Meeting 1025 - Poetic Rhymes

This Meeting offered variety and the scope for developing interesting segments as the novel theme  brought out Member's inner poet.
A warm welcome was extended to guests John and Kathy by Toastmaster Leesa. She kept the happy friendly manner throughout with lots of rhymes.

Leesa

A Toast to "Limericks" and also presenting one herself was Monica.

Monica

Wordmaster Trevor was a bit flummoxed with his choice of "Quintessential" which at first appeared with a variation of the spelling. The meaning is the very essence of something.

Trevor with Version One

Version Two

Round Robin by Marlene, asked Members to remember a rhyme from their childhood, which tested some with recall. Marlene wrapped it up well by presenting her own humorous rhyme.

Marlene

Speeches were presented by: Carmy "Going Home" and evaluated by Gail.

Carmy and Gail

 Peter spoke on "Highlights" from his recent overseas holiday, and was evaluated by Eileen.

Peter and Eileen

 "Cut to the Core of the Problem" was a serious speech by Darryl, which was evaluated by Christiane.

Darryl and Christiane

Chris cleverly wove a rhyme around the raffle prize, also for the raffle draw. Blake was the winner.

Poetic Chris

Kirsty led Table Topics with a twist. She introduced one of her favourite poems, then called on a Toastmaster to extend this as their topic. It challenged all to speak off the cuff in a slightly different manner. Trish and Blake were Table Topics evaluators.

Kirsty

Monica was vigilant as Timekeeper and accurately recorded and reported during the Meeting.

A Movie Review was next on the agenda, by Chris. The movie was titled "District 9".
Chris gave a great description and recommended it to any Sci Fi buffs. It was obvious that he is a fan.

Chris

A Soap Box segment was presented by Trevor. He made an impressive opening by rolling out a long scroll of paper to emphasize his point about safety issues of the Flu Vaccine.

Trevor and his "notes"

Grammarian Trish gave us 3 points in an educational overview of common pitfalls of our speaking manner. Avoid clichés, avoid the word "but" and use an "active" voice rather than a "passive" one.
Good advice for all.

Trish making her point

Marlene was Listening Quizmaster and tested our recall of the Meeting.

Marlene and Liz

General Evaluator Liz covered the Meeting in record time, highlighting the many well done segments and presenters. Congratulations to all who provided a Poetic Rhyme and wove the theme around their presentations.

Best Speech Award - Darryl
Best Table Topic - Marlene
Best Evaluator - Eileen
Most Improved - a tie for Carmy and Eileen

Carmy, Eileen, Marlene and Darryl

Reminder: Next Tuesday is a 5th Tuesday in the month, so there will be a Meeting on 30th October.

Meeting 1024 - The Life of John Lennon

Tonight Stephen was in his role as Toastmaster. His knowledge of the theme was impressive, and he kept the Meeting moving along with stories of the Beatles.

Stephen

President Christiane welcomed back guest Vaughan.

The Toast was to "Music Writers" and was delivered by Stephen.

Monica gave us the Word of  "Imagine" for use throughout the Meeting. It was easy to incorporate into most segments, but of course the award for most usage, as usual, went to Trish.

Monica

Round Robin was also John Lennon themed, Gail asking each Member to speak about their Beatles experience.

Gail

Prepared Speeches were by:

Paul "A Buzz of Excitement", evaluated by Casey.

Paul and Casey

 Jonathon "What's Your Frame", evaluated by Eileen.

Jonathon and Eileen

 Kirsty "Awareness and Choice", evaluated by Darryl.

Kirsty and Darryl

 The Raffle (another mystery prize - just use your imagination) introduced by Christiane, was won by Trish.

Christiane

A highly efficient and educational Business Meeting was conducted by Trish within the time frame allocated. Well done.

Trish

Annette presented the Select Distinguished Club Ribbon for 2017/18 to Christiane. Well done all Members to achieve this award.

Christiane and Annette

Table Topics - Annette also themed the topics, and participants Monica, Christiane, Liz, Gail, Trevor, Stephen and Leanne suitably answered. Only Leanne could excel at delivering the John Lennon Song "Imagine". They were evaluated by Marlene and Carmy.

Leanne

Marlene and Carmy

 Grammarian Gail offered suggestions about using ums, and overall was pleased with the word usage.

General Evaluator Christiane also provided excellent feedback for improvement of our Meetings.

