Meeting 1122 - "Love"

We certainly cherished the love (quotes) Peter gave us during the meeting. 

We might have not been familiar with the 6 different Greek words for LOVE which Peter introduced us to, but that we attended a Toastmasters meeting on St. Valentine's Day must have you wondering which of those words we should use to express the feeling towards our club.

And wonder we did: Sergeant At Arms Gokul pondered why we came together tonight before he called the meeting to order. President Paul opened the meeting and welcomed our guest Gail.

Peter cultivated a warm feeling while introducing us to the theme with Gail supported the smooth running of our meeting by giving us succinct program changes and an update on the program template changes. Stay tuned for the next one to be amazed!

Sam honoured the special day in his toast by having us toast to "Saint Valentine and love".

Gail presented the word of the evening (picked by Trish): "cherish" and we were able to appreciate not only the meaning, but sample sentences as well.

As our Round Robin Master, Tony nurtured us to use our five senses while answering the question: "What food do you love?" 

It certainly cultivated all members to use more gestures to describe the smell, taste, look as well as the crackling (sound) and texture (feel) of childhood food reverberating our fond memories as well as collecting saliva when imagining a fresh-baked loaf of bread flaking on our tongue or the many different shapes and flavours chocolate is available nowadays.

We moved into our prepared speech section. Both speeches were from Level 5 of the Pathways learning series (which is the highest level):

1. Arun spoke about leadership directed towards the followers "What's in it for me?" with his project being from the Dynamic Leadership path, Level 5, project 1: Lead in any situation. It was aptly titled "WIIFM" and asked difficult questions. The speech was evaluated by Gokul.
2. John's speech titled "Happiness and the Good Life" (Presentation Mastery path, Level 5, elective project: Prepare to Speak Professionally) took us on a philosophical journey treasuring Socrates' insight into the matter and fostering the GREAT AIMS principles of happiness in us. Gail evaluated John's speech.
   

Tony instilled admiration in us by presenting the raffle with lots of humour and not enough chocolate to share (according to his wife).

Hazel kept us on time during the whole meeting and gave us a timers report in which we learned that we would have supper early.

Supper gave us time to catch up, congratulate our speakers, buy raffle tickets and enjoy the mouthwatering treats provided by Jonathon, Gail and Marlene.

 

The business session followed and was chaired by Dan who expertly led us through some treasured procedures.

The impromptu speech segment was led by Chris giving us the inkling that the topics to answer might have something to do with St Valentine's Day or love or both. Chris called on

1. Hazel - What is your favourite way to celebrate St. Valentine's Day? Treating herself to heart-shaped chocolate.
   
2. Tony - Do you consider yourself a romantic? Trying hard for his pearl anniversary.
   
3. Gokul - Tell us about your first date with your spouse. The story went from the first spark in the restaurant and was left open-ended with the scene of being on the beach at midnight.
   
4. Dan - What is the best gift you've ever received from your spouse? Even though there are even some gifts from his spouse in the regift cupboard, the stylish bags make up for that.
   
5. Christiane - Which is the better Valentines gift: chocolate or roses? Neither: a cheese platter or plants/seeds are a much better option.
   
6. Jonathon - What is the weirdest food you've ever eaten to impress your date? The 6-hour investment of eating chocolate cake with rotten eggs ending not well overnight, but resulting in 26 years of marriage bliss...

The Table Topics were evaluated by Marlene and Paul.

Gail's report on the word usage of "cherish" was guarded since the usual contestant was an apology. She congratulated our guest on using the word during the Round Robin as well as the members who were able to use it up to three times.

Christiane as our General Evaluator exposed all the satisfying moments of the evening as well as gratifyingly giving pointers where some caution might be required. Overall, the improved gestures were evident and the supporting structure of evaluations was idolised.

After a final timers report, our guest drew the winning raffle ticket with the raffle going to a smiling Christiane.

Paul closed the meeting by reminding us of the Division Conference as well as the District Conference being open for registration before awarding:

Best Speech - John

Best Evaluation - Paul

Best Table Topic - Jonathon

Most Improved - Sam & Arun