Mt Victoria Toastmasters Club

Such was the theme of the night and so it was no surprise that Matt, our grammarian for the night, decided to pick the word “procrastination” as the word of the night. Except that he got bored half-way through writing it down and all we had to work with was “procras”

In any case, it was a fun evening, many thanks to Anna who took over at the last minute and organised the whole meeting, making my job as chair very easy.

After a short introduction which I prepared at the last minute, on my way from work to the Friends Meeting Hall, Jacinta produced a table topics theme which turned out to be very inspiring: it was all about breaking through obstacles.

Second came Sarah who took us with her on a journey into Eastern Nepal where she had to run away from a tiger. Followed Sofie who told us all about how hungry she was after a very demanding bike ride down from Arthur’s Pass.

Then came our more medically-inclined members. Marie reminded us about the importance of taking a first aid class and Rebecca explained why she decided to become an acupuncturist and how she only has 785 years before she becomes a master in her profession.

Finally, the meeting ended with Mike’s reading of a short story from Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino. Visit the library if you want to read the rest!

Thank you to all of those who made this meeting such a pleasure to chair and remember, you’re not putting things off, you’re practising structured procrastination

May 13th Club meeting

by Sarah H

I really enjoyed Larissa’s decision to continue with the theme of conservation. And what an outcome, each speaker added with such an interesting facts, opinions and experiences that it seemed like a debate. Two suggestions for everyone were to look at a DVD of a film “Earth” and the other one was to consider all of the world’s population as vegetarian and what impact would that have on the environment. It was fascinating.
 
Five well prepared speeches, were presented. Peter talking about his interest of “Star trek” with wonderful imagination and knowledge… Two Icebreakers, Sophie and Dan introducing themselves, based on their passion for their work as a natural progression over the years of study. I wish them well as they move through the Competent Communicator Manual and look forward to more interesting speeches from them. I hope they enjoy the Toastmasters experience. Rachelle spoke about the impact and contact of the influence of names for people, animals and places. It was thought provoking about the spelling and use of words as labels to communicate as in texting with a fading battery. Bronwen also intrigued us with her speech about colours, so informative, facts just kept on coming and each one as interesting.
 
But that wasn’t all for this attentive audience. Mark gave us the final challenge to make each introduction as memorable as those speeches.
From the chatter during the break it’s a social occasion and getting to know the next speaker and about their speech to prepare for the introduction through email seems to me a natural way, rather than relying on the 5 minutes before the evening meeting to learn about the “what’s next” of the speech.
 
So in all it was a fascinating and challenging meeting.
 
Sarah

Garth chaired last night’s Mt Vic Toastmasters meeting, with the theme: “Today in History” – a theme that always seems to bring forth an eclectic array of events… and the 18th March was no different:

• 1673 – Lord Berkley sold his half of New Jersey to the Quakers
• 1891 – Britain became linked to the continent of Europe by telephone
• 1911 – North Dakota enacted a hail insurance law (yes, protection specifically from hail)
• 1986 – Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson
  

Which spurred on numerous speakers to recall their own ‘moments in history’ – including Mike’s recall of the night that man first walked on the moon: an auspicious event, surpassed only by Mike & his wife’s engagement that same night!  Celebrated by a walk along Oriental Parade, to gaze up the beautiful full moon

Wonderful stories and engaging speeches last night – well done to Bronwen, Francois, Mark and Mike – who took us from the Siberian Valley, to the plight of the Tasmanian Devil in Australia, to the global reaches,  processes, procedures & practices of Toastmasters International – and back to good old Pauatahanui!

Enjoyed something from the meeting, or want to give some feedback?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

“Gadgets” were the theme for the evening at last night’s meeting – so energetically chaired by Peter T.

It was a superb Chairperson’s effort, producing a “full involvement” meeting : where every person at the meeting contributes with a speech of some type, whether prepared or impromptu. It’s always a thrill to hear so many different points of view!

Excellent to see our brand new members Peter, Sofie and Dan all striding forward to deliver well considered, well structured speeches – and in each case, the speech was off the cuff.  Well done to you all.

Our next meeting is scheduled for 18 March, to be chaired by Jo, with rostered speakers of: Bronwen, Francois, Teri and Mark B.

Looking forward to it!

Thanks to all at last night’s ‘contest night’ – a smoothly run and very enjoyable evening.

Special thanks to Mieke for chairing the contest so proficiently and warmly, to Russell for hosting a lively table topics session (featuring topics such as “bitter rain” and “dazzling sunshine”!) and to our guest judges from the Public Services club: Tony, Olivia & Alex.

Thanks also to Linda for giving us a very impressive speech on the art of Claude Monet.  And congratulations to Garth for delivering an equally impressive, winning Evaluation of Linda’s speech, in the Evaluation contest.

Great to see some new & prospective members coming through – welcome to the club Peter Williamson (that’s now three Peters!).  Look forward to hearing that icebreaker speech sometime soon