Check, check - is it on?

On a chilly winter's evening of 27th July Napier Toastmasters held another great meeting well attended by members and many, many guests, whom I am sure would have enjoyed the high standard always produced by the Club and its members.

The room was well set up and nice and warm when everyone arrived and we were enthusiastically greeted by the Toastmaster of the night, Karen, who had an interesting program lined up for us. With the many guests present it was good to hear the members giving clear indications of what their roles on the program involved so they could understand what was going on!

The first prepared speech was presented by Nigel, it was entitled "Do You Act Differently When no One is Watching?" and was presented well with Leadership as the theme, Nigel mentioned many great leaders and what their main attributes were and aligned them to everyday life, he demonstrated his title well and showed that even great leaders make mistakes, the main thing is " that you cannot change the past-but you can influence the future!" Well done Nigel for only your second speech at the Club and something with a message!

Steve introduced and evaluated Nigel's presentation and gave him suitable commendations while also suggesting a couple of areas that perhaps he could look at improving on, it was really a 'copybook' evaluation from Steve with a recap of the objectives, commendations, some suggestions for improvement ,more commendations and a summary. I am sure Nigel will benefit from that.

The next speech was presented by Jan, Jan is a longer serving Toastmaster and gave us an excellent 'use of visual aids' speech when talking about "Podcasts". The speech was entitled "Check,Check is it on?" Jan always has excellent delivery skills and really looks as if she is enjoying giving us a speech, which draws the audience into what she is saying. It was a really interesting presentation, particularly for someone who has had little to do with podcasts and I really like the way she related them back to the "good old days" of radio (wireless even!). She certainly knew her subject and showed us the items needed to make a podcast.

Ian introduced and evaluated Jan's presentation and opened with the words that the speech "educated, inspired and demonstrated great delivery skills for a speech" which it certainly did. He was also able to suggest a couple of areas where he believed the speech could have been even better for Jan to work on, these were that there was a long build up to the showing of the visual aids and that the Title was not mentioned at all during the speech, this could have been included several times for effect.

Next up we had a speech from Greg, an Ice Breaker, his first speech to the Club to allow us to get to know a little more about himself. The speech was entitled "Had Enough!". This was a great Ice Breaker speech and we certainly learnt a great deal about the man, Greg seemed at ease during his presentation and utilised great gestures and vocal variety, especially for a first speech, well done Greg, with a particular emphasis to the great finish of the speech and telling us what brought you to Toastmasters.

Jen, in her first evaluation was highly complimentary of Greg's presentation (and rightly so!) but was still able to offer some advice on how she felt the speech could be even further improved. It was a well structured evaluation and excellent for her first attempt.

The much awaited Table Topics session was very capably handled by Ros in which she introduced a number of well known sayings (which were ideally short and brief so easy to remember) and asked members to comment on the possible origin of the saying or how it affected them. Approx. six  members and a guest (who had been forewarned) tackled their subjects well with humour, great gestures and some interesting stories! A great choice of topics ,Ros and well carried through.

The two Peters evaluated Table Topics and had some excellent commendations for all the speakers and were also able to suggest areas of recommendations to most of them. It is always best to give the topic first with Table Topics and then name the person you wish to speak, that gets everyone briefly thinking about the topic!!

During the business session our new President Karen carried out the necessary business very efficiently and V/P membership Roz inducted two new members, Greg and Paulo, welcome to the Club to them, I am sure they will gain much from their time with us. Two members also received Certificates from the (old) Education program, which concluded on 30th June). 

Daniel returned to accept his well deserved Competent Communicator Award and Craig received another Competent Leader Award. Last Monday night we had our awards dinner and the winners were again recognised:

Most Humorous Speaker: Peter B

Most Improver Speaker:  Ros

Best Evaluator: Ian

Best Table Topics Speaker: Peter B

Best Speaker: Tony

Tracey Webster Award: Karen

Toastmaster of The Year: Jane

Another great meeting, well enjoyed by all and summed up by the General Evaluator, Craig ably assisted by the Timekeepers, Tony & Patrick and the Grammarian, Jane, with her spectacular word "spectacular" which was used a record 26 times during the night- spectacular!!

Best Speech of the Night: Jan

Best Evaluator: Steve

Best Table Topic: Tony

 

We do it all again on 10th August, come and join us its free!!