Another great meeting!

Toastmaster Karen opened the meeting and welcomed the many guests introduced to the meeting by members. The Grammarian introduced our word for the night followed by the timekeeper explaining that their role is to keep the meeting to time by encouraging the speakers to speak to their allotted time. The General Evaluator summarised her role for the night to evaluate the meeting. The meeting flowed well. Good job Karen.

Table Topics Master Graeme gave speakers a word to begin speaking about and then part way through introduced a second word for the speaker to weave into their talk. All speakers took on the challenge and spoke well especially Patrick who was awarded the best Table Topics Speaker award for the night. The Table topics session and speakers were well evaluated by Ian who gave all the speakers very useful suggestions as to how they could improve their impromptu speaking skills. Well done Graeme and Ian.

The first formal speech was an Ice Breaker (first speech to the club) by Afrin entitled "How far have you come" Afrin spoke about the challenges of childhood and growing up in Bangladesh. Afrin also talked about her journey coming to New Zealand and asked us "How far have you come:"  This Speech was evaluated by Amy in a very genuine and sympathetic way with appropriate use of enthusiasm and humour.

The second speech was titled "Distracted from Distraction by Distraction". We soon became aware that the speech as about social media with scientific explanation as to why this formula is very addictive. Layeeq asked us to reconsider our dependence on all forms social media suggesting we use the extra time to learn a new skill. Evaluated by an exuberant and enthusiastic Carol who gave Layeeq suggestions that might improve his speech.

The business session was well handled by President Jan.

The business session was followed by a 15 min supper break  - a sufficiently long break to catch up with members and guests.

We resumed with the evaluations followed by the Club elections. Congratulations to all the office Holders especially the new members who are taking on the challenge of holding office.

The general Evaluator gave her summary of the meeting and announced the Awards.

Awards for the night:
Best speaker – Layeeq
Best evaluator –  Ian
Best table topic –  Peter
Best contribution –  Patrick

Well done to these recipients. Well deserved.

The guests gave some comments on how they enjoyed the meeting and the proceedings were brought to a close just after 9pm.