Napier Toastmasters Club, New Zealand: Another great Napier Toastmasters meeting!

Meeting report, Hawke’s Bay Toastmasters: 23 September 2019

Another great Napier Toastmasters meeting was enjoyed by all on Monday the 23^rd of September 2019. Kerry opened proceedings as a very experienced and accomplished Toastmaster. The word of the day was introduced by Peter - “epiphany,” inspired by nothing other than Jerry Maguire (show me the money!!!).

We had the pleasure of listening to Jenny’s second speech. With her training in tourism she was well positioned to talk about Waitomo as a major New Zealand attraction. The troll caves sounded particularly interesting for curious little minds. Jenny cleverly talked about the impact of tourism on the local area summarising the downsides of tourist traffic too. The next speech was Lauren’s. Lauren raised her own high standards yet again with a beautifully written and structured speech talking about her personal journey into interior design. We were captivated by her striking word images and description which included “doors that scream at you,” Feng Shui and biophilic design (hopefully I’ve spelt that correctly - Lauren’s evaluator (Jane) admitted she spent some time wondering over the spelling of this new phrase!). Karen presented the third speech of the night. She thoughtfully wrote a speech detailing what to do and what not to do when writing a speech for a toastmasters evening. She reminded all that drinking in the spa probably won’t help you polish off that speech due next week, and neither will be watching reality television! So just like my general evaluator’s report, don’t procrastinate get onto your speech writing immediately and the final product will be finished before you know it!!!

James D hosted a creative table topics session where speakers were invited to time travel and describe events in the past and future (depending on their particular question). Patrick presented an insight into what a future Napier would look like (he suggested the cycleways would now be waterways and many people would be living in boats rather than houses). Joylene travelled back into time with some insightful words she would say to others. Craig took his wife and a motor back to the 1890s and Alwyn made a prudent investment in Bitcoin. Lastly Nigel decided that his Groundhog Day would be forever fishing (I hope you catch a big fish with all that extra practice).

The final speech of the night was Ashley’s. He talked about his own middle age adventure into the NZ Outward Bound scheme. He made the whole audience laugh with his open-air toilet phobic companion who inadvertently revealed a little more than she bargained, to the passing Interislander (Hoooonnnnkkk - it’s the stuff nightmares are made of!). There was a fine assortment of evaluations. Peter Manson gave a positive summary of Jenny’s speech. Jane cleverly dissected the fine points of Lauren’s talk and gave her wise advice to build the performances further. Carol involved the audience in her evaluation - “do you think Karen achieved her goals?” There was a resounding yes to that question. Graeme reaped fine praise onto Ashley’s performance rating his speech as one of the finest he had seen in recent years at the club. Steve and Jan gave pertinent points to all the table topics speakers. Jan gave particularly honed and unique feedback to each of the speeches she reviewed.

Kerry concluded proceedings and thanked Alwyn for stepping in at the last moment to help as timekeeper. Until next time fellow toastmasters and guests!

Awards: Best speech - Ashley

Best evaluator - Jan

Best table topics - Craig

Best contribution - Alwyn