Meeting 1161 International Speech and Evaluation Contests

It was a dark and stormy night...

In spite of the bad weather, nearly everyone managed to attend the meeting. Special thanks to our friends from other Toastmasters clubs, Chris, Mark, Suresh, Sue, and Jenny who came to judge the contests, and to David who was Test Speaker for the Evaluation Contest.

David J, Sue, Suresh, David B

Mark

Jenny - Chief Judge

Sorry, didn't get a photo of Chris.

Helen was Contest Toastmaster for the Evaluation Contest, and Gail W was Contest Toastmaster for the International Speech Contest. It was the first time for both of them.

Helen

Gail W

Liz proposed a toast to "Our Contestants - all the best!"

Liz

Test speaker David presented a speech to be evaluated by the participants in the Evaluation Contest.

David

The place getters in the Evaluation Contest were Christiane - First Place, John -Second, and Helen - Third.

Helen, Christiane and John

Participants in the International Speech Contest were Narelle, Christiane, John and Arun.

Speech Contest Participants

Place getters were John- First Place, Christiane - Second, and Narelle- Third.

Christiane, John and Narelle

Contest winners will compete with other Toastmasters clubs at the Area 8 Conference on the 3rd November.

Gail offered a raffle prize of a voucher for The Sands Social Restuarant. She was kept busy selling raffle tickets. The lucky winner was Liz.

Gail selling tickets in raffle

Supper was supplied by John and George.

Chris and John

Gail and Jenny

It was good to have Liz back from England and Trevor from Thailand. And a first-time visitor, Brett.

Congratulations to Jonathon on 15 years membership in our club. 

Next meeting 22nd October.

Meeting 1160 "The Eagles"

 It was another great meeting. We had 5 guests, Peter, Robert, Madonna, Claire, Ray. And a new member! Maddy has joined our club.

President Helen inducted new member Maddy and presented John with a ribbon award for completing level 2 of the Motivational Strategies Path.

Helen inducted Maddy

John recieved ribbon

Toastmaster of the evening Narelle explained that she had chosen "The Eagles" as the meeting theme because she loves the group's music.

Maddy's first role was to propose a toast. She proposed it to "Those who step outside of their comfort zone."

Maddy

George

George chose the word "laughter" as the word of the evening. Although it wasn't used a lot, there was plenty of laughter during the evening.

Round Robin Master Trish invited us to tell what music reminded us of a special event in our lives.

There were 4 prepared speeches by Arun, Helen, Paul and Trish.

Arun

Helen

Paul

Trish

Speech Evaluators were Gail W, Marlene, Christiane and John.

Gail W

Marlene

Christiane

John

Timekeeper Gail reported on the timing of the speeches and evaluations.

Gail W

Tracey

Tracey had brought a raffle, consisting of a mug, coffee, tea, biscuits, cheese, and other snacks. It was won by Marlene.

Supper was provided by Russell and Marlene.

Supper

Supper Break

Russell had prepared some theme related Table Topics for his "victims" who were evaluated by Arun and Paul.

   

Russell

Helen 

Helen had everyone guessing with her "Who am I?" segment.

Marlene delivered an evaluation of the entire meeting.

The evening's awards went to Tracey (Most Improved,) Helen (Best Speech,) and John (Best Table Topic and Best Evaluation.)

Award Winners 24 Sept 2024

There is still time to enter the International Speech Contest and Evaluation Contest to be held at our next meeting on the 8th October.

Meeting 1159 Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contest

 Contest nights are always exciting. President Helen welcomed our guests David (Area Director) Jenny, Suzanne, Chris, Mary, Sue who had come from other Toastmasters clubs as well as Robert (second time visitor) and Robbie (first time visitor.)

Helen

Gail H

Gail H spoke about people who are willing to turn up to take on roles and assist where needed. She then proposed a toast to "The people who do."

Trish was the Contest Toastmaster for the Table Topics contest. There were eight participants in the contest, Russell, Arun, John, Helen, Paul, Tracey, Peter and Christiane. 

