Meeting 1090 - Trees

 Sergeant at Arms Josh once again was methodical with reminders of dual sign ins, facilities at the venue and the Mission Statement. It is a warm and friendly introduction to start our Meetings.

Oh, and also "the joke", which he cleverly related to the theme. Josh also did an excellent job as Timekeeper and as always his Sergeant At Arms role.

Josh in Sergeant At Arms role

Immediate Past President Leanne welcomed Members and guest Amber, then provided the Toast - to "The Mulberry Bush", or maybe that was "Mulberry Tree" and she was just beating about the Bush.

Leanne

Control was handed to Toastmaster Liz who quizzed Members about which trees produced the most oxygen, and throughout the Meeting provided facts as well as a few jokes about Trees.

Liz

J.P. provided the Quote - a very deep and meaningful story about "The Outsiders". He teased us with not revealing the author until the end - who was none other than Donald Trump.

JP.

Marlene was once again innovative with the Word which she related to Tree - "Symmetry". This was most used by Narelle by the end of the Meeting.

Marlene

Natalie was the Round Robin presenter and she asked the question - What is your Favourite Season and Why". There were a variety of answers encompassing all seasons, including the "footy season".

Natalie

Arun's speech was entitled "Mentoring" and was Evaluated by Tony.

Arun

Tony

Gokul spoke about "Kids Birthday Parties" and the Evaluator was Darryl.

Gokul

Darryl

Evaluator Gail then introduced John T. who spoke about "The Tale of the Girraween Tumbler" - or his misadventure at Girraween.

John T.

Gail

The Raffle was produced by Marlene, with Gokul being the lucky winner.

Following the break, a Business Meeting was conducted by Chairman Christiane.

Christiane

Table Topics were presented by Ed and Narelle, and they both chose a tree theme. Participants were Chris H, Tony, Dan, Ted, Darryl and Hazel.

Ed

Hazel

Chris H.

The Table Topics Evaluations were conducted by Chris H (who did a very accurate and honest report on his own topic, and Ted.

Ted

General Evaluator Dan gave an overview of the Meeting, with many valid and valued points to watch for in the future. He had commendations for many participants and was supportive throughout his report.

Dan

Awards:

Best Speech: John T, Best Evaluator: Darryl, Best Table Topic: Darryl, and Most Improved: Arun.

Arun, Darryl and John T.

Meeting 1089 - TV Shows

 Trish welcomed back John T. and extended a welcome to guest Rebecca. We were also reminded of the upcoming Club Speech Contests - Humourous and Table Topics on 14 September, and International and Evaluation on 12 October. Other dates to note are Distsrict 69 Golden Dinner on the 5th Tuesday in November, to celebrate 50 years of District 69. Trish advised the Christmas Meeting for our Club will be the first Tuesday in December, further details to be forthcoming.

The Induction of new Member Natalie was then conducted, observing social distancing of course.

Trish and Natalie

Control was handed to Toastmaster Darryl, who confessed to being a TV Addict all his life, so he had a huge repertoire of TV shows to share with us.

Darryl

The Toast was presented brightly and efficiently by Peter B. and was to an Australian TV Legend - 

Paul Hogan 

Peter B.

Throughout the program, Timekeepers Chris H. and Narelle shared the role and provided updates on our progress.

Natalie provided a Quote or Thought segment - and reminded us to take the time to stop and enjoy the small magical moments in life.

Natalie

Wordmasters Arun challenged us with the word "Vicarious" and gave the meaning (enjoy things we see in others, e.g. actors on TV) and examples of usage. Darryl attempted to be the person who most used the word by repeatedly checking Dictionary.com.

Arun

Carmy conducted the Round Robin with the topic - What was your favourite TV show when you were a child. This was easily answered by all present as we re-lived our early introduction to TV.

Carmy

Speech 1: Ed presented his Ice Breaker, entitled "The Procrastinator". It was evaluated by Leanne.

Ed

Leanne

Speech 2: Josh presented "Vertical Terrain" and this was evaluated by Peter D.

Josh

Peter D.

Tony got with the theme and provided a Raffle that would see us binge watching TV with suitable supplies. It was won by Peter.

Tony

Speech 3: Trish's speech was entitled "Mars v Venus" and was evaluated by Darryl.

Liz presented an educational on Impromptu Speaking - or Table Topics as we know it in this Club, and gave useful methods to employ when asked to speak on a Topic.

JP then presented the Table Topics segment. He asked very interesting questions about TV shows and called on John T, Natalie, Arun, Tony, Peter B and Leanne to answer.

JP

John T.

Evaluators for Table Topics were Gail and Dan, who provided relevant feedback to all participants.

Gail

Dan

General Evaluator Christiane provided an excellent wrap up of the entire Meeting, and offered her very insightful observations of all participants. 

Christiane

Awards:

Best Speech: Ed, Best Evaluator: Dan, Best Table Topic: John T, Most Improved: JP.

Dan, Ed, John T and JP

Meeting 1088 - Love for Languages

 Sergeant at Arms Josh promptly opened the Meeting at 7pm and President Trish welcomed guests Raf and Natalie.

Trish

Toastmaster for the evening was Gokul, with his well chosen theme. Gokul told us of his multi-lingual skills and provided a range of informative snippets about languages, such as a polyglot is a person who masters many languages and the English language has 750,000 words.

Gokul

The Toast was presented by Paul - and was to "The Love of Languages", after his confession that other than English, languages escape him.

Paul

Dana

Dana introduced the Word "Genki" and explained its origin. Genki is Japanese and there is apparently no equivalent word in the English language. It means original spirit or life force. We learned the phrase Ogenki desu ka and tried to use this during the Meeting.

Peter

Round Robin by Peter B. asked the question "What was your favourite language to learn in high school?" Answers were varied with many not enjoying their foray into anything other than English.

Speech 1 presented by J.P. was entitled "Unfinished Business" and was evaluated by Marlene.

J.P.

Marlene

Speech 2 by Arun was entitled "Why Am I here" and was evaluated by Dan.

Arun

Dan

Timers on the program were Monica and Ted who ably shared the role.

The Raffle was promoted by Trish with the winner an excited Hazel.

A short Business Session was conducted by Trish when she announced the District 69 recently ratified changes: In precis -  

1. Toastmasters speech contests should be face-to-face rather than by Zoom. 

2. The 4 Contests will be International Speech, Humourous Speech, Evaluation and Table Topics. Tall Tall Tales will not be included.

Speech 3 by Narelle was titled "A little bit about me and why I joined Toastmasters". This was evaluated by Darryl.

Narelle

Darryl

Congratulations to all 3 Members for the above speeches

which were presented as their Ice Breakers.

Speech 4 was presented by Carmy and entitled "The Path to Becoming Me". The Evaluator was Christiane.

Carmy

Christiane

Peter D. conducted the Table Topics session, with questions on language and other topics. The participants were Natalie, Christiane, Paul, Hazel and Marlene.

Peter

Hazel

Natalie

General Evaluator Leanne gave us valuable suggestions for advancement with many good points and others to work on.

Leanne

Awards:

Best Speech - J.P., Best Evaluator - Liz, Best Table Topic - Marlene, Most Improved - Arun.

J.P., Marlene, Liz and Arun

Congratulations to all and especially Gokul for his interesting information about language, and also the newer Members who presented their Ice Breakers. Apologies to Josh, Monica and Ted for omission of photos.