GUEST EDITOR – VPE CHRIS
Daniel opened the meeting which was to include a number of firsts and Brett gave the President's Welcome, and specifically welcomed our 4 guests; Vicki, Chrissy, Steve, Earl.
Peter presented the Word of the Day as ‘cognisant’ and 2 members managed to use the word appropriately throughout the meeting.
Kimberley was Toastmaster of the Educational Session, which included a run-down on how to deliver an appropriate Toast inside and outside the Toastmasters environment, presented by Sam, and an overview of the Club Executive Roles presented by Paul. Both sessions were well received by the audience.
Paul V, who replicated the professional job that Glen had demonstrated in the first half, chaired the second half of the meeting. It began with Juliet Toasting Irene, a lady that had helped abused people through a charity for a number of years. This was her first toast and was presented with a lot of passion and demonstrated great preparation.
Katrina was Toastmaster of the Second Speech Session. This was also the first time Katrina had been Toastmaster of a prepared speech session and she appeared calm and remembered all the appropriate formalities. The first speech was delivered by Brett who managed to draw a comparison between the width of the railway gauge in the US and a horses backside, and link it to the powerful lesson that we shouldn't do things just because they were always done that way. Kimberley's speech was an informative and entertaining journey through the life of a potato from the farm to the chip packet. The speeches were Evaluated by Natasha and Chris respectively. They both were very positive evaluations and highlighted some areas for improvement including examples.
Table Topics was run creatively by Glen. Each speaker was posed with a confronting question at a dinner party, either attacking their job or their favourite hobby. The speakers all responded passionately and as such all spoke for longer than the allocated time. The speakers were Paul M, Earl, Juliet, Meghan, Peter, Chris, Sam, Daniel, Kimberley. Natasha and Paul M evaluated them, and both provided general and specific helpful feedback.
The final Evaluation items for the meeting were as follows:
- Kimberley counted the Um's and Ah's. She was sensitive to those that had high numbers and also accurately picked up additional filler words beyond just ums and ahs.
- Peter was the Grammarian and managed to pick up an example of grammar that we could improve upon whilst also highlighting many positive examples particularly some quite visual phrases used by the prepared speakers.
- Paul delivered the Big Ears segment. Although he ran out of prizes early, people still enthusiastically tested their listening skills trying to remember who had said the various unique phrases.
- Meghan was the Timer for the evening and this was another first for the meeting. She fought with the stop-watch all night, but still managed to keep her cool and deliver an accurate and professional report.
- Daniel gave the General Evaluation of all participants not already evaluated for the evening and provided some helpful tips for improvement and recognised the great efforts of members fulfilling roles particularly those that were first timers on the night.
Announcements for the evening included Natasha unveiling the composition of the Teams, the Evaluators and the Topic for the Debate Meeting coming up on the 14th of June. The topic for the debate is “Ignorance is Bliss”. The writer was very embarrassed to have never heard of this saying (just warming up for my role on the Negative Team).
In his usual style, Brett closed the meeting in a positive manner telling us his success story about how practising at Toastmasters has helped him cut the high number of ums and ahs he had in his speeches when he first began as a member to regularly saying none now.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Tuesday 24th May – Final Speechcraft Session 6
Tuesday 14th June – The Great Debate
Tuesday 12th June – New Club Executive
