Pania Toastmasters today held their last meeting for 2016 and while different to our 'normal' meeting its was a tremendous way to finish a very successful year for the Club.
Helen ran the meeting and as usual at our last meeting of the year everyone was to bring a gift(generally valued under $5), which they would talk about in Table Topics and then they are delivered by our two "Santas" (Graeme & Ian) to the Hawkes Bay Today office for the Christmas Cheer Appeal. This is something the Club has done for a number of years now and the folk at HB Today wait in anticipation for our "Santa's" arrival!. A good number of members attended and some brought more than one gift so approx 40 gifts were delivered to HB Today.
All members were given the opportunity to speak about their gift for 1 minute (like a prepared Table Topic!) and most did themselves proud. While not really wanting to sort out individuals, I felt that Marc gave a wonderful Table Topic about his gift and Rebecca spoke confidently about her fear of spiders, hence her Note Pad gift with the picture of a spider on it. Jen, Wendy and Graeme had multiple gifts and so did Helen who took the opportunity to recycle some unwanted items from her past (all new!). Well done everyone on your gifts and the Table Topics presented.
The meeting opened with the presentation of the Certificates for the Evaluation Contest held last week, won by Mike, 2nd Barbara and 3rd Graeme and a very special presentation to Wendy, who has just completed 25 years as a Toastmasters and as a member of Pania Club. Her lovely wooden plaque is apparently 'still in the mail'. Well done Wendy, you are a real living advertisement as to what Toastmasters can do to assist a person to improve and better their lot in life. You also continue to be a tremendous and dedicated member of our Club.
This gives Pania Toastmasters no less than seven members who have been Toastmasters for over 25 years, great experience for the newer members to feed off.
After Table Topics we has an excellent Christmas poem written and read by Laurel. This was based loosely on the poem "The Night before Christmas" with some magnificent twists and extremely well read by Laurel. You should get this published Laurel, I believe that it has excellent potential providing it does not impinge any copyright laws!
We then had time for a chat and some nibbles to round off a very successful year for the Club. I am sure that next year will be even better.
Merry Christmas everyone and a very prosperous New Year, we will meet again on 19th January, put it in your 2017 Diaries NOW.
