It was great to be back at Pania's weekly meeting after the venue was closed last Thursday due to the weather and today’s (20th April) meeting saw a good turnout and a very enjoyable
occasion.
Toastmaster, David gave a very warm welcome dressed in his
Hawaiian shirt trying to convince us it was still summer but others knew
better!
First speaker was Patrick with the speech title of “Our Trip”
in which he described the five and a half week trip he and his wife had recently
taken mostly around the South Island. He conveyed that wonderment that anyone
visiting that part of God’s own for the first time experiences. He will be going
back there. He fulfilled his objectives of using visual aids to support his
speech by using and seamlessly swapping from a large map and a projector
displaying a number of stunning photographs to emphasise his experiences. Some
of the photos had accompanied a front page article in the “Caravanor?” magazine.
So were addressed by a recognised journalist.
Linda’s evaluation was very positive and indicated how
Patrick had exceeded the objectives. She went on to give a ‘couple’ of very good
recommendations which grew to four but all would be of great value to
Patrick.
Graeme introduced second speaker Helen who was to deliver an
“oratorical interpretive reading” and then set the scene of a 12 year old
Canadian, Severn Cullis Suzuki speaking at the United Nations Conference on the
Environment and Development at Rio De Janeiro in 1992. Helen delivered it with
the same passion we can see on the Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Graeme in his evaluation noted how Helen had encapsulated the
essence of the very moving speech and enhanced it with her gestures which no
doubt added to the vocal delivery.
Mike then introduced Table Topics with candidates asked to
respond to or expand on some short quotations. Carol, Darryl, Marc and Laurel
all responded well with three setting some sort of record of all speaking for
exactly 1minute and 10 seconds according to Timekeeper Craig. Jen gave very
complimentary evaluations and awarded best table topic to
Laurel.
In my summary of the meeting I awarded best speech to Patrick
and best evaluator to Linda to end a very successful meeting
Noel
