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.

Meeting 1087 - The Olympics

Tony

 The new Executive took charge of their roles and Josh called the Meeting to order. President Trish welcomed guests Kylie, Natalie and Bernadette. Then new Member Peter's induction was conducted and Executive position badges were presented.

Josh

Trish

Toastmaster Tony took control and had many and varied (and humourous) snippets about the ancient and modern Olympics. This kept keen interest between segments and enlightened our knowledge of the Games.

Arun present the Toast - to "All Olympians", and paid tribute also to those who work behind the scenes.

Arun

The Word of the night was of course "Olympian", and interesting information about the word was prepared by Narelle (who was absent) and presented by Christiane.

Christiane

Table Topic segment was handled very ably by Monica. Christiane, Josh, J.P, Arun, Gail and Trish all answered the topics which gave the speakers the opportunity to speak for or against.

Monica

Gail

These were evaluated by Dan and Leanne.

Dan

Leanne

Speech 1 by Ted was his Ice Breaker, and was titled "Colour my World". Gokul was the evaluator.

Ted

Gokul

The Raffle was sold to us by Christiane, and the winner was Marlene.

Timer Darryl was kept on his toes keeping us on time, and did an admirable job.

Dana presented Speech 2 entitled "It's not My Fault". This was evaluated by Marlene.

Dana

Marlene

Speech 3 by Christiane entitled "Too many Taxing Tasks at Tomi" was evaluated by Liz.

Liz

JP for the first time presented the Grammarian segment, and found many gems of speech used during the Meeting.

JP

The General Evaluation was very ably presented by Hazel. It was very thorough and well balanced with praise and areas which in her opinion could improve. This was her first time in the role of General Evaluator.

Hazel

Awards: Best Speech - jointly by Dana and Ted, Best Evaluator - jointly by Dan and Liz, Best Table Topic - Christiane, Most Improved - Arun. Gold medal winners all!

Christiane, Arun, Dan, Liz, Dana and Ted

Meeting 1086 - Change-Over Dinner - Paint the Town Red

 After a warm welcome by Sergeant at Arms Dan and President Leanne, control of the evening was handed to Toastmaster Tony.

Tony

Programme

Colourful decor

The venue looked amazing with table decorations creatively themed with red flowers and paint brushes.

JP gave the invocation in the form of an Irish blessing, which had a special touch being spoken by an Irishman.

Christiane proceeding with the Round Robin and asked each person present to give the origin of their name or nickname, which involved much laughter and fun.

Christiane

An extraordinary Business Meeting was quickly held to allow the nomination of Trish to the position of President for 2021/2022 year, and also the nomination of Hazel to the position of Secretary. Both agreed to take on these roles.

A delicious dinner followed catering to all dietary requirements.

A toast to Toastmasters International by Josh was informative in the history of Toastmasters from its inception.

Toast by Josh

Table Topics were presented by Liz and Chris, and allowed Marlene, Dan, Paul, Annette, Carmy and Ted to answer with much imagination.

Liz

A highlight of the night was the speech by Darryl Willmot entitled "A Better Speaker". He wove his story around the need to be a Better Evaluator, and used the Area Evaluation Trophy to emphasize the depth of experience that Sandgate Toastmasters Club holds, and has done for many years.

Darryl

Following dessert, the induction of 2020/2021 Officers was conducted by incoming Area Director Mark.

Mark

Incoming Executive Committee

Leanne's last duty was to present the Club Trophies - Most Improved to Hazel and Toastmaster of the Year to John T (who was unfortunately absent owing to injuries). Congratulations to both Members.

 This was followed by Leanne's Outgoing President Speech in which she thanked her team and all Members for their support during the past tough year.

Hazel

Leanne

Incoming President Trish then gave her Speech and plan to have lots of fun in the coming year.

Trish

Marlene conducted the raffle which traditionally is in the form of donated books - Winners were Darryl, Kirsty and Paul. All other books were then distributed to all attendees and I am sure everyone went home a winner.

Marlene

Apologies for the quality of photos, and those omitted from this Blog, but the lighting at the venue made sharp photos very difficult.

Meeting 1085 - Winter

 President Leanne presented Ribbons to several Members for their progress in Pathways, as well as Badges to Tony and Ed.

Toastmaster Gail introduced the topic of Winter with humourous stories of a Winter she spent in Ireland.

Gail

Ted dedicated the Toast to Winter, which was also woven around a winter tale.

Ted

The Word from JP was "Journey", stating that everybody is on a journey of their own and we should try to use the word throughout the Meeting.

JP

Arun introduced the Round Robin on the topic of "One thing you most enjoy about Winter". Members related stories of their memories and also many told of what they don't like about Winter.

Arun

Speeches:

Gokul's speech entitled "Dear Evaluator" was evaluated by Leanne.

Gokul

Leanne

Christiane spoke on "My First Week on the Job" which was evaluated by Liz.

Christiane

Liz

Trish's speech was from Level 2 Project "Discover your Leadership Style" evaluated by Marlene.

Trish

Marlene

The Raffle was provided by Liz and was perfect for a winter's night at home. Leanne was the winner.

Ed gave his Timer's reports through the evening and kept the Meeting running on time.

Ed

Leanne provided her "last supper" (as President).

Table Topics presenter Tony also chose Winter themed topics for Joshua, JP, Ted, Narelle, Arun and Dana.

Tony

Narelle

These were evaluated by Trish and Hazel.

Hazel

Dana as Grammarian put her own twist on the role and educated us on the use of Passive Voice and Active Voice, suggesting Active Voice is the best option.

Dana

The Show and Tell segment was delivered by Joshua and was the revelation that he owned and operated a drone - which he had brought along. 

Joshua

Darryl gave the General Evaluation as an overall wrap up of the entire Meeting, highlighting all roles and suggestions for improvement.

Darryl

Awards:

Best Speech: Gokul, Best Evaluator: Hazel, Best Table Topic: Ted, and Most Improved was jointly shared by Gokul and JP.

Ted, Gokul, JP and Hazel