'THE FIGHTING MONKEYS!'

With Laurel at the helm as Toastmaster of the day we were not disappointed in the great meeting we had at Pania Toastmasters today, an excellent and varied program and well run throughout.We had one guest being past member Kerry, now a member of Napier Club.

The only prepared speech of the day was introduced in mysterious fashion by Marc when  Mehran then presented his assignment entitled 'The Fighting Monkeys'. Mehran utilised his laptop and Tv to assist him in this presentation that started off by getting the audience's attention with several monkeys fighting and making a terrific racket on the screen. What followed was the description of an experiment carried out by some scientist utilising monkeys and ended up with a very important message, not only for the monkeys but also for the audience in that we should not always accepted the obvious or norm as there may be a better way. An excellently put together presentation , put across well to the audience in a clear and concise manner with  great utilisation of the visual aids to back up the story.

Marc commended many points about Mehran's presentation, and rightly so, using words like brilliant and superb, and was also able to recommend a couple of areas that he considered Mehran could improve his next presentation by utilising more gestures and making an impacting conclusion. 

Graeme then gave us an excellent education session on the upcoming Humorous Speech Contest on 26th September. As a past winner of the District Contest Graeme speaks from experience and shared those thoughts with us to assist contestants in our Club contest. An excellent handout,summarising the points he made, was available and it seems he convinced a few members that they can be funny and maybe enter the contest. 

Benita ran the Table Topics session and utilised the upcoming Local Body elections as her theme. Members were able to select a slogan from a candidate and convince us why they fitted that slogan and why we should vote for them. Israel had "Energy,Experience & Enthusiasm",Pedro, "Straight Up for a change",Kerry, "Future Thinking" and Lou, "Protecting Land & Coast" and all answered well to their particular 'election' slogan and with Patrick reading the Club Mission Statement to open the meeting, this allowed everybody there to speak at some stage. Well done Benita on your selection of 'topical topics'.

Tamara did a excellent job of evaluating the Table Topics session with commendations and recommendations for all four speakers.

During the business session, Craig reminded the Executive of the meeting next Tuesday and also presented the Pania Toastmaster Of the Year Award for 2018/19 to Patrick, for his excellent efforts not only as our V/P Education but also for his all round assistance to members and the Club in general. Congratulations Patrick, well deserved!!

Craig, wound up the meeting as General Evaluator assisted by the Timekeeper Michael.

Best Speaker; Mehran

Best Evaluator; Marc

Best Table Topic; Lou