That was the intriguing title of one of the speeches at Napier Toastmasters meeting on 28th August , on a cold winter's night and a few late apologies but still a good turnout of members and one guest.
The Toastmaster for the evening was Greg, and what a great job he did! Meeting agendas were out more than a week in advance, although several subsequent copies were required due to some changes in the program. Greg had a theme for the evening of "today in history" and related during the program several events of interest that occurred on this day. He segued the items on the program well and allowed the evening to run smoothly and to finish on time.
The word of the night, plethora, was introduced by Christian as Grammarian and this was used regularly during the meeting, you could say we had a plethora of the use of plethora!
Our first prepared speech, entitled "Everyone Wins" was presented by Tony, who was completing his Pathway of "Presentation Mastery" and what an excellent final speech it was. In this assignment, Tony was to outline the progress he felt he had made and highlights of his just over three years that it took to complete this path, which included something like 68 meetings and 18 speeches! As usual with Tony this final assignment was extremely well organised and presented and while he is now taken a break from Toastmasters we know that he will be back. Tony's message was that the Club, the public and he himself wins from his Toastmaster's experience. Ros gave an excellent evaluation of Tony's presentation with many well earned commendations and was able to suggest an area she felt the speech could have been even further improved.
Next up was Andy, with his assignment as headlined above. In this assignment Andy was to practice the use of visuals using technology etc and while there were initially a few hiccups, which everyone will have benefited from, the final presentation was extremely well done and thought provoking, which many of Andy's presentations are. An excellent message was well delivered with the aid of the slides etc, which certainly added great impact to the speech. Ian evaluated Andy's presentation and gave us all some things to think about when using technology.
Table Topics were next, an Impromptu speaking assignment, led by Song and she produced some very interesting and generally easy to talk to subjects centered around things to do in Hawkes Bay. Those not rostered on the program and some that were had the opportunity to comment on Song's subjects and all did this well, even our guest who gave an excellent answer for her first Table Topic. The Table Topics were evaluated by Steve, who once again showed his expertise at this level with excellent commendations for all the speakers and several very worthwhile suggestions for improvement.
After the tea/coffee break we had the third prepared speech presented by Patrick and entitled "Get your life sorted!". While Patrick has been a Toastmaster for some years, he has only recently returned to the Club and so utilised this speech as an Ice Breaker (the first speech that new members give to the Club) as since he was with us previously, we have had a number of new members that would not know Patrick's background. A well delivered speech it was, which certainly gave us an insight into what Patrick has been up to since he was with us a couple of years ago; children, project manager for their new home etc. This speech was evaluated by Jan and again, as we come to expect from Jan, this was an excellent evaluation with many commendations and a recommendation or two. We had a series of four experienced Evaluators on board tonight and the quality was extremely high.
The General Evaluation team of Craig (G/E), Christian (Grammarian) and Nic (Timekeeper) wrapped up the meeting with both Christian and Nic doing their roles for the first time and making an excellent fist of it! The meeting had quality right through it and was interesting and educational as is usual for Napier Toastmaster meetings! (and we finished on time!!)
Best Speaker: Andy, Best Evaluator: Jan, Best Contribution; Craig
& Best Table Topic: Jan
We do it all again on 11th September, why not come along!
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