District 69 Convention

John, Trish, Meriel and Leesa attended the District 69 Convention which was held at Caloundra during the May Day weekend.

 Meriel, our club president was proud to carry our banner in the banner parade.

They all had a wonderful time.

Meeting 830 "Anzacs"

Anzac Day is not far away (25th April) so our theme last meeting was "Anzacs."  A special guest was Rose's "Digger" bear, who proudly stood at attention throughout the meeting.

New member Damian was inducted.

Toastmaster Trish presented us with information about Anzac Day and handed out  the recipe for Anzac biscuits.

 ANZAC BISCUITS

• 50g Plain Flour
• 75g Sugar
• 50g Dessicated Coconut
• 50g Rolled Oats
• 50g Butter
• 1Tablespoon Golden Syrup
• 1/2 Teaspoon Bread Soda (Bicarb)
• 2 Tablespoons Boiling Water

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix flour, sugar coconut & oats together. Melt butter & golden syrup together. Dissolve soda in boiling water & add to the melted butter & syrup. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients & add the liquids, mixing well. Roll teaspoonsful of the mixture into balls & place on a well greased baking tray. Flatten slightly with a fork dipped in water. Bake 15-20 minutes until brown. Allow to cool slightly on tray before transferring to wire cooling rack.

SPEECHES

In his speech titled "Terra not so Firma" Dave showed us how land masses are formed and why earthquakes occur.

John spoke about "Poor Performance." The reasons for poor performance, he said were often:

• Poor selection (of employee, etc)
• People who don't know what the job is
• People who don't know how to do the job
• Someone or something preventing them from doing the job.

 -  all of which are results of poor performance of the boss.

NEXT MEETING  will be close to Mother's day, so our theme will be "All in the Family." We are looking forward to a visit from Asoki our Area Governor, and hearing speeches by Damian and Kylie and Asoki and an Educational Session by Sharyn.

Combined Meeting - Easter theme

Happy Easter Everyone!

Easter was the theme for our extra meeting last week. (There were 5 Tuesdays this month, so we took advantage of the extra Tuesday.) Our friends from Peninsula Toastmasters joined with us for a fun filled meeting.

There were plenty of Table Topics, with even our guest Damian joining in.

Chris and Hayden from Peninsula Club each presented inspiring speeches. Chris spoke about "Being a Friend" while Hayden's speech was "Roses and Marshmallows."

In his speech "Show Me," our own member Michael told how he enjoys his role as Sergeant at Arms.

It is time for everyone to start thinking what role they might take on for the coming Toastmasters year. Elections will be held at our first meeting in May. I'll send out a nomination form soon.

CONTEST NIGHT

Meeting 828 gave members the opportunity to raise their performance by participating in a contest.

Firstly, the Interpretive Reading Contest which requires reading text expressively and using gestures to involve the audience. Our members listened to a humorous poem and text from books. Liz won with her brilliant rendition describing a hilarious travelling experience and Marlene obtained second place.

Secondly, the New Speaker Speech Contest, both presenters entertained the audience. Their use of props, the organisation of their speeches and the usage of expressive tones and volume of voice, was impressive. Mark won and Tony obtained second place.

Lastly, important evaluation skills were honed by our members acting in the judging roles. This meeting was very productive in increasing all our skills.

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.

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......

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.

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 

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.