"TALK ABOUT GIFTS GALORE!!"

Pania Toastmasters held their final meeting of the year today and as usual members were encouraged (and everyone did) bring a gift for the HB Today Christmas Appeal, which they had to speak about as their Table Topic.

"SHAKE, RATTLE & SNAP- OUCH THAT HURTS!!"

Our penultimate meeting of the year today Thursday 7th December and what a beauty it was, well conducted by Mother Christmas herself, Carol, resplendent in hat, backed by music and full of the joys of this time of the year!!

"TEACHING AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS- How To Ski!!"

Meeting 23rd November:

Numbers have dwindled as the festive season draws closer, but meetings remain as lively and informative as always. Carol, our Toastmaster of the day, created a colourful salute to summer on the meeting programme, which was accompanied by her warm, enthusiastic welcome.

"TED TALKS"

The meeting of 30 November was well attended and explored new territory.

Toastmaster Jen had a very clear agenda circulated and by the time the GE arrived had the mission statement being read by Graeme. It was then straight into General Business which Craig smoothly used to complete the taking of apologies: good teamwork!

"P's & Queues!"

Pania Toastmaster Club Meeting Thursday 9 November 2017

Panias programme was presented by Mike who presided with panache over a poorly patronised meeting.

The Mission Statement was played out by Sandy.

Patrick pointed out Laurel's purposes portraying her performance of “in Pursuit of the Perfect Partner” using many “P’s” as possible. They were indeed plentiful.

Anna purred with ‘preciation about previous person Laurel's patter before putting Graeme on a pedestal so that he could poke fun and puns using plays on voice in “What colour do you want?”. Picking on your partner is a dangerous pastime Graeme.

Perceptive evaluations followed by Patrick and Anna of Laurel and Graeme's performances. They praised positives and perused problem parts.

Linda took the podium for Table Topics themed Social Issues. What we got was politics, personalities and problems from perenial procrastinators, Graeme, Jen, Sandy, Laurel and ... Patrick! Although like peas in a pod to me evaluator Noel pondered and the pick of the platoon was Oral Laurel.

General Business followed with Craig for predictable pronouncements and publicity concerning future periods projected programmes. Pensioner David appraised the past hour with a patently general evaluation in partnership with Timekeeper Craig.

Best Speaker and Table Topic Laurel, Best Evaluator Patrick

Ponody’s Perfect!

"DON'T FORGET YOUR GREENS!"

‘Don’t forget to eat your greens’   Thursday, November 2^nd 2017

·      Toastmaster - Laurel gave us some facts about what Halloween really means - mischief night, not at all about just giving out sweets to greedy kids. She was very professional and ran a tight ship.

·      Speeches – Helen spoke on the ‘Merits of Silver beet’.  She has it grown wildly in profusion near her home and she produced some very long plants.  She spoke of her enthusiasm for it and the health-giving benefits of silver beet and how she tucks into it for breakfast!

The second speaker was Patrick and he spoke about his recent triathlon, his first time and about body waste or ‘unwanted products’.  I commended him for cleverly weaving in a sensitive subject in a humorous way, which engendered chuckles especially at the end.

 ·      Mike won best evaluator for his thoughtful evaluation of Patrick and for using his warm, resonant voice in such an effective way.

·      Barbara did a great job of evaluating Russell’s transport orientated table topics, giving specific feedback as well as being positive and upbeat with her recommendations.

·      Feedback – a great use of pause throughout the meeting, our aim of reducing the use of ‘ums’ still needs focus.  Using more vocal energy will result in a greater overall pitch range and smiling more allows for a more modulated and resonant voice.  Laurel rounded the meeting off expertly with time to spare.  Don't forget to eat your greens!!

Anna Coleman

"COWS WIN AN AWARD!"

Today’s meeting started off lively with Anna as the meeting Toastmaster. She welcomed everyone, including Peter, our guest, and put us all in a mood anticipating a fun meeting. Anna used her flamboyant manner to have everyone begin with a voice warm up session, much to the member’s amusement as it was quite different from the usual opening style.

Carol introduced Darryl, and gave us the objectives of his speech  from the Special Occasion manual, “Presenting an Award”. We found out that Darryl’s goal is to visit every light house within New Zealand. Darryl in true style, eloquently presented his speech as to why the recipient should be given the award winning cup, and rounded his speech off wonderfully by presenting the cup to the unexpected recipient, a cow. Carol evaluated Darryl’s speech very thoroughly but her fast and vigorous manner led the General Evaluator to offer more than one recommendation. 

Graeme created a very thought provoking Table Topic session by asking a particular participant to call a number as they came out to the front. He then asked the participant to take the role of a particular minister of the newly formed government, and to explain the plans for the future. The timeframe given was two minutes to lay out a strategy.

Mike called number 6 so Graeme informed him that he was the new Minister of Police and how was he going to handle this position. Mike gave a robust, but, as Helen as evaluator pointed out, at times disarranged rendition of what he would have the police doing to clean up the law breaking. His speech surprised with the idea that the poor police officers would all be riding about on tandem bikes. Mike was very descriptive and he finished off by saying the days of crime were to end.

Craig called number 2 and Graeme said he was the new Minister for the Pike River re-entry. Craig became quite excited about his new responsibilities and told us how he would have the back of those who would volunteer to go into the mine but he would not be following them into the mine, just waiting at the entrance. Evaluator Helen suggested that Craig’s exaggerated hand gestures were to distract the audience from the fact that he did not wish to go into the mine himself. 

Laurel called number 1 and gained the title of Finance Minister. She became very serious with an amazing amount of information. Helen commended her for this information but recommended Laurel use more voice fluctuation.

As the second speaker, Jen presented an educational about how to begin a speech, gave an example, and asked questions of the audience. One such question was whether the opening example she used would have taken up more than 10% of a 5 to 7 minute speech. Also, Jen put a strong emphasis on the opening being used to grab the listener’s attention. As the speech was an educational, it was not evaluated.

Grammarian David gave the word of the day as ‘reciprocate’ along with the meanings. He also looked for the use of pauses as opposed to ‘ums’. Both David’s introduction of the requirements and his summary was short and sharp, much to Anna’s delight - as it fit into her fun, short and sharp meeting.

Peter, today's guest, came out front and told us how he had enjoyed the meeting.

Awards were presented and Jane as today’s time keeper gave a well presented outline of the participants speaking times while the General Evaluator Sandy, summed up the meeting with comments for the Evaluators to think about!

The meeting ended on time with Anna thanking us all for coming along.

Best Speaker: Darryl

Best Evaluator: Carol

Best Table Topic: Craig

Next meeting will be November 2nd.,Toastmaster Laurel.

Sent from my iPad

On 26/10/2017, at 5:08 PM, Craig & Jan <craig-jan.r@xtra.co.nz> wrote: