'STICK TO YOUR HOLIDAYS-with or without kids!!'

Pania Meeting Report for 18^th June 2020

We’re back! This was our first meeting back together in our meeting room, and the moment I entered I felt the warm buzzing atmosphere from seeing each other face to face again after the lockdown period. Graeme opened the meeting cordially, read the mission statement and introduced Jen as our Toastmaster of the day. Jen warmly welcomed all Toastmasters and our guest Kevin, and expressed how grateful we can be to be together again.

Our first speaker was Hannah, who after opening using an engaging hook, entertained us with a humorous speech ‘Holidays- with or without kids’. She described the contrast between a 12-month overseas trip as a couple, and just years later another trip – this time with kids in tow! There was plenty of laughter in the room, and Hannah excelled at using well-chosen and descriptive language, and a lively body language which involved the audience throughout her speech. This was commended by her evaluator, Lou, who analysed all components of a good speech in her well- rounded evaluation: amongst it language, voice, pace, body language.

The second speech ‘Stick to it’ was presented by Benita. This was Benita as we know her: passionate, energetic, lively, she persuaded the audience that talent plays only a small part in success – the most important components are passion and perseverance, or the ‘grit formula’. She peppered her speech with examples and quotes of famous, successful people and kept energy levels up throughout her speech, so everyone listened attentively to the last second of her presentation. Laurel delivered an exemplary evaluation of Benita’s speech; she focussed on the Benita’s objectives, and presented a well-structured, detailed, and clear assessment of both the speech structure and its delivery.

The table topics session was spontaneously whipped up in a joint effort by Toastmaster Jen and our timekeeper, Tamara. The topic was gratitude.

Anna answered to the question what life has taught her recently: she was grateful that lockdown made her slow down, feel balanced, and the positive influence from mindfulness sessions and motivational speeches. Pedro talked to the question what gives his life meaning. He elaborated on the fact how he came to realise in lockdown how much humans – and he himself are social beings: noticing how much he missed seeing his friends and being in a group. Patrick was asked how his life changed in the past 5 years. He noted two major changes, one being the transition to the other side of the world, from the Netherlands to New Zealand, the other being the change from no kids relationship to now being a happy parent to a 20 weeks-old baby.

Carol in the role of table topics evaluator gave all three table topics speakers excellent feedback on their spontaneous speeches. She awarded Pedro with the Table Topics speaker of the day.

During the business session President, Craig presented Jen with her Advanced Communicator -Gold Award which she has worked towards for many years. This involved something like 40 or so prepared speeches, evalautions, Club Officer roles and Education sessions to the Club, a well deserved award, Congratulations Jen!!

Altogether this was another excellent Pania meeting!

Pedro - best Table Topic speaker

Hannah - best speaker

Laurel - best evaluator