a human I can.