"TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION!"

Pania Meeting Report for 12^th Sept 2019

At 12:05 on the minute Graeme welcomed all Toastmasters and introduced Craig as our Toastmaster of the day. Craig opened the meeting with a greeting in Te Reo, as it was Maori Language week.

Mehran was the first to be invited up by Craig to lead the Table Topics. He chose anthropomorphism and personification as topics, which meant that every speaker would have to attribute human traits to non-human objects, or describe his or her life as an object respectively.  This was challenging for everyone! Laurel described her life as a TV and morphed into a hearing aid, but with the mission to be a user-friendly one. Patrick was a car wishing for caring owners, to be driven to exciting spots, and kept clean and updated, but had no illusion - the first dent would come. Julie defined her life as the moon as powerful, controlling the rhythm of life, the tide and the people, seeing everything that’s going on down on the earth. Marc jumped on stage kicking winter out: he personified spring – popular, warm, colourful and full of life! Pedro was in the role of a horse, he was galloping freely, strong and proud along the beach.

Graeme introduced Michael as first speaker, outlining the objectives of his speech: ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’. Michael transported us into a mysterious story of finding himself at a property with threatening dogs, disappearing twins and a mysterious character gliding down a staircase, creating tension and addressing the visitor enigmatically. The unresolved mystery developed into the message that life is meant to be full of surprises, with infinite possibilities just around the corner, and starts being exciting when stepping out of the comfortable and safe zone. Graeme gave valuable feedback, commending on body-language, vocal variety and speech rate. He offered some recommendations regarding the speech structure and ending, and summed up what we all felt: it was an astonishing speech.

We were pleased to welcome a visitor from the Hastings Toastmasters Club, Brian, to the stage, who presented on his role as an Area Director. He outlined the importance of communication skills, of better listening, thinking and speaking, and learning healthy ways of civilised communication and leadership in today’s life. He explained the structure of Toastmasters as a club, and his role in particular, fitting in as a position that liaises between the individual clubs and the district: Supporting, connecting, encouraging, and organising training and contests, this is an important and exciting place to take up the opportunity in a leadership role.

Craig rounded up the meeting with General Business and the meeting was closed with the prizes of today's meeting being awarded to:

Patrick - best Table Topic speaker

Michael - best speaker

Israel - best evaluator