"THIS IS ME- TED X!!"

Toastmasters     22^nd November

‘As you can tell I am destined to be on time’…

As Toastmaster Graeme, called the meeting to order he declared ‘as you can tell I am destined to be on time’ which set the tone of the meeting.

Lou read the mission statement, confidently and clearly.

There was lots of energy and lots of acknowledgement.  It was beautiful to have Maori spoken by Paula and Jennifer.

Noel was warmly welcomed and received his Competent Communicator award .   

Marc acknowledged Paula for choosing to use her speech as professional development on her ‘MCing’ for the TED X Salon Event in Napier last Saturday on the future of education.  Marc commended her for embracing it as an exciting opportunity, he was very positive in his feedback and mentioned use of Maori, her research of speakers and gave her helpful ‘fine tuning suggestions’.

Jennifer’s Icebreaker - ‘This is Me’ introduced her through her mihi, in Maori and talked about her European and Maori ancestry.  She also discussed the purpose of a mihi.  She used great humour and took us on a journey as a new mother, she had to give presentations and had to travel with work going through a ‘very hard dark time’, then rebuilding and now being in a stronger place.  Jennifer won the best speaker award and showed real courage and strength in being vulnerable.

Linda’s Table Topics – were totally unique.  Having taught English in Iran for a few years, she chose the word idiom as the theme and gave examples – e.g. ‘barking up the wrong tree’, ‘a dog doesn’t recognise its owner’ (things are chaotic). Noel was given ‘My hand to your skirt, I beg you’. Noel nailed it with his own story of Iran.  With ‘I rub salt on my stomach’ Jen talked about her stomach a LOT and Christmas time.  With ‘they made me bald – driving me crazy’– Lou talked about workers in her garden, with a great sense of humour, and won the best table topic award.  Finally, with ‘I would eat your liver – I love you so much’ Trish also used humour about her mother in law, with effective use of gestures.

Craig presented Noel with his Competent Communicators Certificate – saying they were amongst the best 10 speeches he has heard Noel give.

Graeme finished the meeting with enough time for another 2 table topics!!!

To Graeme -  ‘Thanks for being here’ and on time!

'THE 'C' WORD AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN!"

The C word and the garden of Eden

Anna was the Toastmaster for the day, with a well-organized and run meeting infused with tongue twisters and pursuing excellence with pronouncing T’s.  She warmly welcomed our visitors. We all expertly repeated the mission statement together and apologies were accepted. Linda did the honours as our Grammarian – word of the day “Appreciation”.

"NAKED WISDOM or HOW TO TRAIN A PUPPY!"

Well, what a fantastic meeting we had last Thursday 8th November.

Lou was our Toastmaster and she did a wonderful job, kicking the meeting off slightly early just to keep everyone on their toes. A well-prepared agenda from one of our toastmasters that always continues to blossom.

"FIND THE EYE OF THE TIGER on GEOCATION!"

Pania Blog – Thursday 18 October 2018

Lazy Long Weekends

With a day to go to the start of a long, lazy weekend for the citizens of Hawkes Bay, our meeting today was anything but lazy!

Toastmaster of the Day Tamara brought her usual high energy to this meeting, ensuring that we were swept along with her enthusiasm. Sincere congratulations must be given to Tamara, considering this was her first time as chair.

"GOING,GOING-GONE!"

Another fab meeting for Toastmasters Pania on Thursday November the 1^st.

Our experienced Toastmaster for the day was Jen who ran the meeting with a general theme of gratefulness - with some snippets about the many gifts of life and the things we have to be happy about. One of our newest members Jenny read the club mission statement for us - it is always good to be reminded of the over-arching goals for our time at Toastmasters.

Sandy gave us a warm introduction to our first speaker for the meeting - Linda. It was great that Sandy gave us some background information into Linda's journey through Toastmasters as well. Linda's speech titled “Going, Going, Gone” took us through an at times personal journey of dealing with loss - accompanied by a handout with some practical steps for us all to take home and think about.

Sandy's evaluation covered a common issue for evaluators - to step outside of the speech to be able to evaluate it. It’s so easy to become engrossed in the many great speeches we get to listen to. There were no recommendations for Linda, but Linda had asked for Sandy to look out for her speech structure and she had some good positive feedback around that.

We had some extra time for table topics today and Heather therefore lead 5 questions around people's experiences and memories about their school days and we learned a little more about the pasts of Jenny, Lou, Graeme, Sandy and Mike. Paula evaluated the 5 table topic speakers and had commendations for everyone and a few recommendations as well.

Mike did a reading from a book of editorials by columnist Joe Bennett - an English man, living in Christchurch who has a brilliant use of the English language and is quite funny to boot! Mike caught a case of the giggles and so did the audience - a great choice for us all to sit back, relax and enjoy listening to.

Time Keeper Julie finished off with an update on how we ran, and then after a quick general evaluation of everyone we finished our meeting for another week.

Best Speaker : Linda
Best Evaluator: Sandy
Best Table Topic: Mike

"HAS WONDER WOMAN RETURNED @50?"

In a meeting of many 'firsts' our Toastmaster of the day, Linda ran an excellent program at Pania Toastmaster's meeting on 11th October. Well drawn up, clear, uncomplicated program and a  wonderfully warm welcome assisted Linda to make the meeting an excellent one! We had two guests (who were there for the third time,) Julie & Jenny, next time they may be Toastmasters!! It was also great to see Jane & Russell back with us after their winter break.

'WILL GENDER EQUALITY EVER BE ACHIEVED?"

This was the very interesting topic for Pania's Table Topics Contest held at out Thursday lunchtime meeting. The Chairman, Laurel, handled the Contest with extreme professionalism and this enabled everything to run smoothly.

In this Contest each contestant draws for speaking order and then one by one come into the room to answer the same topic for between 1 and 2 minutes. We had five contestants and all of them without exception spoke extremely well to the subject and within the limited time available to them had some excellent ideas both for and against. It seems from the general consensus of the speakers that we will struggle to achieve gender equality certainly in out lifetime, but things are getting better!! One speaker (a male) even felt that we were getting to the stage of males being pushed aside to the preference of females!!

The Contestants in speaking order were, Marc, Carol, Mike, Darryl and Paula so we had a mixture of plenty of experience with the first four and then Paula, who has only been with the Club since June.However, as mentioned, all performed really well, to what turned out to be a very good topic for them and they can all feel justifiable proud of giving it a go and performing so well.

As in any Contest there needs to be a winner and first place  (for the second year in a row) went to Marc, while Carol was placed second and Mike 3rd.
Our special thanks to those who made the effort to enter the contest (after all it does not require much preparation) also to Laurel for her excellent running of the Contest and for thinking up the Topic, and to the Judges and other assistants, particularly Steve & Christine from Napier Club.

We do hope that our two guests (Julie & Jennifer) there for the second visit enjoyed the slightly different meeting.

Marc now goes on to represent the Club at the Area R3 Contest on 3rd November , when he will come up against the winners from the other five clubs in the Area.,We wish him well!!

Napier Club are holding their Table Topics Contest (and their Humorous Contest) on Monday 8th October at the Greenmeadows Community Centre, Tait Drive and everyone is welcome for what will be a great night's entertainment.(and its' free!!)