"SMALL TALK ABOUT 'CLEAN' EATING HABITS!"

Two Terrific Talks – Thursday 24^th of November

Highlight of last week’s meeting were the exceptional speeches.  It was a real privilege to listen to them. Sandy and Rebecca are both new members who were both doing project two form the Competent  Communicator’s manual.  They both put in considerable effort.  They were well crafted and structured and gave us a real insight into their passions and a fascinating perspective into their lives.  They were also effective as they both told a story and made a point.

Top speakers such as the winner of the 2014 Toastmaster Dananjaya Hehiarchchi and Craig Valentine advise - tell a story and make a point, as well as know your material and make it personal, which they both did so well.

Rebecca talked about clean eating with very handy laminated tips on how to eat more healthily. It’s now on my fridge and reminds me to drink 2 litres a day!  She told how practicing mindful eating reduced the cravings and told the story of her own eating, with her weakness being gingernuts, she couldn’t eat just one, she had to polish off the whole packet.  She also made ‘gross’ smoothies from turmeric, greens and ginger.  The point was she was riddled with pain and after a month of clean eating she was pain free.  She was confident and witty, huge leap up from her icebreaker.

Sandy spoke about the pitfalls of communicating in English and German.  She told the story of how in her performance review she would beg her manager to ‘just talk straight to me’.  Coming from Germany it took her awhile to adjust to our very different communication style.  She has now found small talk more fun.  Her talk was well-structured using three main points.  Germans tend to say what they mean and Sandy made this point in a fun, engaging way and repeated her key points again at the end which was very effective.

Both Speech Evaluators, Carol & Craig gave very worthwhile feedback to the speakers and had no trouble complimenting them for their respective assignments.

Russell controlled the Table Topics session with three topical subjects well answered by Petrice, Barbara and David, while Patrick kept us well to time through the meeting.Anna, the General Evaluator gave a comprehensive report (time allowed this!) and again encouraged the speakers to experiment with their voices in producing a greater variety of tone, pitch etc.

Linda, the toastmaster ran a very efficient meeting with some stunning quotes from Iran:

A drowning man is not trouble by rain. 

A gentle hand may lead even an elephant by a hair. 

Habits are first cobwebs then cables 

An egg thief becomes a camel thief.

We learnt that David needs to stock up his earthquake kit!

Craig has a great evaluation sheet and is a master of evaluation and reminded us about the evaluation
contest on the 1st of December. Be in!!

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