"MY NEVER ENDING STORY!"

Today 23^rd February, Pania Toastmasters held their International Speech Contest as part of their regular Thursday program and three members entered the contest, Chaired by Craig.

This contest entails a speech of between 5/7 minutes, that you have prepared yourself and the winner goes on to represent the Club at Area level, the winner there to Division level, the winner there to District level (all of New Zealand) and the winner there, an expenses paid trip to the International Convention, this year held in Vancouver, Canada in August.

Mike was the first speaker today and his speech was entitled “Hilda”. This speech was based on Mike’s memories of his early days in England and a day in the life of Hilda (his mother).Extremely well put across in Mike’s confident and easy to listen to style, the speech brought back many memories for a number of the audience of coal range stoves, candles, gas lamps, wringer washing machines, early coloured TV and a fairly hard life in the 1950’s.Excellent ‘storytelling’ speech Mike.

Barbara was next up with her speech entitled “My Never Ending Story”. Again, Barbara is an excellent speaker and told us in a very interesting and well structured manner about her ‘life’ from an unmarried mum to her position today. Barbara , used Chapters in her life to structure the speech , being the age at the time, and off course life goes on so it is a ‘never ending story!’ Well told and it had a message for us all.

Finally, Russell, utilised the contest to present another Manual assignment, entitled “Speech to Staff”. Russell was the Manager of a store that was part of a Chain and was encouraging the staff for their performance, which was above the National average, and imploring them not to become complacent remembering that the most important person in the store was the customer. Encouraging enthusiasm, Russell.

Well done to all three speakers, but off course there must be a winner and this year after a couple of years absence from winning the magnificent large Pania trophy it was again Barbara. Congratulations to Barbara who will now go on to represent the Club in the Area Contest on 10^th March. She will be joined by Mike , who recently won the Club’s Evaluation Contest who will be representing the Club in that Contest at Area level. Thanks to the Judges, Timekeeper and audience!

The meeting concluded with a quick round of Table Topics based on Art Deco Weekend. Next year, it is proposed that we have an “Art Deco” meeting on the Thursday prior to the weekend. Keep it in mind!!