Meeting 847 on 14 December - Christmas Break Up

What a fun night!

Liz Wo, Toastmaster and self-pronounced Christmas Fairy, ensured her wand led us into a merry time.
Damian Azz received his membership badge, lovely to have you join us Damian.


Deb Smith, our wonderful Area Governor, inspired us with a speech dedicated to "not being afraid to try something new" - Deb encouraged us to "try things" within our Toastmasters family, and externally. We are very pleased she has been visiting our club so regularly this year, as events later in the evening may have put a stop to that ...

Deb also had the honour of awarding life membership to Sandgate Toastmaster Annette T - a member of Sandgate Toastmasters for 33 years, and a definite asset, having held every executive position at least once and having mentored many new members. Congratulations and thank you, Annette!


Marlene and Leesa's Secret Santa allowed some a once-a-year opportunity to "steal" from others, while Trish's game of "Celebrity Antlers" provided others a chance to have people laugh at them ... okay, so everybody was jolly clever except for one ... one who was just SO pleased to have another chance to humiliate herself after having done so just one year ago. Ahh, c'est la vie, no hard feelings, I promise!


Thank you to all - we should be just so proud of being part of this supportive, instructive and fun group of Toastmasters! See you in 2011!

Peninsula Break Up

Sharon, Leesa and I had a most enjoyable time at Peninsula Toastmasters Christmas Break Up at Crockatt Park. Peninsula Toastmasters is our "sister" club and  it always good to meet with our friends there.  After a sausage sizzle in the large shelter shed, we adjourned to their nearby meeting place for games and supper. Sharyn won a chocolate for building one of the tallest structures out of drinking straws. Articulate was another popular game. The cheese cake and pavlova were delicious!

Lance Miller Seminar

It's a pity more of our club couldn't have attended the Lance Miller Seminar, because those of us who did found it a very interesting and inspiring day.
(New) Liz picked up David and me and  it took less than half an hour to get to the Tingalpa State School. 

Liz & David with Lance

2005 World Champion Speaker Lance showed us how easy it is to develop a speech by looking for the "Extraordinary in the ordinary."  He got a member of the audience to select an ordinary object from a bag of items. It turned out to be an everyday ballpoint pen. He then asked the audience to make observations about the pen, and using these he turned it into a powerful speech. 

His session on building a Champion Club was inspiring. He talked about goals and the necessity of speaking frequently so that we don't lose our skills. 

I wrote down some of his wonderful phrases: (They mightn't be exact)

"It's not about speaking in Toastmasters, it's about speaking outside Toastmasters."

"It's not about being champion speaker, its about being champion in your life."

"The audience are the most important thing for that moment."

"The secret recipe - do the ordinary extraordinary well."

"It's not a meeting, it's an event."

The Evaluation Session was also helpful. "It is more important to find what is right!" he said.

He stressed evaluating according to the objectives in the speech manual.

We then had an opportunity to evaluate two interesting speakers.

It was also good to meet Toastmasters from other clubs. Some had come a long way. One couple had got up at 4 am to come from Townsville. 

We came home with renewed enthusiasm.

It's a Boy!

Liz was thrilled when her new grandson arrived last Thursday. His name is Hayden Gregory and he is very cute.
Won't he just love it when he is old enough to listen to the wonderful stories that Liz is so good at telling!
Congratulations to all the family!

Meeting 846 - "Inventions"

Our meeting last Tuesday was not without it's high points. See Kylie's photos in the previous entry.
Word master Sharyn introduced the word, "Litoties." See how many you can find in my report of the meeting.


li·to·tes 

A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite, as in "This is no small problem."   "Not unkind, "  or "You're not wrong!"

Although there were not a few programme changes, members were not unwilling to  perform roles without previous notice.
 Meriel was not reluctant to step up and take on the role of Toastmaster. She didn't let the meeting drag but kept us entertained while votes were being collected with facts about inventions. 


President Marlene congratulated Sharyn on obtaining her Competent Communicator award, and Dave on his Advanced Communicator Bronze, also Trish on winning a Speech contest. All not small achievements.


New member Damian was warmly welcomed into our club. Damian is not new to Toastmasters, having been in another club before.
We also had 3 guests, Mary, Linda and Rod.


Liz's Round Robin showed that some of us are not without imagination when she asked, "What have you invented."


Annette continued the theme of "Inventions" with her Table Topics, "What is the greatest thing since sliced bread?" "What invention could you do without?" "Life without computers," "Cars of the future," "3D Television," and ""The most useless invention."
David, John, Rhys, Trish, Jonathon,  and Sharyn found it no problem to invent an answer.


Chris, evaluating Table Topics for the first time (I think) proved that he is not without evaluating skills.


Raider gave a very informative speech "What makes a Leader" which was not hard to follow thanks to his excellent flip charts.


