"CHANGE IN TIME OF COVID!"

Pedro organised a great agenda which was emailed out to us on Tuesday. I really liked getting the agenda early and being able to study it before the meeting. Pedro got caught up on the day and Carol who was in the Hot Seat stepped in with great Carol style. 

Graeme called the meeting to order and read the Mission Statement for the second week in a row. Kevin our guest was welcomed and apologies accepted.

Anna's 20 minute panel discussion “Change in the Time of Covid” was presented well with Hannah and Jen being on the panel and presenting their stories of Lockdown.

Hannah and her husband spent lots of quality time with their family, teaching Mr 5 to ride his bike without trainer wheels and watching Mr 18months taking his first steps. Hannah felt she learnt the following while on lockdown:

1.      She learnt the value of saying no

2.     She learnt that they didn’t need so many material things in their lives

3.     And she re-evaluated her values.

Jen who continued working through lock down as an essential worker told us a story of a couple that have been married for 63 years and lived at Mary Doyle in different living areas and the anxiety and confusion it caused when they couldn’t see each other. Jen noticed the decline in their mental and physical health. This gave us a new perspective into the lives of the elderly.

Anna ran the discussion panel well, adding empathetic questions and also giving the audience time to ask questions. This was a great subject that everyone could relate to. This panel discussion was the final speech for Anna to achieve her Advanced Comunicator Gold. – Congratulations Anna, you have worked hard and are a great role model for us all.

Marc introduced and evaluated Anna in his usual encouraging manner. He made many commendations and 3 very useful recommendations.

Table Topics was run by Patrick who choose some tricky questions.

1.      What about skiing in the sand dunes in Abu Dubai: Benita answered this question quickly telling us she would much prefer to ski cross country in New Jersey. oh what fun she used to have with her friends.

2.     Playing Golf in the Water in Atlantis:  Peter   expertly went onto tell us how he would rather go skiing in the Atacama Desert in South America. Peter talked about all the sand and where the sand ended up. Such fun trying new things.

3.     Booking a summer holiday and sunbathing in the dark:  Carol Funnily enough Carol switched with easy to playing golf  and went on to tell us how addicted her husband was to golf and how she would very much like to have a go at playing golf underwater.

4.     BBQing with wind gusts in Wellington:  Hannah told us it was her husband,s job to do the BBQing so she would let him battle the wind and she would head off into Wellington's Cuba St to find a nice warm restaurant and have a nice class of wine.

5.     Swimming in a frozen Great Barrier Lake in Canada.  Sandy expertly told us she would head for the sauna where she would soak for ages and be get toastie warm then rush out jump in the lake through a hole but before she jumped in she would make sure she would have an easy way of exiting so she didn’t get stuck in there and freeze to death.

Graeme evaluated Table Topics in a very humorous way. He made many commendations and some recommendations.

Sandy read out the times and Lou evaluated the evaluators.

Best Evaluator -  Marc

Best Table Topics – Sandy

Best Speaker – Anna

Another interesting, well run meeting followed by a shared lunch.