"'COMMUNICATION & LEADERSHIP STYLES"

Today, was a red letter day for Pania Toastmaster's Club, A. we had to quickly find a new venue after the Blind Foundation closed their rooms from outside meetings because of coronavirus and B. we were treated to two excellent speeches on 'styles' , Leadership & Communication!

Anna, as Toastmaster, did a great job of drawing the disjointed program together at The Community Co Lab, attached to the Taradale Town Hall, which was a very spacious and airy venue, even if the acoustics were a little echoee!
The two speakers were Michael (Communication Styles) and Marc (Leadership Styles) both speaking from their respective Pathway assignments and they certainly both demonstrated their specific styles through their interesting and enlightening presentations.
They were well evaluated by Benita (Michael) and Pedro (Marc) who gave them suitable praise and were able to offer some suggestions for improvement. This was Pedro's first speech evaluation and he showed that he will be a worthwhile evaluator for future speakers.

Carol ran the Table Topic's session along the broad lines keeping positive, healthy and happy, appropriate in the current climate.
Four speakers covered their topics well, Peter,Hannah,Sahar and Sandy and Hannah was selected as the Best Table Topic speaking about indoor games she has played. Peter spoke on enjoyable activities (Skiing- if coronavirus allows it this year),Sahar (spending two weeks working from home) and Sandy (who would she like to spend the two weeks isolation with!!)
Mehran, as Timekeeper assisted Anna to keep us pretty well to time.

The General Evaluation and Table Topics Evaluation were forgone due to the meeting needed to discuss the current health problem and it was decided to have a break from regular face to face meeting until 23rd April(when it is to be reassessed) and that on-line meetings will be arranged for 2nd & 16th April.

Best Speaker; Marc
Best Evaluator; Pedro
Best Table Topics ; Hannah

Everyone please keep in touch and look out for details of the on-line meetings, we also take this opportunity to wish Lou well with her Division Contest Humorous Speech which is to be held online on Saturday 18th April (The Division Contest in Dannevirke on this Saturday having been cancelled)

"LIFE'S ADVENTURES!"

GE’s Report for Thursday the 12^th of March -

Short and sharp with elbow bumps

·      A fast efficient, meeting, Paula as Toastmaster set the scene –putting the agenda on recycled paper and she laid down the ‘challenge to do the right thing’ in terms of being environmentally friendly.  She suggested cutting out handshaking was appropriate at the moment and introduced the elbow bump which continued throughout.

"ARE YOU OUTSIDE LOOKING IN?"

ARE YOU OUTSIDE LOOKING IN?

Considering joining a Toastmaster's club and trying to make sense of what it’s all about by peering into the meeting via this blog, as it were, from the outside. This is for you. Welcome. Come for a visit and feel free to bring a friend.

This is usually a report on what the previous meeting was like; what happened, who spoke and how well and on what subject matter, who supportively evaluated their performances and what they thought. That, plus a raft of other narratives as is packed into these inevitably fascinating exchanges in the short one-hour duration of our weekly Thursday lunchtime meetings. 

Thus, a meeting report is somewhat redundant for many of the members, because as most of us attended and participated, we already know exactly what the meeting was like, who spoke, about what and how well. No description, no matter how fulsome would sufficiently acquaint the extent of the performances to those members who were not present. So instead, this time let’s speak directly to those of you who may be interested for yourself or another in attending a meeting as a guest and are not yet sure it’s for you. This a good place to start. Plonking yourself into a chair as a visitor to observe a club meeting would be better, but this will do for now.

The existing members of Pania Toastmaster's Club can often be heard saying that the members see themselves collectively as something of a family. And in so many ways, a family we are. You learn to trust people at a Toastmasters club because we share a lot about our lives as we gradually unfold our histories, viewpoints and experiences in our speeches and in the warm friendships that evolve over time from membership. A valuable asset.

Like most Toastmaster clubs do of their local region, Pania reflects the wide diversity of people you see in the streets of Hawkes Bay. At meetings, we are constantly impressed at how the intriguing life stories of people speaking so beautifully in an English that is sometimes a second or third language are related with such depth of emotion and eloquent expression. Perhaps a quarter or so of the members, with varying experience are English second-language speakers. There is never a sense that any linguistic difficulties that may concern them compromise the fluency of their stories. Their passionate views on life and their search for sharable solutions for common concerns are delivered with academic accuracy and raw heartfelt authenticity. We listen to their stories, entreaties, challenges and experiences, like all the presentations at the club, with delight and deep appreciation.

