Seasons greetings to you all!

Serious seasonal fun was had at​ ​Napier Toastmasters Club's final meeting of the year on Monday 14
December.

Wearing Christmas themed fancy dress – Santa hats, tinsel and copious amounts of red, green and white, members got into the spirit of things . We even had an angel, a Santa's helper and Snoopy in a flight suit. Amazing what some people have in their wardrobes!!

Toastmaster Sarah was in charge for the evening and she managed the meeting beautifully, demonstrating great MC and organisational skills. It was evident that she had done a lot of preparation in readiness for the meeting.

Sarah - our Christmas MC

As it was the last meeting, we decided to do something different and hold a Tall Tales competition, combining fun, intrigue and storytelling.

For those that aren't familiar with what Tall Tales are all about, it's where you tell a story and listeners have to guess whether it is true or false. The winner is the speaker who divides the club, with equal numbers thinking the story is true and a similar number thinking it's a bunch of porkies.

That set the scene for some hilarious and far fetched stories. We had an amazing 14 speakers take part; that's more than 50 per cent of our membership and given that 19 people were at the meeting, pretty darn fabulous. Well done team!

On display from all of our speakers were impressive skills from the Toastmasters' toolbox: great body language, vocal variety, audience engagement, word pictures and creativity. It certainly wasn't obvious who was telling a true tale and who was telling a tall tale.

Brenda told us about decorating her mother in law's dining room, Jane about a time she nearly drowned, Craig about bank robbery where the perpetrators didn't find $50k that was hidden in plain sight, Steve about a ten pin bowling stag night, James about the quest for a perfect haircut, Daniel about pea testing, Karen about Christmas dinner gone horribly wrong, Ian about his water/beer proof diving watch , Graeme about an electric car ride and a conversation, Kelly about learning to fire dance, Carolyn about a run in with the police on a trip around Europe all because of a purple pompom, Jan about an ex boyfriend and a light plane crash, Peter about his quest to become a mascot of his favourite team and Bill about a tale of piano disposal.

Jane with her tall tale

Craig with his tall tale

Daniel with his tall tale

Ian with his tall tale

While the votes were counted, Brenda spoke about a hot topic – the menopause – educated half the audience and frightened the other...gender specific! In the process completed assignment one from the speaking to inform manual.

And now the results:
Equal second place, with 8 votes for true and 11 false: Steve, Daniel, Peter and Bill
Equal first place, with 10 votes for true and 9 for false: Karen and Jan

Special awards:
Most humorous speech: Peter
Best contribution to the meeting: Brenda

The winners!