"DISCOVERING IRAN"

This was the title that Noel gave to his speech on Thursday 3rd July at Pania's weekly meeting, and what a fascinating speech it was!Noel has recently returned from s visit to Iran and gave us an insight into what it was like from a tourist point of view.


I imagined it to be a place fraught with danger , bombs, terrorism, living on the edge and that sort of thing, shows you how much I knew, or in this case didn't know!
Noel was allocated 18-20 minutes for his presentation and was spot on time. The interest generated was reflected by the number of questions that came both during and at the end of the speech.We were fortunate to be shown (with a power point presentation) 40 fabulous pictures adding to the insight that Noel was portraying as to what every thing was like.He was very enthusiastic about everything he had seen and heard( I gained the distinct impression that he was reliving the occasion) Aspects such as culture, dress code and the friendliness of the people were so very interesting. I thought the people would keep much to themselves and be rather introverted-wrong again! Words like courteous and hospitable punctuated Noel's speech. I was most impressed with the ornate tiling, beautiful stained glass windows, the archways, columns,minarets and mosques. I could appreciate the effect it must have had on Noel actually being there.
The two doors leading into houses-one for men the other for women, along with their individual knockers was intriguing, and so was the food! it certainly reinforced that I had not had lunch yet!
Something else worthy of mention was Noel's ability to recall and add to what we saw up on the large screen in front of us. The 18 minutes flew past and I for one felt privileged to have been in attendance. Thank you Noel!

Mike presented Table Topics and called the session "rolling table topics" by this he meant each speaker followed the previous one using the last word uttered (also known as a continuous story) Each participant had 1 minute and he set the scene with "the wind was blowing strongly as we galloped on our stallion's...." Carol (first up) responded well and was into full stride using vivid word pictures- her last word was hot, David talked about his reaction to cold food, mentioned haggis (not sure where that came from!)with very good body language and lots of humour, his last word hallway . Wendy spoke of lighting fires, wild pigs, roast pork ( good flow, structure-well done) and unfortunately that is all we had time for so Mike closed off the session in a positive way.
Graeme gave his Timekeeper's report, he had a tendency to stray into evaluating and was reminded of his role on the programme. David, General Evaluator, called on Barbara for her Table Topics evaluation and she provided very constructive comment for each participant, using both praise and suggestions for improvement, very thorough as always and great value- congratulations!
David gave his thoughts with regard to the meeting as a whole, feedback to Noel, Barbara and Ian (Toastmaster, who did a great job keeping the meeting to time and also made sure aspects such as the Mission Statement, apologies etc were handled in the appropriate manner. The Agenda was easy to follow, so thanks Ian for your efforts) Some handy hints and observations from David and his was a very meaningful contribution.

Best Speaker; Noel
Best Evaluator; Barbara
Best Table Topic; David

In summary a special meeting- and hopefully Noel will soon be in a position to give another of his memorable speeches on Turkey!

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

PS; We are sorry to be losing Carol, whose new job does not allow her time to attend our Lunchtime meeting. She has progressed so well since joining us and we do hope that she can keep up her Toastmasters with another Club, any  would love to have her as a member.
All the very best Carol.

Thanks Graeme for this report.