'"THE EVOLVING HOME OF HAPPINESS!"

Anna was the Toastmaster for the day, with a well-organized and run meeting infused with humour. We all read the mission statement together and apologies were accepted. The theme of the day was Story Telling.

Graeme introduced our first speaker Leigh explaining that this would be her Ice Breaker speech being past, present and future. Graeme put Leigh at easy with his calming voice.

Leigh's Icebreaker speech was titled Evolving. It was about the changes in her live as her family grow up. How she would like to have a change of career and her goals to help her achieve that. She explained her reasons for coming to toastmasters.

Graeme’s evaluation was very positive, and he had many commendations and a couple of constructive recommendations to help Leigh in her next speech.

General business was conducted by Patrick and Israel went over next weeks roster.

Sandy introduced our second speaker Carol with her speech titled “Home of Happiness”. Sandy warmly introduced Carol with some information about her previous speeches and her business.  Sandy explained the objectives of Carol’s speech and what she was looking for.

Carol's speech titled “Home of Happiness” was well constructed and very interesting. Carol explained the pillars of happiness and the positive ways to keep life on track also the importance of making the right choices to the goal of happiness. I especially liked the phrase “Be the Victor not the Victim and No blaming, shaming or complaining”.

Sandy thanked Carol for a great speech and how it was humorous all the way through. She went over the objectives and made many positive commendations and recommendations. Sandy then wrapped up with the conclusion and briefly went over key points.

Table Topics was run Jen. She read the start of a sentence then the table topics speakers had to finish the sentence to make a story. A very clever idea, a little challenging but everyone rose to the challenge:

It was Julie's challenge to tell us a story with the sentence starting: “Simon was a little bit afraid:” He was afraid he would miss the train station where he was supposed to get off the train. This was a well constructed story and I could hardly believe Julie made it up on the spot and that it wasn’t something she had read before.

It was Paula's challenge to tell us a story with the sentence starting: “Suzie and Peter were best friends when Peter told Suzie he was moving:” Paula took over the Happiness theme and her story was about how Suzie would be happy to have a long distance facetime buddy instead of a friend next door. A very up to the minute story enjoyed by everyone.

It was Israel's challenge to tell us a story with the sentence starting: “In the Wardrobe there was a monster”. Israel told us a story about a little boy left at home alone and how her was convinced the monster noise was his cat scratching. A very clever humorous story.

It was Mehran's challenge to tell us a story with the sentence starting: It was Manu's birthday and he was very excited: Mehran went on to tell us the story of Manu's birthday which was held at a basketball game and how the audience booed as they were not interested in a child's birthday party but just wanted to watch the game. Great story from a new toastmaster member.

Patrick evaluated Table Topics in a positive enthusiastic manner. Patrick made commendations and recommendations for all speakers and thanked Jen for running a humorous table topics session.

The General Evaluator, Lou, wrapped the meeting up with a summary of events and assistance for the Evaluators, assisted by the Timekeeper, Michael.(ED)

A well run humorous meeting was enjoyed by all.

Best Table Topics Speaker – Paula

Best Speaker – Leigh

Best Evaluator – Sandy