"CIRCLE OF LIGHT"

This was the intriguing title given to an Ice Breaker Speech for our newest member Linda at Thursday's Pania Toastmasters meeting. The 'Ice Breaker' is the first speech that new members present and is designed to introduce themselves to their fellow members.


The meeting was presided over by Toastmaster of the Day Helen, who ran an excellent meeting and in addition introduced and evaluated Linda!
Linda started her life in Waipukurau calling herself a 'farmgirl', she spoke of flying over to Iran after having never being away from home and staying there for 15 months, what an experience that must have been!, unfortunately a 4/6 speech doesn't give very much time to expand one's thoughts but it was sure a highlite for me. Then off to Australia, driving a taxi around Brisbane and finally back to Napier, which Linda said made a "complete circle". She chose a quote from Robert Frost to conclude.
Not only was this an Ice Breaker speech with a difference but also a fascinating talk to listen to. Congratulations Linda on the standard you have set yourself.
Helen, after giving Linda an excellent introduction, praised her on her strengths such as eye contact, clarity of voice, speech content and presentation skills. Helen also suggested that Linda use pause and move her arms down to her sides, Linda is fortunate to have Helen as a mentor, and we always attempt to have a new speaker's mentor evaluate their first speech.

An educational session followed on the upcoming International Speech Contest on 19th Feb.Thanks Graeme for covering what speakers need to know especially from a judging perspective and encouraging members to take part.

Table Topics was presented by Jeanette, they were well introduced in that A,B,C/1,2,3 were going to be part of the question. Carol was asked "What does No1 mean to you?" she stated it means the beginning, a house number, a driving licence-good thinking!
Linda had "No 2", thought it was a good number to have- it was not the first and not the last- a good reply. No 3 was given to Ian along with the last three words uttered by the previous speaker. Ian likened it to be some form of competition -one is great, two, not bad- three is something one has to probably get used to- Interesting reply!! Mike was asked "what he thought of A?" he liked the shape, mentioned a triangle and finally settled for a shaped tent-kept us guessing!
Graeme received "Zee", instantly thought of Zebras (then realised it was not a good choice) and spent the remaining 45 seconds relating to Zebra crossings- tried hard and at least spoke to the subject!!
Cheryl received "B", spoke about her liking bees as a child until she was stung- very good word pictures used. Jeanette summarised by rounding off the session well.

Table Topics were evaluated by Barbara, who gave each speaker encouragement and a suggestion for improvement, this approach also applied to the Table Topics Master, those that received comment were fortunate to benefit from Barbara's thought provoking and meaningful evaluation. A pleasure to listen to.
Carol was the grammarian and the word given to us to use was "selfie", thanks to Helen for being the only one to use it- bad luck Carol, perhaps you could have used it yourselfie!
General Evaluator was Mike, who provided us with a good mix of praise and suggestions for improvement. His experience came through very strongly and we certainly appreciated his input.

Great meeting,good fun and very high standards, thanks to all who participated.

Best Speaker; Linda
Best Evaluator;Barbara
Best Table Topic; Carol.

(and the agenda for the day prepared by Helen even had a recipe on the back for "Salt Water Cheese")

See you all on 19th February and the International Speech Contest-the winner could end up in the States in August!! but you must be in to win.

Thanks to Graeme for this report.