This one was certainly no exception, with Ashley at the helm as Toastmaster we were in for an entertaining and educational evening right from the reading of the Mission Statement, by guest and past member, Kate/Elizabeth, at the beginning of the meeting.
Guests, David and Cory(5th/6th time-now time to join) were in the audience and after explanation of the roles of General Evaluator,(Craig),Timer,(Tony) and Grammarian (James D) who gave us the word to use during the evening of LOLLYGAG (spend time aimlessly- idle-procrastinate) not something we do in Toastmasters! We were underway with Table Topics.
This session was capably run by Christine, who utilized conversation starters to get members talking, e.g. "Hi haven't seen you for ages, what have you been up to?" etc. James K, Daniel, Kate, Roz, Jan, Jane, Maureen and David all handled the situation well although some ran out of conversation a little early in the piece. Christine utilized those not on the program (apart from Jane) so that almost everyone had an opportunity to speak during the meeting. (This is one important reason for a Table Topics session!)
Patrick did extremely well in his Evaluation of Table Topics (which he had to do solo) with eight speakers bang, bang,bang! and gave some excellent feedback to the speakers with his usual infectious enthusiasm, awarding the Best Table Topics speaker to Jan.
The first prepared speech on the program was a 25/30 minute presentation from an Advanced Manual, Technical Presentations, specifically 'The Team Technical Presentation' entitled "The Holiday from Hell!" by Steve, assisted by Ian & Carol. This was introduced by Graeme and was a very well presented and researched session that involved the scenario of three couples going to Australia for 10 days together on holiday. Steve had an excellent introduction and then Ian covered the flights etc (to save as much time as possible for sightseeing), Steve then covered accommodation in Auckland, Ayres Roc, Alice, Darwin and Perth while Carol covered sightseeing options in the places visited, giving various choices depending on each couples preference. The presentation made excellent use of a "power point" type presentation with the information clearly shown on the screen for all to take in. Members were lining up after the speech to book with "Tutbury Tours" for this fantasy, which was extremely well put together and obviously took a great deal of planning between the three parties with Steve heading the arrangements.
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| Steve - "Tutbury Tours" |
After a supper break we had the second prepared assignment from Jane introduced by Kerry. This was a Pathways presentation where the speaker repeats (or does another speech) looking to put in place any suggestions made by the Evaluator of the first speech, (if the Speaker agrees that the suggestions were valid ones for them!). Jane first did this speech entitled "Career Options" at a Club in Christchurch while visiting her daughter, so it was new to us a Napier Club. Jane presented a very entertaining speech on 'career options for an over 50 year old' (obviously not for her personally!!) in her usual humorous and extroverted style with a great deal of self-depreciating humour but putting an appealing case for a career opportunity. Jane actually decided that she already has a career, she just wants a job!!
Graeme evaluated Steve's presentation and gave him many points of commendations (thoroughly deserved) in that he fully achieved all the objectives of the assignment and was also able to assist the speakers with some suggestions for improvement. It was interesting to note the different presentation styles between reading out the information with reference often to the screen and having it at the finger tips.
Kerry gave a very comprehensive evaluation of Jane's presentation and advised that she fulfilled two of the suggestions by the previous Evaluator of the speech, but did not agree with the third and therefore did not pursue this. Evaluations are an individual's personal point of view and it is not necessary to always agree with what they suggest and Kerry covered this point particularly well.
During the business session our outgoing President Jan, thanked the outgoing Executive (Toastmaster year changes over on 1st July) and the proceeded to induct the new Executive with a very formal procedure, which clearly showed the individual responsibilities of each member of the incoming Executive. This worked well although we had three 'stand ins' as the members were absent, which was probably not ideal.
Jan also reminded members about then Awards night on 29th July and Kate (past member) was presented with her Competent Communicator Award for completing the 10 speech Competent Communicator Manual before she left for overseas in March. Congratulations Kate, you certainly are a Competent Communicator!!
The evening was wound up right on time by the General Evaluator, Craig and his team of Tony (Timekeeper) who gave a very precise report on everything that occurred, and the Grammarian James D who reported on the use of his word "lollygag" (used several times during the evening in conversation but not in practice!).
Best Speaker was awarded to Steve, Best Evaluator to Patrick, Best Table Topic to Jane and Best Contribution to Patrick also.
Well done Ashley on a great meeting, very capably run.
Remember next week 1st July, we have a special meeting a 'SPEECH-A-THON" something like 12 speeches, no oral evaluations, starting at 6.30pm note that start time for our future meetings.
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