Rachael presented her Icebreaker speech, "A Little Bit of Me" and kept our minds from wandering with her flowing gestures and animated expression.


Damian set the scene with dimmed lighting and painted word pictures in his Folk Tale, "What makes the Waves."


The speeches were evaluated by Del, Trish and Marlene.


Nicole presented an interesting book review on Stephen King's book, "The Dome."


The "Invention" theme was not forgotten by Raffle Master John, who pointed out that the compartments in the carry bag holding the 2 bottles of wine was not a useless idea. It was won by June.


Timer Dave said it was not too late to include a few extra Table Topics for Sharyn's "victims," Kylie, June and Rod. They were not easy topics.


Grammarian Del reported that there were not too many "ums" & other errors, and Rose concluded with her General Evaluation. 


Award winners for the evening were:
 Personal Best - Rachael 
 Best Speech - Damian 
Best Table Topic - Trish
Best Evaluator - Trish
Best Contributer - Meriel
(See photos below.)

Meeting 846 on 23 November - Inventions - PHOTOS

Meeting 845 on 9 November - Racing

The group general evaluation, faciliatated by Damian, showed that members are enjoying and benefiting from the meeting due to the standard of speakers; the friendliness and welcoming nature of all; and the willingness of members to step into roles vacant for the evening due to others not being able to attend. Suggestions for improvement included not racing through the business session, as we regularly do due to time constraints, to ensure the secretary has the opportunity to make notes.

Toastmaster Sharyn tracked down (pun intended) racing quotes and demonstated fine listening skills by slipping them into the program at most appropriate times. Jonathon as Sargeant at Arms for the night handled the job with ease, only showing at trophy time that perhaps Santa needs to bring him glasses.

Jonathon, Annette, Del and Leesa confidently replied to Monica's interesting table topics; after a very colourful Round Robin.

Nicole presented her second speech on The Golden Number - very interesting content delivered with confidence. Kylie's speech drew upon personal experiences that resulted in a fear of public speaking. Dave, with The First Industrial Revolution, once again impressed us with his memory for dates and details, completing his 5th speech from the advanced manual Speaking to Inform.

Rachael highly recommended the movie Red with a throrough and entertaining movie review.

Marlene won the raffle, with Leesa stepping into the role on the night - with a few away each meeting it is great to see others willingly taking on the challenge.

Welcome to two guests, Kerry and Lynda - we hope you enjoyed the meeting and come again. Welcome also to Damian who will be inducted at the next meeting - we are pleased to have another experienced Toastmaster join our ranks.

Trophies presented to:

Table Topics - Annette
Speech - Kylie
Evaluation - Annette
Personal Best - Nicole
Conribution - Sharyn



A reminder that there are only two more meetings for 2010 - Tuesday 23 November and Tuesday 14 December (Christmas dinner).

Kylie as VPPR welcomes all contributions for the newsletter by end November for distribution at the final meeting - by email please, as she is not able to attend meeting of 23 November.

Catching up with old friends

We form some lasting friendships in Toastmasters, and it is always good to catch up with old friends who no longer belong to our club. This week,  Annette, Leesa and I met with past Toastmasters Lenore, Narda, Edith, and Bing to celebrate Lenore's birthday. It was also a farewell for Edith, who is going to Hong Kong.

At the Area Conference, we were thrilled to see Penne, who was a member of  our club until she moved away and is now a member of Caboolture Toastmasters. I took a couple of photos of Penne with Liz. Penne looked good in one photo and Liz looked  good in the other. Thanks to modern technology, I was able to take someone's head from one of the photos and superimpose it in the other.. Can you tell which one?

Catching up with old friends

We form some lasting friendships in Toastmasters, and it is always good to catch up with old friends who no longer belong to our club. This week,  Annette, Leesa & I met with past Toastmasters  Lenore, Narda, Edith, & Bing to celebrate Lenore's birthday. It was also a farewell for Edith, who is going to Hong Kong.

At the Area Conference, we were thrilled to see Penne, who was a member of  our club until she moved away and is now a member of Caboolture Toastmasters. I took a couple of photos of Penne with Liz. Penne looked good in one photo & Liz looked  good in the other. Thanks to modern technology, I was able to swap heads of one of the photos. Can you tell ?

Meeting 843 on 26 October - Technology

Toastmaster Rose impressed us with examples of modern technology; and Nicole had us pondering in the round robin just which piece of technology we would wish not to be without. David Y did an excellent icrebreaker speech - note free; and new members Rachael and Andrew received their badges - plus tasks throughout the meeting. Once again members absorbed the roles of those unable to attend with ease - well done all!



Trophies to:
Table Topics - Rachael
Speech - Sharyn
Evaluation - Kylie
Personal Best - David Y
Contribution - Rose