Under the guidance of Toastmaster of the day David, Pania Toastmaster's meeting on Thursday 11th was highlited by speech from Jen entitled "Hooray Henri", this was the man whose humble work many years ago was the foundation of today's Red Cross organisation.
This intriguing title was given to Jen's Storytelling assignment, being Project five from the Advanced Manual 'Bringing History to Life". Henri Dunant was born in 1828 and as a young child accompanied his mother around the streets of Geneva bringing food, clothing and shelter to the poor.He began his career as a merchant and banker. In 1859 he travelled to Italy and while there saw the battle of Soferino, a battle that had 40,000 casualties. Henri helped organise surgeons, nurses and doctors to tend the wounded. He wrote a book called "A memory of Soferino" and the ideas in his book were discussed at the very highest levels and led to have changes in caring for the wounded.While this was going on he neglected his business to the extent he was declared bankrupt and many of his friends had invested in his business which led to their financial demise. He finally left Geneva disgraced, broke and friendless. An Editor found out about Henri and wrote a story in an Austrian newspaper, which helped turn Henri's life around.In 1901 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the work this humble man started all those years ago is now the foundation of the Red Cross.
Thank you Jen for bringing such an uplifting story to life and sharing it with us today.
Laurence gave Jen his usual in depth evaluation , praising her for the choice of topic and the way it was presented. The suggestions for improvement that he made included trying to utilise dialogue and making more eye contact with the audience. Well done Laurence.
Graeme presented an Education session on the Humorous Speech Contest due next week, he provided useful suggestions (as a past winner of the District Humorous Speech Contest) with appropriate handout material, thanks Graeme for your insight into this contest.
Table Topics were presented by Barbara, something a little different than usual in that the speakers were given slip of paper on which were written one or two words, the challenge was to make aproper story utilising thw ord or words at least three times. The audience had to guess what the word or words were.
Helen (a guest from Hastings Club) chose 'Excited' and acted it out very well, body language, facial expression, vocal variety were incorporated to very good effect.
Graeme 'Impulsive Purchase' made a good effort at talking to the topic and had some humour as well.
Carol was 'Keeping fit' and gave some excellent ideas. Darryl was 'Scared as' giving some of his experiences as a relatively new Toastmaster.
Carol evaluated Table Topics giving a well balanced report, praised Barbara on her innovative approach and had encouragement and helpful suggestions for all those taking part.
General Evaluator, Wendy, gave helpful tips along with her observations of the meeting and as she was not aware that she was due to be General Evaluator credit must be given for the way in which she presented her report, the Club is very lucky to have such good evaluators in our midst, thanks Wendy.
Timekeeper Helen, proved that she had listened intently and told us how we had used our time, we appreciated her assistance, especially being a guest from another Club.
darryl, Grammarian, thanked us for the three people who used his word of the day especially Laurence. He also thanked Jen for 'generosity of spirit' and 'sluggard' and complimented the overall standard of grammar.
David, kept the meeting moving along very nicely, proof of this was that we finished on time, well done David.
This was a lively and enjoyable 50 minutes, one could be forgiven for thinking that it was our Humorous Speech Contest, but that is next week, how about coming along? no obligation, 18th September is the day when we actually have the Humorous Speech Contest and hopefully at least four Contestants! See you then!
Best Speaker; Jen
Best Evaluator; Laurence
Best Table Topic; Helen
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