The Pania club membership is comprised roughly a third each of senior, significantly experienced members, those who have been on board for quite a few years and those who range from recently joined to having been around for a year or two. Strong threads weave themselves right though all three groups; 

a definable warm welcome and support for new and newish members while they get on their feet, 

seamless background back-up and mentoring steeped in experience for anyone who wants it or looks like they may welcome it, and 

a genuine interest in making the club experience joyful.

an astonishingly high-level of speaking ability across the board. Great for learning.

So, if you are looking in from the outside and wondering what it is; it’s a club of new, experienced, supportive friends who will ease you into learning, practising and perfecting high-level public speaking abilities faster than a speeding bullet! (Well, almost!) All while you having genuine fun,  you’re quickly learning to manage your nervousness and contributing to your fellow members much more than you might expect.

So wander in at 11:55 am next Thursday to the club meeting room. All we ask you to do is to stand and introduce yourself to the meeting, usually 12 - 15 members. Fifteen seconds or so is all. Who you are, what you do and why you’re here. That covers it. 

Better still, call us to say hello and we'll have a name tag and a welcome ready for you. It’s as easy as that. That’s what I did. That was over forty years ago. Been in Toastmasters ever since. It was the best thing I ever did. (Well, maybe the second-best thing! Oh! Perhaps the third ... well, OK, the fourth. Yeah. The fourth. Mmmm ... maybe the third after all!)

See you on Thursday then?

Peter

"A PANEDEMIC-SEX,RELIGION & POLITICS!"

Another fabulous meeting for Toastmasters Pania on Thursday the 27th of Feb 

Our experienced Toastmaster for the day was Craig who ran the meeting with a reminder that it was National Polar Bear day as well as National Pancake Day. Graeme called the meeting to order with no clown horn (thank goodness!) and proceeded to read the club mission statement for us - it is always good to be reminded of the over-arching goals for our time at Toastmasters.

We kicked straight into table topics ran by Laurel with table topics based about When, What and Why. Carol had to tell us about a recent mistake that ended up in stinky mess, Benita told us about a few temptations she had partaken in, Guest Kerry regaled us about a bad hair day and Graeme, well Graeme never sticks to the topic so who knows what he spoke about? Lou evaluated the 4 table topic speakers and had commendations and recommendations for everyone except Kerry - who was awarded the best table topic of the day as well! 

Paula gave us a warm introduction to our first speech for the meeting presented by Pedro. It was great that Paula gave us some background information into Pedro's journey through Toastmasters so far and reminded us that it was only Pedro's 2nd speech. She also gave some objectives and had some specific things to look out for. Pedro's very topical speech titled “How not to prepare for a pandemic” took us through some information about the current Coronavirus and what was not going so well in the fight against its inevitable spread. Paula's evaluation covered commendations and recommendations and then ended on a positive. 

Our second speaker Marc was introduced by Anna who let the audience know that this was a practice run for Marc to be representing Pania Club at the upcoming speech contest. As we were going to be completing a group evaluation so Anna also helpfully outlined what we should be looking for to ensure Marc got some valuable feedback - half of the room focussed on Delivery and the other half focussed on Content. Marc's speech titled "Sex, Religon and Politics" was a thought provoking speech about all the things we are safer to avoid in speeches. The purpose was to make us think, to make us realise how lucky we are to live in NZ (although we have our own terrible statistics on some issues) and to provoke the audience into trying to make a difference by talking about and researching issues such as rape, rascism, politics, gender inequality. We are a proud club to have Marc representing us at the contest with this hard hitting speech. 

  

Anna completed an evaluation on Marc's speech covering some great points and using the old rhetoric "Pause, Pitch and Pace" which we can all always apply in our own speeches as well. The group was then invited to cover anything that Anna may have missed resulting in a few extra points for Marc to work on - I am sure he took some valuable feedback from this session.  

Time Keeper Hannah finished off with an update on how we ran, and then after a quick general evaluation (carried out efficiently by Tamara) of everyone we finished our meeting for another week.

Thanks as always to our Sergeant at arms for having the room set up for us.

Best Speaker : Marc
Best Evaluator: Anna
Best Table Topic: Kerry