"A FRIEND IN NEED"

This was the title of a Speech given by Jen at Thursday's Pania meeting attended by nine members and two guests, Division D Governor from Rotorua, Richard  and a past member Jan, it was excellent to see them at our meeting and listening to Jen's speech which was from the Advanced Story Telling Manual "The Moral of the Story".


The objectives of Jen's speech were- to create a new story that offers a lesson or a moral- to make it entertaining yet display moral values and to utilise the skills used in the previous two Projects in this manual.
She told the story of two men  Hospitalised- one whose bed was by a door, the other whose bed was by a window. " I wish I could see outside" said one man, "let me describe it to you" said the other.... and so began a day by day description of what was going on outside i.e. games of football, flowers growing, parades etc and all in great detail that helped bring everything to life for the man by the door who was so very grateful.
One day the man by the window died, and the other man pleaded with hospital staff to let him see out the window (he could not sit up in bed). They ignored his wishes but a change of staff brought the same request and they let him look out the window. There was nothing there but a brick wall and he was  told the man that died had been blind, only then did he realise what a wonderful friend that man had really been.
A poignant story told with great feeling by Jen (a nurse).

Barbara evaluated Jen's speech giving her well deserved praise, especially with regard as to how well the story was told-pace delivery,sincerity, use of light and shade and maintaining very good standard right through. Barbara made two excellent suggestions to Jen, that she put the lecturn to one side so that it is not a barrier and utilise gestures with both hands to match the words used. Thanks Barbara-well done.

Wendy then presented her bard reading, it was all about the "Three little Pigs" written by Roald Dahl so very humorous. What a great presentation, full of humour,excellent word pictures and full us of vocal variety. Well done Wendy, you certainly have not lost your touch.

Richard (Division Governor) spoke to us not only giving Pania Club praise for its friendliness, but also taking time out to share with us a personal experience which was both meaningful and thought provoking. Grateful thanks Richard.

Carol was next up with Table Topics in which she asked the participants to finish a sentence with a story.
Jen "when I was 9 years old"-well she sure took advantage telling us about her brother, great answer and almost too hard to believe!
Barbara " as I recall I went to a party"- tried to tell us she had too much to drink! again almost to hard to believe!
Laurence " as I got older and reached the age of 35" spoke about forgetfulness, did so well it was not too hard to believe at all!
Mike "as my life continued to grow I met a person" he decided to carry on from his last meeting's subject, crooked man-crooked mile etc, I bet he feels a whole lot better getting that out of his system.

General Evaluator, Laurence gave a good coverage of today's meeting giving helpful suggestions along with praise. Provided good advice for those taking part in Table Topics (including himself-right on the mark there , Laurence!)
Ian competently covered the Timekeeper's role.
Toastmaster, Graeme, received acclaim for starting and finishing on time as well as giving everyone a fair go.

Best Speaker; Jen
Best Evaluator; Laurence
Best Table Topic; Jen as well!

We do it all again next Thursday- see you there!!