"'TO BE OR NOT TO BE A CHILD OF AFRICA"

That could have been the question at today's meeting of Pania Toastmasters, attended by 13 members who enjoyed a Football World Cup prelude as a theme meeting run by the Toastmaster of the day, Craig, whose agenda was cased in Football players 'speak' and adorned with soccer transfers.


In addition during the programme Craig gave us some facts about the Football World Cup to digest, the game therefore flowed really well and no RED cards were issued!

We kicked off with a speech from Graeme, introduced by Ian, this was an assignment from the Storytelling Manual 'Let's get Personal'. Titled "To be or Not to be" Graeme told us about the purchase of his 2nd to last car in January 1999 from Auckland. He had some excellent characterisations included and told the story well. He ended up buying the vehicle for much more than he intended to pay hence the "To be" (buy a car) or "Not to Be" (pay too much) with his wife's approval by phone- when he got home she did not like it!However he kept it for 14 years (and travelled the huge distance of 12,000Kms during that period.).Ian's evaluation was praiseworthy of Graeme's effort but also felt that more could have been made of the characters particularly the car salesman.

Next up was Mike, introduced by Jen. Mike was also doing the same Manual assignment as Graeme and his was entitled "A Child of Africa". An extremely well related and very interesting story about Mike's time spent living in (as then) Nth. Rhodesia basically on the banks of the Zambezi River and very close to Victoria Falls.This was in 1958 and Mike was 9 at the time, they had, as a family, come from Cornwall in England and Mike related some  very intriguing stories about the antics that he and his brothers got up to.Unfortunately after about 2/3 years there Mike's father died in a mining accident and they returned to Cornwall, subsequently, for us, Mike came to NZ. This story was told with excellent grammar, humour, pace and enthusiasm- a marvelous effort Mike- Congratulations. Jen was ,not unexpectedly, lavish in her praise for Mike' effort although she felt that perhaps we could have learnt a little more about Mike's Dad in the story.

General business followed with a review of next week's programme,  planning underway for our 30th Birthday in November and keeping the meetings to time and decorum!
Then the subs were called on with Barbara's Table Topics session. This followed the theme and Barbara was a Radio announcer awarding listeners with prizes for competitions, Noel won "two seats to the World Cup final-who will he take?" he thought his wife would love Rio and the environment but was not to sure about security ( I will go Noel). Carol had a "two hour training session with a team-which one?" Brazil of course , she is a trained masseur and would love to get the team in the right condition!.Darryl, had to "design a uniform for Ecuador" , this was going to be their casual kit and they should be dressed as Bananas, carrying a ball and waving furiously! Wendy "had to design a flag for Brazil" this was answered with great enthusiasm and the flag ended up being green with a big sun in the middle. Well done to all who took part.
Laurence evaluated Table topics and was able to commend everyone (never difficult to do) but also had a suggestion for improvement for each speaker, and in a limited time period.
Darryl blew the final whistle with his General Evaluation assisted by Timekeeper David, who kept us pretty well to time with only 30 secs of 'added on time'. Darryl gave the Evaluators due praise for their efforts and summed the meeting up well. It was great that everyone had an opportunity to speak and the theme on the 'beautiful game' scored many goals!!

Best Speaker; Graeme
Best Evaluator; Jen
Best Table Topic; Wendy

NEXT WEEK'S TOASTMASTER IS WENDY.