Meeting 1125 - "Greece"

You don't have to be picky when  touring six weeks through Greece, since you will find the best lamb dishes everywhere.

Trish gave us many more interesting facts about Greece (even composed in a one-page summary) and encouraged us all to take the long flight to visit.

The meeting was called to order by our Sergeant At Arms Gokul (with no Dad joke) before Paul opened the meeting and welcomed Area Director Suresh as visitor.

Trish explained why she selected Greece at the theme (and was dressed appropriately: Greek purple T-shirt) when she recalled the six weeks adventure with her high school friend and partners 40 years after graduation.

Gail H gave us the program changes not requiring painstaking care as there was only had 1 slight change.

Afterwards, Trish called on Gail W to give us the toast. Gail W used very vivid word pictures to describe Greece with calling the toast to "Contributions from Greece".

Unfussy Chris presented the word of the evening (prepared by Rosie): persnickety. It allowed us to use it in our Round Robin and Table Topics which brought on lots of laughter.

The Round Robin was presented by Helen who allowed us one week of travelling through Greece with her as the finicky tour guide and recounting our many highlights. There were some choosy travellers complaining about the stairs, a few pleasant personification of Greek philosophers and gods as well as celebrating Greek traditions like plate throwing and lamb grazing.

We then moved into the prepared speeches:

1. Peter took us on a journey with "The 330 bus" (Innovative Planning path, Level 2, project 2: Connect with Your Audience) where he educated us about the many benefits of bus travel. It was evaluated by laid-back Christiane.
2. Marlene spoke about her encounters with April Fools Day in her speech titled "A Timely Warning" (Engaging Humour path, Level 1, project 2a: Evaluation and Feedback). Tony was her cultivated evaluator.
3. John brought along a prop in his speech "My Communication Onion" (Visionary Communication path, Level 3, "Develop a communication plan project") when he peeled away the layers explaining the various interactions with people in his life. It was knowingly evaluated by Gokul.

Thereupon, Gokul was called back to the lectern enticing us to buy raffle tickets giving us the chance to find a flavour as diversified as people on the planet.

It was Gail H's turn to give us the timings of the first half before we went into our supper break.

 

During supper we not only were able to buy raffles from Gokul and devour quiche and sweets provided by Hazel and Leanne, but it was a time to catch up on the news.

The second half of the meeting started with Table Topics. Narelle as Table Topic Master gave topics to:

1. Hazel - What would be the best way to travel to/from and around Greece? After considering scooters, she decided to walk everywhere.
   
2. Helen - Greeks are known for smashing plates, have you ever had a time when you wanted to smash plates. Yes!! Everytime hubby and her visit Bunnings as well as sometimes in her interaction with her kids.
   
3. Suresh - Goddess Athena is a patron of Greece, who is your goddess? Lakshmi (giving money) celebrated during Diwali.
   
4. Christiane - Would you rather go to a Greek or Italian restaurant? Greek!! You can't top lamb with tzatziki sauce.
   
5. Chris - Greece grows one third of the world's olives. Do you like olives? As a fastidious eater, he does now with green olives stuffed with feta being his favourite.
   
6. Gail W - What is you favourite Greek monument, person or place? Blue seaside as well as columns.
   

Those impromptu mini speeches were evaluated by Paul and Leanne.

After Gokul collected the final votes (with Trish expanding on the facts about Greece), Suresh addressed our club and congratulated us to a strong membership and having achieved distinguished club level, but most of all called on us how we can give back to Toastmasters.

Three reviews of the executive roles followed:

1. Christiane - Vice President Public Relations ("Postings on Facebook allow you to be organised and creative.")
   
2. Peter - Treasurer ("Don't use the wrong credit card")
   
3. Gokul - Sergeant At Arms ("If you want to speak at every meeting, this is your role")

Chris's feedback on using "persnickety" called on Trish as the winner (16 times). If we wanted to be picky and divide this number by her overall speaking time, we need to congratulate Helen for using it three times. 

Arun gave us the general evaluation prior to Gokul asking Suresh to pick the winner. The raffle went to Arun.

In closing, Paul awarded the trophies to:

Best Speech - Peter

Best Evaluation - Leanne

Best Table Topic - Christiane

Most Improved - Gail W

Our next meeting is on 11 April.