Table Topics competitors

The same topic was given to all participants, so those who were yet to take their turn were escorted outside, way out of hearing reach and brought in one by one to answer the question, "What is the best age?"

Contestants waiting their turn

The winners were: First Place, Christiane. Second Place, Helen. Third Place, Arun.

Table Topics place getters

 During the supper break, contestants in the Humorous Speech Contest were briefed by Contest Toastmaster Arun.

Briefing contestants

There were four contestants, Gail W, Peter, John and Christiane.

Humorous Speech Contestants

All four speeches were very humorous and entertaining. 

The place getters were: First Place, Christiane. Second Place, John. Third Place, Peter.

Humorous Speech place getters

Peter offered a tempting raffle prize consisting of four kinds of cheeses, Ritz Cracker biscuits and a bottle of wine. It was won by Arun.

Peter's raffle

Narelle and Trish provided Supper.

Supper Break

Here are some random photos taken before the meeting and during the break. (Click on them to enlarge.)

 

Thank you to the judges, contest participants, Contest Toastmasters, tally counters, S.A.A, time-keepers and all the other "people who do."

Next meeting will be on the 24th September with the theme "The Eagles."

Meeting 1158 "The Beauty of Horses"

 

Helen

President Helen welcomed our 6 guests - Robert, Madonna, Nick, Sophie, Madeline, and Steve. Then switching to her role of Toastmaster of the evening, she explained that August is the month when horses in Australia have their official birthday, so she had chosen "The Beauty of Horses" as the theme for the meeting. 

Russell proposed a toast to "Spring," which was appropriate because it was a very warm evening.

Russell

Paul

Word Master Paul presented a challenge: to use horse related idioms.  This was combined with a new segment introduced by Christiane - Stress Reliever. A rolled-up newspaper was handed around and each person used it to thump the table in front of them as they told what annoyed them. This caused much laughter as everyone including guests told of their pet hate, while using a horse idiom, such "horsing around," "high horse," "putting the cart before the horse," etc.

Christiane

Shaun using Stress Reliever

Amy presented her Ice Breaker speech, "My Reality Slap" telling of a moving personal experience. 

It was evaluated by Marlene.

Amy

Marlene

The second speaker was Peter, who used Van Gogh's painting "The Good Samaritan" to illustrate his speech. It was impossible to take a clear photo of Peter as he took on the actions of each character in the story.

Peter

Van Gogh's painting

Shaun evaluated Peter's speech. George was a Timekeeper. 

Shaun

George

John T's speech, titled "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow." was evaluated by Arun.

John T

Arun

Speech 4 was by Gail H, titled "Start them Young," and was an entertaining journey into the past.

It was evaluated by Paul.

Gail H

Paul

 In the absence of a Raffle Master, Christiane raffled Twenty Dollars. It was won by Gail H.

After a delicious supper, supplied by Gail W, John T and Marlene, the meeting continued with a Table Topics session presented by Gail W.

Gail W

Her Table Topics were:

1. What are your favourite physical features of a horse and why? (Russell.)

2. What is a common activity that people do with horses. (Madonna)

3. What is your favourite breed of horse and why? (Shaun.)

4. What is your favourite horse from history? (Helen.)

5. What is a memorable experience you have had with horses. (Peter.)

6. What are the reasons that people find horses good companions. (Robert.)

7. What do you find attractive about a horse? (Marlene.)

8. What would you say if your partner wanted to have a horse? (Arun.)

There were some very funny answers.

The Table Topics were evaluated by Christiane and Trish.

Christiane

Trish

 

Russell presented a "Who am I?" segment, with a series if hints until several people guessed that it was Sigmund Freud.

Narelle conducted a General Evaluation of the entire meeting.

Award winners for the evening were Peter (Best Speech,) Amy (Most Improved,) and Shaun (Best Table Topic and Best Evaluation.)

Award winners 27th Aug 2024

Next meeting on the 10th September will be a Table Topics and Humorous Speech contest meeting.

We are very sorry to say goodbye to Shaun who is relocating.  He has contributed greatly to our club and will be missed.

Shaun