Meeting 957 Christmas Break Up Dinner

Our Christmas break up right was a lot of fun as usual. We had a lovely meal, Secret Santa and lots of Table Topics.

I'll let the pictures tell the story. Click on them for a larger size.

Happy Christmas Everyone! See you in the New Year. Because the 4th week in January is Australia Day, our next meeting will be a week earlier - on the 19th January.

Meeting 956 "Evaluation Workshop."

Area Director Kris & Marilyn

Special guests last meeting were Area Director Kris and Marilyn from Bunya Toastmasters.

Mahia & Marilyn

Also Mahia from Bunya Toastmasters. We were also pleased to welcome back Carmy, Kirsty and James.

Steve & Annette T

Kris presented Steve and Annette T with the perpetual trophies that they had won at the Area Conference.

Maureen

Sharyn

Maureen presented a speech about "The Benefits of Water."  Although there were technical difficulties with the projector, she was well prepared and didn't let it distract from her presentation.

Sharyn's speech was titled "Seventy, Twenty, Ten." She gave some helpful tips on putting a speech together and showed how "prior planning prevents pesky problems."

Marilyn

Tami

Both speeches were evaluated by everyone during Marilyn's  Evaluation Workshop. while Tami took notes on the whiteboard.

Liz & Marlene -  Timers

Time for a break.  Supper time was a chance to socialise.

John T & Reza

Annette W & Roseanne

Jim & Leesa

Paul, Reza, Tami, Darryl, Tim H

Darryl, Rose & Paul

Lisa presented the  raffle which was supplied by Amanda. It was an assortment of items - chocolate, cushion etc. and was won by Leesa.

Liza

Kris was General Evaluator.

Kris

President John T presented the evening's awards to Marilyn (Best Contribution,) Paul (Best Table Topic,) and Maureen (Personal Best.

Award winners 24 Nov 2015

Next meeting on the 8th December is our Christmas Break Up Dinner. Don't forget to bring a Secret Santa gift to swap and something to put in our Christmas Hamper Raffle.

Gotcha, Tim!

Meeting 955 "It's a Dog's Life"

Rose - High Performance Leader

Rose's speech last meeting was the culmination of many months of  goal setting, planning and  team leadership as she worked toward her High Performance Leadership Award. In her new role of Area 19 Director, Rose's HPL project was to coordinate the Area 19 Conference. The Conference was a resounding success and Rose's final task was to present a speech to the club outlining the scope of the project and what she had gained from the experience. Rose has now earned the the status of High Performance Leader. Congratulations Rose!

Certificate for Jonathon

Another high performer is Jonathon, who recently gave an instructive presentation to the local High School leadership candidates. President John T presented Jonathon with a Certificate of Appreciation in recognition of his outstanding support of Toastmasters Internationals projects.

Sorry, I didn't get very clear  photos from where I was sitting at the head table.

We had two guests, Lenore and Mary.

Toastmaster Tim had prepared snippets of information to fill in between segments, and gave encouraging comments to each speaker.

Darryl commented on the friendliness shown by all at the recent conference, and proposed a toast to "Friendship at Toastmasters."

Darryl

Word Master John T chose the word "Facetious."

Word Master John T

We had  Icebreaker speeches from our two newest members, Paul and Annette W.

Paul

Annette W

The speeches were evaluated by Jonathon, Liz and Maureen.

Jonathon

Liz

Mauren

Marlene conducted the business session, while Dave kept watch on the time.

Timekeeper Dave

Raffle Master Leesa had brought a special bottle of wine that she had bought during her trip to Rome.

Leesa

Wine from Rome

It was won by Jim.

Jim wins raffle

After supper, provided by Rosanne, Steve conducted a Table Topics session, which consisted of a continuous story with the opening, "I was walking into the dog shelter...: "

Steve

Each participant had to add to the story and include two words provided by Steve.

Harry - "blood" & "lead"

Rose - "policeman" & "phone"

Amanda -  "secret" & "terrier"

Nick - "Sheep""street lamp"

Maureen - "Revolver" & "bark"

Nicole - "clown" & "tail"

Darryl - "chocolate" & "claws"

Marlene - "red car" & "judge"

The Table Topics were evaluated by Jim and Roseanne.

Jim

Roseanne

Grammarian Harry commented on our use of words during the meeting and Amanda tested our listenibng skills with a Quiz.

Annette T had some commendations and recommendations in her General Evaluation and demonstrated how distracting it is when a speaker holds a large page of notes.

Annette T

President John T presented awards to Tim (Best Contribution,) Paul (personal Best,) Jonathon (Best Evaluation,) Annette W (Best Speech,) and Maureen (Best Table Topic.)

Award winners 10th Nov 2015

Hey, did anyone else notice that some people had trouble staying upright during the meeting? And it had nothing to do with Leesa's wine. Or my photography.

Special treat next meeting - Marilyn from Bunya Club is going to come and show how to present great evaluations.  I promise it will be good! See you on the 24th November. (Last meeting before our break up.)