Meeting 1115 - "Summer Holidays"

What can be expected when a Toastmasters evening meeting is themed around "Summer Holidays"? 

Well, certainly unexpected was that Dan, our Toastmaster for the evening, introduced this theme while showing us his "winning" lottery ticket he brought along. He then followed by giving us ridiculously priced holiday ideas where one could spend their summer vacation. Luckily for Dan, he doesn't need to choose because of his "winning" ticket, i.e. a trip to America with the whole family as well as the long yearned fishing boat.

Our meeting was again opened by the Sergeant of Arms, Gokul, who concisely described to us the layout of our meeting venue as well as eloquently reciting the mission statement.

Gokul handed the gavel to president Paul who then reminded us of the upcoming Area Conference on November 12 in North Lakes (to support our contestants Narelle & Christiane).

It was then time for Dan to lead us through the evening program. After giving us the unrealistic holiday options (mentioned earlier), Dan also had some budget friendly ideas for Queensland vacations to take.

Gail gave her program changes efficiently. 

Paul followed with the captivating toast to "Summer Holidays". It almost felt that we were on holidays with him.

 

Word master was Peter B who gave us the exciting word of the evening which was "entertainment" (variants were accepted as well). Spoiler alert: Trish was able to say this word in nearly every sentence.

The Round Robin was led by Marlene with the encouragement of going home and writing a speech about the three sentences we would share. There will be many captivating stories in the following weeks because we were asked to share a highlight or incident on one of our holidays. Stories ranged from highlights about surfing, whale watching and beaches to incidents involving sunburn, chairlifts and inhospitable accommodations.

 

 

 

Afterwards it was time for the prepared speeches:

1) Arun introduced and evaluated Peter D's speech titled "Hot Air Ballooning - Is It Worth The Cost?” (Innovative Planning path; Level 1, project 3: Research and Presenting)

2) Paul introduced and evaluated Chris' speech titled "My Mentors Three" (Innovative Planning path; Level 2, project 3: Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring)

3) Christiane introduced and led the group evaluation of Narelle's speech.

From those evaluations, we learned that the personal account has an impact and can give you the connection with the audience. Using humour, wealth of knowledge and/or extensive research adds to an impressive speech.

Before the supper break, Chris enticed us to buy raffles for the chance to win 25 Slurpies as well as Jonathon keeping us all on time (or letting us know that we were running late since you don't give a Toastmaster the information that they are running ahead of schedule - we know how to fill this spare time with more stimulating speech feedback).

 

The supper break allowed us to not only buy raffle tickets, but also to enjoy the goodies provided by Paul and Gail, mingle with each other, find out about the truth in the speeches and be cheerful together.

 

 

 

Gokul called us back for the second half in which we started with a proficient, yet enchanting business meeting chaired by Gail. We passed 4 motions satisfactorily.

 

Then we came to the thrilling part of the evening: The Table Topics segment led by Trish challenging us to improve our impromptu speaking skills.

Trish had prepared charming topics and called on

1) Marlene - What was the worst summer holiday you have had? (fainting experience)

2) Peter B - What do you enjoy the most about summers? (getting cool)

3) Gail - What tastes do you associate with summer? (soft drink)

4) Jonathon - Give us a good case why daylight saving should be introduced into Queensland. (cricket training can be extended by 1 hour)

5) Paul - Pick 3 words to describe what summer means to you. (heat, cricket, solar panels for air conditioning)

6) Arun - What is your favourite summer clothing? (shorts and T-shirts)

The Table Topics were convivially evaluated by Hazel and Christiane.

Gokul gave us a compelling general evaluation with two priceless recommendations: don't bring a pen to the lectern and group evaluations will need 10 minutes on the program (and responses need to be strictly enforced).

Dan was able to draw the raffle and Gokul can enjoy those refreshing Slurpies.

 

In closing, Paul reminded us all of the Area Conference on November 12 before awarding the following:

Best Speech: Peter D

Best Evaluation: Christiane

Best Table Topic: Jonathon

Most Improved: Arun/ Peter D

Our next meeting is on 8 November.

Meeting 1114 - Evaluation & International Speech Contest

 Medals were polished...

 

the judges, the timers (Dan and Gail), tally counters (Liz We, Narelle and Marlene), sergeant at arms (Marlene and Trevor) as well as the contestants briefed...

so we are ready for the contest!

Gokul opened our meeting again reminding us of our mission statement.

Acting president Gail welcomed our guests Rose, Peter and Heidi to our special night, then called on Jonathon to give us the toast.

Fitting to the theme, he toasted to "Continuous Improvement" because the contests certainly bring out nerves we didn't know we had.

Jonathon then continued as Contest Chair to run the Evaluation Contest. Firstly the five contestants listen to our guest speaker Sue and her speech titled "Giving back". Her heartfelt speech had many examples of how we can give back to the community.

After 5 minutes of further evaluation preparation (i.e. writing up notes taken during Sue's speech), it was time for Christiane, Gokul, Hazel, David and Leanne to give constructive feedback to Sue's speech.

Sue commented in the supper break again how valuable the experience is as test speaker for the evaluator contest because of the various perspectives given by the contestants.

The evaluator contest winners were:

1) Leanne

2) Christiane

3) Hazel

Then it was time for Dan to entice us with his raffle - and wow, we had a record sale. The lucky winner was Heidi.

 

 

 

Supper was provided by Leanne and Dan and it was a spread! It gave everybody the chance to gather around and network.

Leanne took the reigns in the second half as our contest chair for the International Speech contest.

David, Arun and Christiane participated in it and ranked as follows:

1) Christiane

2) Arun

3) David

Before drawing the meeting to an end, Gail awarded achievement ribbons to new Pathways level completions: Narelle finished Level 1 in Presentation Mastery, Arun finished Level 3 in Dynamic Leadership and Trish finished Level 3 in Visionary Communication.

Sandgate Toastmasters would like to thank the judges Graeme, Di, Anne, Suresh, Mark and Kirsty for giving us their time to judge our contests. Thank you Trish for organising both contest nights.

We are looking forward to the next meeting on 25 October.