Christiane

Awards:
Best Speech: Kirsty
Best Evaluator: Darryl
Best Table Topic: Leanne
Most Improved: Eileen

Kirsty, Leanne, Eileen and Darryl

Meeting 1023 - Evaluation and International Speech Contests

Contest night is always exciting and a chance to showcase our Member's talents.

Carmy called the Meeting to order and a warm welcome by President Christiane was extended to the visiting Toastmasters attending our Contest night.

Carmy and Christiane

Gail proposed a Toast to "The Contestants" and wished them well for the Contests.

Gail

Leanne as Evaluation Contest Toastmaster introduced Stephen to present the Joke, before commencing the Evaluation Contest.

Stephen

Leanne

Mahia from Bunya Club presented the Test Speech, entitled "Pop and Poppy".

Leanne and Mahia

Contestants were Christiane, Eileen, Stephen and Jonathon.

Congratulations to first place Christiane, second place Eileen and third place Stephen. Both Christiane and Eileen will represent Sandgate Club at the Area Contest.

Casey convinced us to buy raffle tickets with a chance to win "brain power" in the form of chocolate and other mind improving goodies. It was won by Chris.

Casey

The International Speech Contest Toastmaster was Jonathon.

Jonathon

Contestants were Blake, Christiane, Chris and Darryl.

What a wonderful range of speech topics and all were delivered with flair, passion and humour.
Place Getters were: first Christiane, second Darryl and third Chris. Both Christiane and Darryl will compete for Sandgate Club at the Area Contest. Well done Christiane as winner of both Contests.

A great effort by all Members who assisted throughout the evening taking on roles as Tally Counters, Timers and Sargent at Arms. A big thank you also to our guest judges Alan, Jenny, Rodney, Daniel.

Our Sister Club turns 40

Some of our members attended the 40th Anniversary Celebrations of our sister club, Peninsula Toastmasters and had a wonderful evening.The meal was delicious and there were a a couple of amazing speakers. Everyone was so busy talking to one another, I only managed to get a couple of photos.

There are some lovely photos on their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Redcliffe-Toastmasters-1478558302202507/

Charter Member Annette K and Doris S

Leesa & Annette

One of Peninsula Club's Suzanne H is a bush poet, and she shared a poem that sums up the way we feel about Toastmasters.

What Toastmasters Means to Me

Each fortnight, when we come to meet

you'll find a friend who'll always greet

you with respect. They're so sincere

with feedback on the words they hear.

You learn to listen, learn to lead.

At Toastmasters it plants the seed

to be the best that you can be -

at least that what it seems to me.

A place where I can make the choice

to share my words, or hear your voice.

I come to take, but learned to give

and found a better way to live.

Meeting 1022 - Gardening

President Christiane welcomed guest Skye then presented Liz with her Life Member Award for being a Toastmaster Member for over 30 years.

Award presented by Christiane to Liz

Toastmaster Casey was handed the gavel and confidently conducted the evening's program, along with giving various snippets about gardening.

Toastmaster for the night Casey

Steve presented the Toast - sadly this is Steve's last Meeting before he moves to Scotland. We will miss his friendly face, expertise and humour. The Toast was to Sandgate and Sandgate Toastmasters.

Steve's Farewell Toast

Annette challenged us to use the word "Ubiquitous" - meaning everywhere/global/universal.

Annette

Round Robin was commenced by Carmy, with a story set in the garden. Each person had to continue the story, which took on a life of its own.
Best quote of the night from Marlene "Give a weed and inch and it will take a yard".

Carmy

Prepared speeches were presented by Chris (Two Wheeled Death Machine), Christiane (Letterbox Therapy) and Trish (Mindset Lessons).

Chris, Christiane and Trish

These speeches were evaluated by Darryl, Eileen and Monica

Darryl, Eileen and Monica

The Raffle was declared a mystery by provider Annette - and was revealed when the winner (Christiane) was drawn. It was a dinner voucher for the Full Moon Hotel.

Timer Leanne did a great job by keeping us ahead of time all night.

Leanne

The Business Meeting was Chaired by Gail, and was kept quick and precise.

Gail

Table Topics presenter Marlene called on "experts" to give their answers to vexing garden problems. Evaluators were Liz and Stephen.

Stephen and Liz

Grammarian Blake highlighted the best of word usage from Members.

Blake

  General Evaluator Leesa gave a valuable run down on the entire Meeting.

Leesa

Awards:

Best Speech Trish, Best Table Topics Paul and Darryl (tie), Best Evaluator Liz, Most Improved    Casey.