Hi,
What a fantastic meeting we had today, a great attendance, 14 members and two guests Pip(3rd time) and Graham (2nd visit). I believe that Pip has joined, great to have her on board!
Toastmaster was Barbara, and she ran the meeting very efficiently, with an excellent program and a lot fitted into the 50 minutes available.
We were kept pretty well to time by Brenda, who even gave one of the Evaluators a green light after only 1 minute! (great way to catch up time Brenda) and she gave a concise and very accurate report at the end.
We started off with two excellent speeches, one by Jen (introduced by Jan) entitled “Victim or Aggressor?” from the CC manual on the use of language. All about a time when Jen and and her husband were working in Zimbabwe and she was “car jacked” by a local who attempted to strangle her. A very unpleasant experience you can be sure, particularly when her husband was incommunicado in Mozambique. A fascinating account of what can happen in some countries (I suppose it could and does happen in NZ as well!), having been to Zimbabwe in the late 90’s I can visualise the situation. Well told and related by Jen, and Jan was able to give some excellent feedback which will assist Jen in her future speeches, Jan’s evaluation was extremely well structured ( I was told to say that! no, not really) and won her “Best Evaluator” award. Jen finished up with a great quote by Desmond Tutu, unfortunately I did not write it down and could not find it on Google!(help Jen).
The second speech was presented by Russell, introduced by Ian, all about Ivan Mauger ,winner of no less than nine world Speedway Titles. This was from an Advanced Manual in researching a subject and personalising the story to fit your presentation. A very interesting presentation, delivered in Russell’s easy going style about a man, who while he shunned publicity and glamour was very focussed on his objective in life with the power of positive thinking and visualization, many years before it became fashionable. I am of an age where I can remember watching Ian Mauger race, before “stockcars” were fashionable. Thanks Russell for this insight. Ian gave a concise and appropriate Evaluation, concentrating on the specific objectives of the assignment with a couple of valid recommendations.
Table Topics were conducted by Mike, and what an enigma, mystery and conundrum this session was. The topics proved difficult to answer and yet the four speakers, Noel,Darryl,Sue and Graham(Guest) did extremely well in coming up with some very well thought out ideas. Unfortunately the topics were too long and involved for me to repeat here (and for me to have written down!) but congratulations Mike, because I felt the session went extremely well and created some excellent entertainment and quick thinking. e.g. “A well known fact that if a buttered piece of toast falls on the ground,it falls battered side down, if you buttered the back of a cat, would it fall the same way?” and no yes or no answers were permitted. See what I mean about an enigma? Best Table Topic went to Darryl.
The business session included the “Induction” of our latest member Cheryl (has been coming for sometime but only joined in February and has had health problems with her mother recently).Welcome Cheryl-we trust that mum is on the road to recovery. Also the results of the Area D2 Contests were announced, with Barbara finishing 2nd in the International Speech Contest (won by Judith Bartlett from Hastings Club) and being unplaced in the Evaluation contest (won by our very own President, Laurence-BUT representing Hastings Club!) Graeme, representing Bay City was placed 2nd in the Evaluation contest. Well done to all of you, we certainly have some talent in this Club.
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Craig carried out the Table Topics and General Evaluation. Best speaker was Jen.
Easter next week-see you all on Thursday and then enjoy the l o n g weekend!
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