It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas...

... no doubt, the exact thought running through everyone's mind when we arrived at the venue - there were bags of goodies and presents everywhere! The razzle dazzle bedazzled all of us - from fidget spinners, to ingredients to make a grand Christmas dinner, to food that is not going to make you thinner; everyone felt like a winner! To top it off, members have answered Sarah's call to dress up to the Christmas theme, and oh my - what a sight! Jane wore a gorgeous dress that Daniel could not remember whether it was his mum's wedding dress, to Craig's big bright red bow tie that surpassed Mickey Mouse's bow tie standard.

Under the capable hands of our madam Toastmaster, the evening kickstarted with a challenge to loquaciously use the word of the evening - "Bodacious". Layeeq - our bodacious Table Topics master of the evening - bodaciously picked a theme for impromptu speech for the evening. With a Santa sack filled with bodacious goodies that were bodaciously wrapped, Layeeq bodaciously challenged the speakers to pick and unwrap a present and explain why it is a bodacious present that meant a lot to the speakers. However, it is the bodacious imaginative ways of the speakers using the gift that provided the bodacious highlight of the evening. This ranged from Jane wrapping poor Santa Claus with tinsel, to Jackie's initial placement of Santa's beard, to Paul's idea of using a Christmas ribbon as a belt, to Kate's idea of hanging Christmas bells around her dog, and to James' idea of selling his cake topper on TradeMe. All of them were concerning use of well-intended Christmas gifts that were hand-picked, hand-bought, hand-wrapped by our Santa Claus. Thank you Layeeq for the great idea and for going through the trouble of buying the Christmas gifts.

Paul and his "belt"

Jackie and her mischievous placement

Kate and the "dog chime"

The speakers were respectively evaluated by Steve and Graeme, who bodaciously injected large doses of humour during each evaluation.

The first, only, last assigned speaker of the evening (and the last assigned speaker of the year) was Amy. She spoke about the life of Jingles' mischief in the household until the Significant Other came along. The peace and tranquility did not last long for the kids missed the trouble caused by Jingles, and so... trouble resumed! It is admirable the degree of effort Amy has put in to create the trouble Jingles has caused - thank you Amy for the speech.

Amy and Jingles

Business session followed, of which Craig emphasised the beginning of the Toastmasters Pathway program and re-re-re-reiterated Ian, NOT Steve, is the base camp manager. After the quick delivery, the Christmas festivity filled the room as members enjoyed finger food / drinks while having a chit chat.