Going bananas

That is right, we are all going bananas tonight. No, not because of the various Lockdown levels, or the return to some normality for some, but...

While our zoom attendees were down, another memorable meeting was hosted by Peter, who provided his own cheerleading folk and associated groupies, all within the less than 10 gathering policies, of course.  There is nothing like convening your own fan club to provide that extra vitality to any zoom meeting. With formalities quickly dispensed with, Roz introduced the word of the evening – bananas. With a nice bunch on display, many looked ripe for the picking and consumption. If only we could have met for real to enjoy the benefits of this nutritional fruit.

This lead into our one and only speech; the 'roast' speech by Brenda. As some background, a roast speech is a lot like a toast, except it pokes fun (in a nice humorous way) at the person(s) in the speech.  Tonight, Brenda went bananas and included several members of the Club as her target.  The long and short of it, or was that the big and small, pitted Craig against Graeme, then Jan against Siri (an electronic member of the Apple Club), rounding out with Superman (Peter) against the leopard skinned Karen. An entertaining, humourous speech which had a significant impact, like a sledge hammer cracking open a walnut. Yes, you literally smashed it Brenda and in doing so concluded her Special Occasion speech manual assignments.

Steve introduced Table Topics, setting the scenario of us all being authors and wanting to publish some recently developed stories. All of our speakers literally went bananas, with no one slipping up on the skin. Opened by Karen, who spoke about the 'particular sadness of a lemon cake'. As always, Karen relied on those great kitchen skills and conjured up a potpourri of ingredients to making her cake worth eating.  Not to be outdone, Patrick was invited to talk on whether 'androids dream of electric sheep'. With more alternatives that a maze could offer, Patrick revelled in the binary stratosphere and NZ's green clean environment. Not to be outdone, the 'rocket in my pocket' man, Graeme, reminisced about his running prowess and exuded on the speed he now displays at Toastmasters. This lead to Craig venturing into something very fishy with his fishing lady in an intriguing title 'so long, and thanks for all the fish'.  Skeletal in nature, and definitely lots of nibbling going on. Marc entertained us, and spoke very confidently, about his novel; 'still striping after 25 years'.  Well wallpapering never got a look in, so keep up with your lockdown antics Marc.  Our topics could not of been complete without a 'don't pee on my leg, and tell me its raining', which Jan managed to navigate in between showers, from the warmth of the host's lounge.

Feedback from our evaluators, Craig and Karen was well handled, with all speakers managing to fill in the required  90 seconds. In particular, praise was accorded to Steve for picking the most unusual title names; all of which are real published books.

The highlight of the evening was President Jane running the elections. Dressed in all of her fine regalia, including the much coveted chains of office, Jane graciously thanked the outgoing Committee for their time and commitment. With the pomp and ceremony that only Jane could bestow, the process of nominations and acceptances, went exceptionally well.  Upon nominating, and seconding, nominations were quickly closed, with congratulations being provided by a show of hands.  Our successful members were President – Karen, VP Education – Patrick, VP Public Relations – still vacant, VP Membership – Rosalynn, VP Secretary – Craig, VP Treasurer – Craig and Sgt at Arms – Graeme. The Club is eternally grateful for accepting the position and fell surety that we are in very competent hands.

A brief summation to the evening was provided by Ian, and backed up with the proficient timekeeping report by Jan, using the new iPad lighting system. Roz then exuded on the countless times banana/bananas was used, and many other wonder phrases that were injected into our speeches.

Peter rounded the evening off with non existent virtual awards, with all of the winners of the evening being the attendees. Mention was made of the return to normality; with the possibility of meeting face to face and interacting in our usual spot; so watch this space. 

Next meeting; Monday 8 June – location to be advised.