"ALL IS NOT LOST"

11 members attended Pania Toastmaster's meeting on 26th June and enjoyed a varied and interesting programme, chaired as Toastmaster of the day by Graeme. Graeme's programme was clear and concise which commenced on time and ended similarly, the one speech was presented by Craig and titled "All is Lost or All is Not Lost!"


Craig was introduced in exemplary fashion by his evaluator , Laurence with some background and the speech objectives, which were from the Competent Communicator Manual "Get to The Point". This is not the first time that Craig has worked on the manual!!Craig's speech involved the good old fashion formula of "tell a story-make a point" and involved something lost (subsequently found) but much angst in the interim, by treating it as a major thing! He concluded with a quote from Richard Carlson's book 'Don't sweat the small stuff-and it's all small stuff' "When you take time, often to reflex on the miracles of life-the miracle that you can read, the gift of sight,of hearing, of love and all the rest, it can help to remind yourself that many of the things that you think are "big stuff" are really just "small stuff" that you turned into"big stuff". In his evaluation Laurence commended Craig on his presentation  and suggested that perhaps he brought in a little earlier as to where the speech was going- a good point!

Barbara next completed a Bard reading, and what an excellent reading it was.It was a poem, which Barbara had written for a friend's (Sue) 50th birthday and covered her life from when she was born until the great day. Extremely well put together and read by Barbara, we now know all about 'Sue' and it confirmed what we knew about Barbara, that she is an excellent poet and a great reader. Hearty congratulations Barbara, you are a real asset to your many friends and definitely to Pania Toastmaster's Club!

Darryl conducted the Table Topics session and utilised some telling questions posed to him by his 15 year old daughter, which he can now answer with the Table Topic speaker's wisdom behind him!!
Barbara "How do you pay your bills and why so many bills?" Barbara, unlike husband Steve, shuffles her bills(some pay now some pay later) and has a few because she is a 'compulsive spender'. Mike answered "how hard was it to get your first job?" suggested that he knew nothing when job hunting so it was a little difficult and tried a few before the 'right one' came along. Did you know he was initially a typesetter? Didn't last long- too slow apparently. Ian had "How hard to get your driver's licence?" This was in Ireland!! and it was achieved in his father's Morris Cowley-believe it or not (it was in Ireland) but the car(manual of course) had three pedals but the accelerator was the middle one!!. Craig had "why are adults so cynical?" and promptly told us about his first driver's licence-aged 15 and a few days (driving for up to 12 months) once around the block and that was it-no written test!!-when you see him drive you can see why-look out!!!
Well done to Darryl for the topics (or his daughter) and all the speakers.

Jen was General Evaluator and summarised the meeting nicely giving good feedback to all the participants, she was assisted by Carol (on the timer- and what a great job as we finished on time) and David who evaluated Table Topics.

Another excellent meeting in which Barbara received "Best Table Topic" and "Best Speaker".
Next meeting 3rd July with Ian as Toastmaster.