Old friends

Marlene, Bing, Edith & Lenore.

One the best things about Toastmasters is the lasting friendships we can make. Those of you who have been in the club for some time will remember past members, Edith, Bing & Lenore. On Sunday, I met up with them for lunch at The Full Moon.

We had a wonderful time catching up on the news.
Edith said she had found Toastmasters skills had really helped in her job as marriage celebrant.

Bing said she found the evaluation skills she had learnt at Toastmasters were useful when she had to write a report.

We all agreed that Toastmasters had made a big difference in our lives.

By the way, the meal was delicious. I can recommend the daily caught fish.

Meeting 889 "Fun with Words"

Annette installed Nicole as Treasurer

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Kylie 

Kylie chose the theme for the meeting and we really did have fun with words! Kylie, in her role of Toastmaster kept us laughing at her funny puns. We will miss her vitality while she is taking an extended break from Toastmasters.

Nicole has stepped in as our new club treasurer. She was unanimously voted in by the club and installed by president Annette.

Jennine

Rhys

Jennine's table topics were all a clever play on words. They were something like:
"My social studies teacher says the globe means the world to her."
"I have a pressing engagement -  I must go to the cleaners."
"Cook books are exciting. They contain lot's of stirring events."
 and "A dog not only wears a fur coat but also pants."
 Liz, Annette, John T and Sharyn managed to make them into some very funny mini speeches.

The table topics were efficiently evaluated by Rhys.

Amanda folding a fitted sheet

The three prepared speeches were all excellent. Amanda presented her second speech, which was titled, "Three Things I've learned off the Internet in the Past Week." It was a very amusing account of how she learned to fold a fitted sheet, how to avoid unwanted phone calls by registering with the "Do Not Call Register," and how to write a speech in 30 minutes. She cleverly tied these three subjects into a well organised speech.

Amanda's speech was evaluated by John T.

Sharyn

Trish

Trish, an advanced speaker, gave an inspiring speech on "Why I Do What I Do." and told how she loves helping people learn communication skills with her business, Trischel. 
Marlene and Robert gave a joint evaluation of Trish's speech.

Sharyn,  another advanced speaker, gave a very animated speech on "Word Perception" and told how a word can mean something to one person and something entirely different to another.
Sharyn's speech was evaluated by Inge and Monica. It was Inge's first time as evaluator.

Dave read a humorous poem, "Ode to Hubble's Troubles"  Liz read a poem called "For Better or Verse" that had some unexpected twists.

Tim and Ernie

Ernie told us a funny joke about how to tell the sex of a fly. It was good to have Ernie's son Tim, as a guest at our meeting. There were two other guests, Michelle and Andrew.

We had two raffles, Typo Package stationery from June and an assortment of preserves from Del.
They were won by Annette and Trish.

June

Del

Grammarian Jonathon reported on our use of words and fillers during the evening.

Annette, as General Evaluator, said she was pleased to see so many arrive early for the meeting. She reminded us to avoid unnecessary moving around or talking to one another while someone is speaking at the lectern as it is very distracting for the speaker.

Thanks to John S's meticulous time keeping and most people keeping within their allotted time, the meeting finished well on time.

Awards for the evening went to Amanda (Personal Best,) Kylie (Best Contribution,) Trish and Sharyn tied for Best Speaker, and John T (Best Evaluation.)

We have a winner!

Annette - First Place Evaluation

We were thrilled to see Annette win first place in the Evaluation Contest at the Area 8 Conference. She also came third in the International Speech Contest. Annette will go on to compete against all the clubs in the Metropolitan Division on the 16th March next year.

Dave performed well in the Table Topics Contest. We are proud of both our competitors.

Sharyn was great in her role of Contest Chairman.

 Area 8 consists of 6 Toastmasters clubs - Pines,  Healthy Chatterers, Bunya, Peninsula, Narangba Valley, and Sandgate. It is always good to meet old & new friends from other Toastmasters clubs.

The food from Tommy Tucker's Takeaway was excellent & plenty of it.