"SLEEP IS NOT OPTIONAL!"

"Sleep is Not Optional" was the very intriguing title of our first prepared speech on Thursday at Pania's meeting attended by 13 members and a guest past member Jan and well controlled by toastmaster Graeme.


The speech was presented by Linda and with her psychology background we are becoming expectant to be entertained,amused and educated every time she speaks. This speech was no different and gave us all an insight into the need for 7/9 hours sleep every night or we will suffer for the lack of it! Excellent comments were given as to the reason for a good sleep every night and what not to do before you go to bed! The speech, which had the objectives of "Get to the Point", the third assignment in the Competent Communicator Manual, was very well structured, had humour and as mentioned was extremely educational and really stirred the interest of the audience. Linda concluded the speech with a quote "Sleep is the Golden Chain that ties us to our Bodies". An excellent presentation by Linda in only her third speech at the Club- Extremely well done!
Linda was introduced and evaluated by Craig who had plenty of areas of praise for Linda plus a couple of suggestions that perhaps could have improved the speech even further, he suggested perhaps a diagram to explain the way the brain reacts while we are asleep and some reference to back-up the research facts expounded.

Our next speaker was Jen who was working from the Advanced Manual "Speciality Speeches" particularly 'accepting an award'. This was again well presented and good timing as Jen is actually due to receive an award from Red Cross at a Civic Ceremony later this month for 40 years service to that organisation. I felt that Jen had an excellent mix of thanks and stories which she has 'lived' while doing Red Cross work and that includes just about the whole family, Jen has travelled widely with her husband Jerry, who has been employed by the Red Cross for over 40 years and has some real eye opening encounters that she has, and hopefully will, continue to share with us.
Noel evaluated Jen and gave her well deserved praise for her efforts advising that she really looked comfortable and humble receiving the award and suggested that she put down the award while giving her thank you speech, allowing freedom for gestures etc. Great effort by both Speaker and Evaluator.

Cheryl ran the Table Topics session and Helen,Darryl,Barbara & Laurence told us different things about holidays/travel, not necessarily where to go but answered questions like "What trip would you like to make and why?"(Camel ride in Dubai), "best way to travel when on Holiday?"(Bullet  train in Japan), "Spend 1 year in a different country-where would it be?"(Wales-boyo!) and "If you could travel with a world President-which one would it be?"(The President of Iceland??) Well answered by them all and excellent questions from Cheryl.
Carol evaluated Table Topics and praised all the speakers for excellent answers.
 Ian gave an interesting General Evaluation of the meeting with good feedback for the Evaluators, he was assisted by the Timekeeper, Wendy who managed to keep the meeting to time, with even a slightly early finish!

During the business session we had the results of the Division Speech and Evaluation contest last Sunday in Rotorua, looked at next week's meeting, Graeme was presented with the Area Evaluation Contest trophy (suitably engraved) and Laurence (great to see Laurence back in the Bay after a few months in Auckland) was finally able to be presented with his Advanced Communicator Gold award, congratulations Laurence-well deserved!

Best Table Topic; Helen
Best Evaluator; Noel
Best Speaker; (Ian used a 'cop out' and gave it for the "Best Contribution) to Cheryl for her Table Topics session.

Our new venue is working out extremely well and we have now purchased a cupboard (lockable) to store all our 'valuables' in, we will now do some promotion locally and you (the members) can bring along some guests to boost our numbers.

See you all next week.