"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

"FACEBOOK- A REALITY CHECK!"

Pania Blog – Thursday 20 February 2020

It’s a strange time of year, when Christmas has come and gone and we turn out thoughts to our regular weekly ‘fix’ of Toastmasters attendance and personal growth.  The energy is growing but is yet to hit full speed for our 2020 year. It was great to have 13 members attend today - Leigh, Lou, Graeme, Craig, Anna, Peter, Pedro, Israel, Mehran, Sahar, Hannah, Patrick and me.  We look forward to seeing our chairs full again when everybody gets back into full swing. 

"A NEW YEAR BEGINS!"

Pania Toastmasters first meeting fro 2020 was held on 23rd January and a few diehards managed to bring themselves back to Toastmasters after the Christmas break and enjoy a lively and entertaining meeting.

"LAUREL TAKES THE CAKE!"

Craig as toastmaster was suitably attired with sparkly red bow, for the last meeting of the year, on the 12^th of December. Chocolates and juice were on hand. We were warned on the quality of jokes!

"NUMBER 42- FEED MY SOUL!"

From: "Marcus van Irsel" <dutchie9@gmail.com>
To: "Craig & Jan" <craig-jan.r@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Meeting report
Date: Friday, November 29, 2019 2:54 PM

Hi Craig,



Graeme kicked off our meeting today letting us all know we were in for a
treat, as Mehran was our Toastmaster for today’s meeting, and such was the
quality of his skill that we’d want him to be TM again next week.

Mehran certainly didn’t disappoint. He had spent plenty of time beforehand
planning this meeting, juggling many things to ensure our programme ran
smoothly. In fact with such competency at juggling I suggested he could
work in the circus!

I really appreciated his comments after each speaker, picking out special
things as in Lou’s speech about enjoying the little things.

New member Hannah, read the mission statement and did a good job. I
suggested to Mehran that he should arrange this before the meeting so the
reader could be familiar with the text and then use more eye contact.

Paula introduced Lou, building her up extremely well by mentioned not once,
but twice that she was a competition winner within the club.

And we were not disappointed by Lou’s speech, “Feed My Soul”. She displayed
all the skills she has developed in her time at Pania, as we learnt her
full name was Louise May “Not”. This was her first ice breaker under
Pathways and she recounted her first ice breaker and how much she had
improved. We found out that the things that feed her soul include her
grandchildren, her own children, followed by husband, friends, the ocean,
gardening and bird watching. Phew!! I don’t see how she could possibly have
time for anything else. A great speech where it was a pleasure to see how
far Lou has come.

Michael then introduced our second speaker, Sandy. Another good
introduction where we were told how Sandy needed to distill all her
knowledge into a 5 – 7 minute presentation.

Sandy’s knowledge and understanding certainly came to the fore with her
subject and how the number 42 “let’s go with it” attitude isn’t going to
work well for us. It was educational as well. We discovered sand is the
second greatest resource used in the world, and ten Google searches is
equivalent to a light bulb burning for one hour. Some very interesting
facts were presented that certainly got the audience thinking.

Craig ran the table topics session, with the theme of music.

We found out Hannah’s favourite solo artist is Elton John because of how he
sings and his flamboyance. In case you’re wondering, she’s definitely going
to his concert here in the Bay next year.

Peter’s most enjoyable musical is Handel’s Messiah, which he was privileged
to hear with a 300 strong combined choir on stage. Sounds like something
the rest of us need to experience.

Israel’s favourite song is Canta Corazon by Alejandro Fernandez (hopefully
I’ve got this right!). Apparently the best way to hear him is in the VIP
area after getting into a concert for free.

Craig, by keeping a crafty eye on time, was able to squeeze one more in and
so asked the same question of Sahar. Her favourite English speaking artist
is Taylor Swift, who, although being very girly, cheers her up and leaves
her feeling good (and isn’t that what music is all about?).

Paula evaluated Lou, pointing out all the many good things about her
presentation and delivered with plenty of enthusiasm. She did seem to have
a problem deciding the best position for the lectern?

Michael had plenty of commendations for Sandy, clearly showing he’d been
paying attention. I thought he should be prepared to offer recommendations,
although he did throw a sneaky one in anyway.

The table topics were evaluated by Leigh, and she too did extremely well,
picking up lots of good things about each presentation and coming up with
some recommendations.

It was left to Laurel to provide feedback on how well we all did against
the clock, before it was my turn to present the general evaluation, which I
managed to squeeze out within time so that we finished at precisely 1pm.
Well done everyone.

Best speaker:     Lou

Best evaluator:  Paula

Best table topic: Hannah

'BELIEVE in IDENTIFYING YOUR LEADER'

How do you identify a leader?"   "Believe!"   These were the titles given by our two excellent speakers at the Pania Toastmasters meeting on Thursday 21st November.   Read more

"SHOOT TO KILL for a REBEL WITH A CAUSE!"

On the 19th of September I had the pleasure of having Anna chair our meeting for maybe the last time.
It was all rather sad.  Guess who was chairing the meeting yesterday?   It was Anna and what a meeting it was! Lots of fun, bubbly and plenty of animation.  People were up and about enjoying the occasion.  Anna even used words like "Jocund" thanks to Sandy our absent Grammarian.  So did everyone else!  Kees  (a visiting toastmaster from overseas) read the mission statement with lots of enthusiasm.  I could sense we were going to have a special meeting and that is exactly what happened!   Read more.