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Friday 19 March 2010

Meeting 827 - "The Wearing of the Green"


We celebrated St Patrick's day at our last meeting. It's a pity we couldn't have kissed the Blarney Stone before answering some Jonathon and Kylie's challenging Table Topics.


Michael won "Best Speech" with his fascinating history of the Osborne Hotel, which was actually the forerunner of "The Full Moon." He used a novel approach, and spoke as though it was in the present. 
 Meriel and Sharyn also presented very informative speeches.

 Guests Louise, Liz and Leonie came for the first time, and Maithri, Chris and Jessica came again. Chris and Jessica have decided to join our club.



Thursday 4 March 2010

Club Officer Training




Meriel, our President, Sharyn, VP Membership and Marlene, VP Education attended one training session in the city. Mark Hunter presented an interesting and thought provoking session which led to Monica managing to persuade Trish to stand on a table (beside a young muscle bound man) on a group of balloons. Toastmaster training is quite challenging.

Speaking Under Water


Toastmasters can talk under water. Liz and Sharyn walked under the Brisbane River in the Clem Jones tunnel and managed to talk allll the way......

Sunday 28 February 2010

Meeting 826 The Year of the Tiger


It was good to see three guests from last meeting return. We also welcomed Jessica for the first time.
The theme was "The Year of the Tiger."  and most segments related either to "tigers" or "Chinese New Year." 

Tony's Fortune Cookies provided some challenging Table Topics. 

Toastmaster Annette presented a lot of  interesting information.
 Ian presented a very constructive evaluation of a speech. It was his his first evaluation, I think and very well done. Tony also stepped out of his comfort zone and evaluated a Table Topic for the first time.

Best speech award went to Trish,
Best TableTopics, Sharyn D,
Best Evaluation, Leesa,
Best Contribution, Annette,
and the Encouragement Award to Ian.

The raffle was won by one of our guests, Chris.



Thursday 11 February 2010

St Valentines Meeting

It was a great meeting this week. Toastmaster Monica kept things flowing. The theme was "Love and all That Stuff." The Round Robin and Table Topics had a romantic theme and caused some hilarity.


Rhys presented his 3rd speech, titled "H20 to Go." It was very persuavive and of a much higher standard than one would expect for a 3rd speech.





Michael  gave an entertaining speech from the  Advanced manual, "Speaking to inform." He spoke about his experience as a radio announcer.

Dave's speech about recycling was voted the best speech of the evening.

We had 7 guests - Kate and June who came last time, (I'm glad we didn't frighten them away) Michelle, Maithri, Peter, Chris and Hugh. They all said they had enjoyed the meeting.


Dave is working on  his next speech 

Saturday 30 January 2010

Australia Day Meeting

It was good to get back to our meeting after a long break during the Christmas & School Holidays period.

Our first meeting for the year was held on Australia Day. so of course the theme was  "Australia Day."

Although it was a public holiday, 15 members turned up, several  looking sunburned after a day at the beach. We also had 2 guests, Kate and June.

Our usual meeting room was not available, so we held our meeting upstairs in the boardroom, which was only just large enough to accommodate everyone. It was a hot night, but a lovely sea breeze coming in through the outside doors kept us cool.

Robert presented an amusing speech, titled "How to be Brisbane's Best Racing Commentator," in which he wove a fanciful story about some of our members. No one really believed that he calls races - or that I have ridden a race horse!

Trish delivered a powerful talk on "The Forgotten Element," about keeping a balance between giving speeches and taking on Toastmaster roles and responsibilities.

I am working on the Interpretive Reading Manual, so I read the poem "The Man from Snowy River."
I learned an unexpected lesson. Because it was breezy, I put the pages I had to read from into the plastic sleeves of my folder so they wouldn't blow away. I hadn't got far into the poem, when I realised the light overhead was shining on the plastic & I couldn't read the words. So I took out the pages and had to hold on to them in the breeze. At one stage, I let go and one of them blew onto the floor. In future, I will make sure my speech is clipped or pasted onto firm cardboard or something.

One of our guests, Kate won the raffle, supplied by Dave. It was a beautiful bag that Dave's wife Sandy had made. Michael won the second prize, a book.

Don't forget, Metro Division Training Day is next Saturday, 6th February at Spring Hill or Monday 8th February at Chermside.

Monday 28 December 2009

Toastmasters on Holiday


CLEM 7 TUNNEL

Toastmasters are adventurous and to prove this, some of us went underground at Woollongabba travelled along a 6.8km tunnel and fortunately surfaced near Herston. Being a forthright Toastmaster I just had to take control, play with the microphone and safety vest and rest assured I KNOW what to do in the case of an emergency. Perhaps I should have rotated the photo !!!

Friday 11 December 2009

Christmas Break-Up

Our Christmas Party was great fun. Toastmaster Liz kept us enchanted with her magic wand. We even laughed at her jokes!



We had fun playing Celebrity Antlers.




Everyone brought an item for the Grocery Hamper raffle and a Secret Santa gift.



Monday 9 November 2009

Creatures of the Night


Our meeting on 27 October 2009 was very entertaining. An informative after dinner speech by Dave gave us some thoughtful, fascinating facts about glass (how does he remember all that information? - very inspiring). Ian presented an impromptu speech which left us all desperate to hear the next instalment. I showed how to build rapport with fellow members (using an exceptional able assistant - Thanks Liz). Trish, our toastmaster, almost told a decent joke regarding the halloween theme, all the members were all smiling and commenting goodheartedly at how bad they were although the DELIVERY was superb. The raffle containing a big black spider (edible) was introduced by our own wordsmith Leesa with an amazing rhyming verse. Trish won!
In conclusion Annette in her General Evaluation stated "It was a happy and friendly meeting".

Wednesday 4 November 2009


I attended the 'free' Toastmaster viewing of Michael Moore's movie "Capitalism - A Love Story" at South Bank and as a bonus listened to International Contest winner Mark perform his speech.