"LOOKING IN THE MIRROR"

Cheryl, was our Toastmaster of the day at Pania's meeting today and what a great job she did,excellent programme, coped with a couple of late changes had a Queens Birthday theme and we could have finished on time! (it was not her fault or the Timekeepers that we did not!). It was Cheryl's first time as Toastmaster-but you would not have known it! What a marvelous speech we had from Carol as well- looking in the mirror can tell you a great deal about history!!!


Jen introduced Carol's speech, which was No4 from the Competent Communicator Manual "Work with Words" and she certainly did that! Telling us about the old villa they have just purchased and the huge mirror in the hall, and surmising the history of the property that that mirror has reflected over the 104 years or so of existence.An enterprising and successful way of attacking this particular assignment, which allowed Carol plenty of scope for word usage and word pictures, which she was able to utilise fully. Carol has only been with us for short while but she continues to improve and show great innovation with every speech.
Jen's evaluation was a little 'hamstrung' by the lack of the manual with the specific objectives outlined, but she had many worthwhile commendations for Carol (she really liked the 60's "women burning bras and free love going on everywhere!") also managed a suggestion for improvement for Carol.

The Election of Officers for the year 1/7/2014 to 30/6/2015 followed, managed by President Craig.After some volunteering, some arm twisting and some light hearted banter, those charged to run the Club for the next 12 months will be ; President -Guess who???; V/P Education- Yes that man again Graeme; V/P Membership- Jen ; V/P Public Relations- Barbara (again) ; Treasurer- David (we can not afford overseas trips!!) Secretary- newcomer Carol and Sgt-@-arms- you guessed it -Ian. Thanks to all those members for putting their names forward- excellent response and in fact we even had to have a vote for V/P P/Relations!

Table Topics followed and David used Book Titles for his questions. Laurence had 'The Man Who Broke Things' not sure that he answered the question- but the response sounded creditable -so that's a start.
Wendy had "The Long Road Home" and spoke well of her trips home to Dannevirke in her father's old Vauxhall many,many, many years ago (perhaps not that many!).Could take a day sometimes-my father had a car like that too!!!
Barbara had "Time and Time Again" apparently she has been thinking about a diet time and time again! not sure why? but as usual she spoke well and eloquently to the subject and may even have started the diet!!
Ian was last up with "The Show Must Go On", and ofcourse it did, somehow Oklahoma came into the equation, after all it is a show and apparently it goes on,and on and on!!!
Darryl filled in with a brief bard from Maya Angalou (who unfortunately died yesterday) took him 70secs to find it on his phone and only 45secs to read! excellent thoughts though.This was not the quote he used but it is one Maya is known for "I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel".
Darryl then gave an very good evaluation of Table Topics, with humour,commendations and some suggestions-one for Darryl (keep thinking about evaluating in the third person).

General Evaluator Graeme, with help from Timekeeper Craig, wound up the meeting with a very full evaluation of the two Evaluators on the programme and of the meeting as a whole. Great praise for Cheryl (well deserved) and our speaker Carol. Another excellent meeting and a FULL Executive for next year!!

Best Speaker; Carol
Beast Evaluator; Jen
Best Table Topics; Ian.

Well done everyone!