Meeting 1117 - "Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen"

Who knew that X-Rays have a wavelength ranging below 10 nanometers? Only our Toastmaster of the evening, since Christiane looked it up beforehand to tell us interesting facts about Mr Röntgen as well as X-rays and their use nowadays.

 

The meeting was called to order by Sergeant At Arms Gokul who also spoke of trusting his intuition (about Rode mics) before reading the mission statement.

Gail opened the meeting as Acting President and welcomed guests Helen and Linda. She also had the honour to hand out a Level 1 achievement to Peter.

Toastmaster Christiane opened the meeting with some interesting facts about Mr Röntgen before handing back to Gail for program changes (of which there was one - which speaks highly of Gail's planning skills as our Vice President of Education).

Carmy joined us via Zoom and gave us the toast which was to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. She cited some biography events of his life.

Wordmaster Hazel set us up with her favourite word "Engineer" which we learnt is a noun and a verb. (It was frequently used throughout the evening and Hazel found it too hard to announce a winner, but thanked and congratulated all for being able to embrace it into their speaking segment(s).)

Jonathon managed to have us laugh tears during the Round Robin where we shared "the silliest thing I ever did". It ranged from purple shampoo, shaving cream deo and lots of accident prone stories to blowing holes into walls with a shotgun. Chris later surmised that it showed that "we are all humans".

The prepared speeches of the evening followed:

1) Trish's speech titled "I'm Not Good Enough" (Motivational Strategies path, Level 1, project 2: Evaluation and Feedback) spoke about her doubt into her abilities and the so-called imposter syndrome. The speech was evaluated by Peter who serenaded us into the evaluation with a sing-song poem.

2) John's speech titled "Move, Groove and Improve" (Visionary Communication path, Level 3, elective project: Effective Body Language) had the audience exhausted from laughing too hard at his extensive concoction of exercises. The speech was evaluated by Marlene who recommended a punchier (pun intended) conclusion.

3) Leanne's speech titled "Stone Soup" (Presentation Mastery path, Level 3, elective project: Inspire Your Audience) directed us to think about the common good by narrating the folk story. The speech was evaluated by Jonathon who praised Leanne's ability to use a current event to bring along the audience. By using common language, followed by a story, Leanne was able to buy into something bigger and have a call to action at the end of her speech.

Marlene presented the raffle with 3 different "games" to improve our speaking abilities which gave Dan's raffle a run for his money. She was surrounded by people trying to buy raffles in the supper break.

Arun gave us the timer report for the first half in which we slightly went over program timing.

 

 

 

The scrumptious supper was  provided by Peter and Narelle. The supper break gave us time to reflect on the speeches as well as catch up on the planners and operations.

After the supper it was again a quick forth and back: Gokul called the meeting to order before handing to Toastmasters Christiane to hand straight back to Gokul who was the Table Topics Master.

Gokul called on

1) Peter - "Best engineering product" (paper & pen)

2) Trish - "If I ever win a Nobel prize" (it would be for reading and owning the most books)

3) Chris - "Did you ever have an X-Ray? If so, when?" (Once, shoulder and ankle)

4) Helen - "I am a home engineer." (yes, she can pull the strings in her house)

5) Christiane - "Are scientists or engineers moody?" (Not all, certainly not her as a biomedical engineer)

6) Arun - "Artists are ingenious engineers of my style" ("Artist can see something that normal people just can't.")

The Table Topics were evaluated by Hazel and Narelle.

We were treated to an educational on "Tall Tales" by Gail who told us why tall tales are nearly a cult following in America. It is an exaggerated story which makes the protagonist look good with super-hero abilities. You will also need to include an antagonist, a problem, climax and morale in the short story. (We will hear a few at the next meeting)

Chris gave us the general evaluation (or the evaluation in general) and caused us to laugh when he re-created the segments of the evening.

 

 

Rosie drew the raffle which went to Peter who will certainly enjoy the games.

In closing, Gail congratulated Narelle and Christiane for their participation in the Area conference before inviting us to our Christmas dinner on December 13.

She then presented the awards to

Best Speech - Leanne & John

Best Evaluation - Jonathon

Best Table Topic - Peter

Most Improved - Narelle & Peter

Our next meeting is this coming Tuesday, November 29 with the theme "Interpretive Reading & Tall Tales".

Thank you Marlene for providing the majority of the photos.