Meeting 1130 "Endurance"

 Toastmasters always manage to rise to the occasion. Although winter ills and work commitments had resulted in a lower attendance, the programme was easily filled with many members taking on extra roles.

Dan took on the role of Sergeant at Arms in Gokul's absence. He opened the meeting and handed control to President Paul.

Dan

Paul

Paul welcomed first time visitor Michael and introduced the word for the evening, "Persevere."

John presented the toast to "The development of mental endurance."

Gail W

Gail W presented the "Round Robin" warm up by asking "What is the most recent thing that you endured and what have you learned about yourself from it?" 

This provoked some interesting stories. Some were amusing. Some could possibly be developed into a full length speech in the future.

The prepared speeches were delivered by three of our most advanced speakers, John, Liz and Trish.

John

Liz

Trish

John's speech "Shopping Strife with My Wife" had everyone laughing.

Liz's inspiring speech about her journey in Toastmasters was a "Serving as a Leader in a Volunteer Organisation" project.

Trish inspired us with her speech "Say No to Imposter Syndrome."

They were evaluated by Jonathon, Gail and Peter.

Jonathon

Gail

Peter

Dan

Dan offered an non-alcoholic as well as an alcoholic choice in his raffle which resulted in a brisk trade for tickets. It was won by Trish.

Dan's Raffle

Supper was provided by Leanne and John. Even though Leanne was unable to attend the meeting, she had made a quiche and delivered it before the meeting, which was greatly appreciated and disappeared fast! I almost didn't get a photo!

Leanne's quiche

Supper time

Marlene conducted the Table Topics session, inviting participants to draw a word from a bag and to speak about it. All the words were related to endurance.

Participants were Hazel, with the word "climb." Paul - "illness," Peter - "long wait," Gail - "toothache," Chris - "hard work". And our guest Michael who agreed to take part, spoke on the word "hunger." (He later told us that Trish's speech had inspired him to give it a go!)

The topics were evaluated by Hazel and Dan. Hazel was also timekeeper.

Hazel

Dan

Grammarian Jonathon mentioned some of the alliterations during the speeches and gave some hints on avoiding filler words.

Paul, in spite of having to perform multiple meeting roles managed to give a comprehensive and helpful general evaluation of the entire meeting.

Award winners of the evening were Peter (Most Improved,) Michael (Best Table Topic,) Trish (Best Speech,) and Jonathon (Best Evaluation.)

Award winners 13 June 2023

Next meeting Tuesday 27th June. 

The following meeting on the 11th July will be our Change Over Dinner at "The Sands Social" to mark the beginning of a new Toastmasters year, which always starts in July.