Once upon a time, Sandgate Toastmasters had another meeting filled with stories, laughter and fun while learning to improve our presentation and leadership skills.
Throughout the evening, Marlene reminded us about childhood stories and how her mother read to her. She even demonstrated her "big wolf" voice.
Dan as the acting Sergeant at Arms called the meeting to order and read the mission statement. Paul opened the meeting and welcomed especially our guests Belinda and Rosie as well as our newest member Sam.
He then awarded Chris with a ribbon for completing Level 2 in Innovative Planning.
Gail gave us the program changes (and was ready to change also the order of the programme due to members being held back by a traffic accident).
Chris toasted to "Happily ever after", before Gail introduced the word of the evening: Character. She also gave us several meanings and examples how to use it. Since Marlene was Toastmaster, she used it most. John came in as second place, followed by Trish.
The Round Robin segment was led by John who asked us "What should your life story include if you wrote it yourself?" (i.e. how would you like to be remembered)
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, just look how much entertainment each answer produced.
The speeches followed:
Firstly, Arun presented his speech titled "Second Chance" which was a Level 4 project from the Dynamic Leadership path. The project was "Manage Change" and his conclusion reminded us to "not take anything for granted". It was evaluated by Narelle who commended Arun on how he created and build the story inside the overall speech.
Our second speaker was Trish with her Ice Breaker speech (project 1, Level 1) in the Motivational Strategies. It was titled "Sharing An Introvert Story". The speech was evaluated by Hazel.
The third speech of the evening was presented by Christiane titled "Life isn't supposed to be fair" (project: Connecting with Storytelling, Level 3 in the Engaging Humor path). It was group evaluated led by Leanne.
Peter was our timer for the evening who kept us to time and always gave a succinct timers report when called upon.
The raffle of the evening (debatable to be shared or kept for yourself) was presented by David.
After supper, Tony led the Table Topics segment. He brought along a 3-part story book and called on the following members with the topic being
Jonathon - During the hottest summer on record,| the oldest man in the world | kills a stranger in an armed struggle
Narelle - After a monthlong fast,| a 15-year old girl | uncovers a hidden family secret
Leanne - Suddenly able to hear others thoughts,| a fallen angel | develops the ability to fly
Christiane - "Give me two days" (preparing Christiane for the Area 8 conference on Saturday)
The Table Topics were evaluated by Paul and Jonathon who reminded us that the more we are familiar with the answer structures of Table Topics, the better we can make the conclusion. He also commended to start the Table Topics answer with a question since the pause buys us time to think of the possible answer structure.
Marlene gave us some pointers about the upcoming Interpretative Reading session (November 29), so we can all go home and comb our books for the most suitable chapter. Each presentation is to be between 3 to 5 minutes.
The comprehensive general evaluation was given by Dan who thanked Gokul for his commitment to set-up, before going through the segments which hadn't been evaluated beforehand.
The raffle was drawn by our guest Belinda and the prize went to Jonathon (and wasn't shared).
Before handing out the awards, Paul asked our guests for feedback - which involved very entertaining responses.
Best Speech - Trish
Best Evaluation - Jonathon
Best Table Topic - Christiane
Most Improved - Arun
The next meeting will be on 22 November.
The Area 8 conference is on 12 November - we wish our contestants Narelle & Christiane all the best.
Gee, I think you need a filter on your camera, Christiane. I look ancient! Great write up of the meeting. Wasn't it fun!
ReplyDelete