"BEING MUM; THE BIRTH OF A NEW IDENTITY!"

Patrick was the Toastmaster with an easy to follow programme and good linking between the sessions. Emma was a guest and introduced by Carol.

The first speaker was Kristy with her Icebreaker and was warmly introduced by Graeme. Her speech was “Being Mum. The Birth of a New Identity”. This was an excellent first speech and of course well evaluated by Graeme. He commended her on her use of vivid word pictures, vocal variety and humour. Two suggestions were to use hand held prompt cards and make more use of gestures.

The second speaker was Jen, who presented Project 5 from the Storytelling Manual. Bringing History To Life. Jen told us about and played the part of Mary McIntyre, a British convict who was shipped to Hobart, Australia. Another excellent presentation with lots of harrowing details about the voyage and her life as a convict.

Jen was introduced and evaluated by Marc, who itemised his evaluation and had many commendations for Jen’s presentation. His recommendations were: More eye contact with the audience, more vocal variety and that the use of Cockney slang would have been appropriate for Mary McIntyre’s voice.

Because Marc is representing Pania and the Area at the Division Evaluation Contest in Taupo on Saturday, the audience gave him feedback on his evaluation of Jen’s presentation. His evaluation was very well structured and there were helpful comments from the audience, but no major suggestions. Although his evaluation time was very close to the contest limit.

Update: Marc won the Evaluation Contest in Taupo and will now go on to the District Contest in Auckland next month. Congratulations Marc.

Next was Table Topics, presented by Lou, who was TTM for the first time. Her subject was the Commonwealth Games. There was only time for two speakers.

Patrick spoke about his favourite sport – Cycling and medals and getting gold.

Graeme was asked if we should be a member of the Commonwealth, which, of course he didn’t answer. But said that he went to the Perth Games and saw Murray Halberg and met Precious McKenzie who was even shorter than Graeme!!

Table Topics were evaluated by Carol , who had commendations and suggestions for both speakers.

Tamara was the Timekeeper for the first time and gave a very good report on everyone’s use of time in assisting the General Evaluator, Mike with his wrap of the meeting.

Mike also represented the Club and Area in the International Speech Contest in Taupo for the Division D award, but unfortunately went overtime and was disqualified!!.(Ed)

Awards:

Best speaker - Kristy

Best evaluator - Marc

Best Table Topic - Graeme