The writing's on the wall - no clichés!

 After unfurling the new Toastmaster's banner our toastmaster for the night, Craig, welcomed everyone to tonight's meeting. We had a number of guests again - clearly this is the place to be on a Monday night! Steve went a little left field raising the challenge to speak without use of any clichés - a man of my own heart I must say!

Only one prepared speech tonight - but it was delivered in typical calmness personified by Patrick. Patrick took us back in time on a long rehab journey to recovery after suffering terrible lower limb fractures. Next up was Brenda whom as a prior table topics contest winner was well placed to give us an educational session on what makes the ideal table topic speech. Good to know for the next meeting when we have our table topics contest - we want you there and if you're a member we want you to compete! Following this Karen hosted table topics. Her six year old daughter drew pairs of pictures and we had to speak about what we preferred. Jack chose to move away from his Asian routes and go Italian over Chinese. Kerry told us that she didn't mind if you were a blonde or a brunette - it's what's inside that counts. But she does like to watch athletic blonde men on TV. Paulo revealed he would always choose a road trip over a flight, particularly as he hates flying. Will punted for a hotel over camping. Melanie chose 5 kids over a solo child with a very amusing and entertaining delivery. Ros easily chose pavlova instead of turkey (she is a veggie after all). And I admitted if there was a choice of $35 million /no friends or $0 and all my friends, I'd go.. for the money!

Nigel flexed his evaluation muscles again. It was a positive review of Patrick's speech. Jan and Brenda evaluated the table topics contest. Both showed their experience in prising out recommendations even for the most polished performances. And then we were invited on an interactive humorous speech contest educational delivered by Graeme. We were taken to the back of the room to watch a recording of his national contest performance. But at the end of it all we were encouraged to just give the humorous contest a go. Even if it's not funny, that can actually be quite funny too - please have a crack! Karen did the business and we welcomed a couple of new members (Will and Jack). Craig, me and the rest of the general evaluator team wrapped things up at the end as quick as we could as we'd tracked 15 minutes over time. Woops! Was worth it to revel in the past comical achievement exemplified by Graeme. So much skill and so much to aim for team Napier! And so many treats for Craig to munch through to celebrate his birthday night, lucky man! Until next time...

Best speech - Patrick
Best evaluator - Jan
Best table topics - Melanie
Best contribution - Peter B