On Wednesday the 25th of November, Mt Victoria Toastmasters celebrated Thanksgiving in our very own toastmasters style. Using Thanksgiving as the theme, Bronwen ran an excellent table topics session, asking participants to recall various aspects of their lives they were thankful for, such as a piece of music, a person, or an event.
Robert G. was our grammarian for the evening and introduced us to the word “martinet”, as well as treating us to an exciting display of martinet like behaviour.
We had three very well prepared and presented speeches from Oliver, Sophie and Matt. Oliver gave us speech number 2 from the CC manual and explained to us how to structure a speech using the method of mind mapping, and included a very comprehensive mind map of his first speech, then surprised us by pointing out he had had Rebecca put his mind map for this speech on the back wall; and had actually used it to deliver his speech while we the audience were none the wiser.
Sophie told us a wonderful story, drawing us in and sharing with us ” The End of the Affair”. Sophie touched us with her descriptions of her time in Wellington, explaining how her relationship with Wellington had began, grown and evolved. She then outlined the adventure she is to undertake next year, working in South America.
Matt replied to Dan’s speech of a few meetings previous, and refuted the benefits of personality typing in a very humorous yet thought provoking manner.
As well as three speeches we were fortunate to have Steve P present an educational on Evaluations. Steve gave a very detailed discourse and introduced us to the use of OAR: Objective, Action and Review.
Agata and Mike did us proud in the Sergeant at Arms role with a great selection of chocolate biscuits.
Thanks to our evaluators: Victor on table topics; Peter, Antony, Steve L, giving prepared speech evaluations; Rebecca keeping us to a timely basis; Anna testing our listening skills; and Garth as general evaluator.
My special thanks to everyone present at the meeting for making my first experience chairing a Mt Victoria Toastmasters Club meeting so enjoyable.
“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” Cicero
Sarah B.
