Meeting 1116 - "Storytelling"

Once upon a time, Sandgate Toastmasters had another meeting filled with stories, laughter and fun while learning to improve our presentation and leadership skills.

Throughout the evening, Marlene reminded us about childhood stories and how her mother read to her. She even demonstrated her "big wolf" voice.

Dan as the acting Sergeant at Arms called the meeting to order and read the mission statement. Paul opened the meeting and welcomed especially our guests Belinda and Rosie as well as our newest member Sam.

He then awarded Chris with a ribbon for completing Level 2 in Innovative Planning.

Gail gave us the program changes (and was ready to change also the order of the programme due to members being held back by a traffic accident).

Chris toasted to "Happily ever after", before Gail introduced the word of the evening: Character. She also gave us several meanings and examples how to use it. Since Marlene was Toastmaster, she used it most. John came in as second place, followed by Trish.

The Round Robin segment was led by John who asked us "What should your life story include if you wrote it yourself?" (i.e. how would you like to be remembered)

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, just look how much entertainment each answer produced. 

 

The speeches followed:

Firstly, Arun presented his speech titled "Second Chance" which was a Level 4 project from the Dynamic Leadership path. The project was "Manage Change" and his conclusion reminded us to "not take anything for granted". It was evaluated by Narelle who commended Arun on how he created and build the story inside the overall speech.

Our second speaker was Trish with her Ice Breaker speech (project 1, Level 1) in the Motivational Strategies. It was titled "Sharing An Introvert Story". The speech was evaluated by Hazel.

The third speech of the evening was presented by Christiane titled "Life isn't supposed to be fair" (project: Connecting with Storytelling, Level 3 in the Engaging Humor path). It was group evaluated led by Leanne.

Peter was our timer for the evening who kept us to time and always gave a succinct timers report when called upon.

The raffle of the evening (debatable to be shared or kept for yourself) was presented by David.

Our supper break followed. Supper was provided by Chris and Tony. Going with the theme, it even included Fairy bread :) which was very appreciated by the attendees.

 

 

 

After supper, Tony led the Table Topics segment. He brought along a 3-part story book and called on the following members with the topic being

Jonathon - During the hottest summer on record,| the oldest man in the world | kills a stranger in an armed struggle

Narelle - After a monthlong fast,| a 15-year old girl | uncovers a hidden family secret

Leanne - Suddenly able to hear others thoughts,| a fallen angel | develops the ability to fly

Christiane - "Give me two days" (preparing Christiane for the Area 8 conference on Saturday)

The Table Topics were evaluated by Paul and Jonathon who reminded us that the more we are familiar with the answer structures of Table Topics, the better we can make the conclusion. He also commended to start the Table Topics answer with a question since the pause buys us time to think of the possible answer structure.

Marlene gave us some pointers about the upcoming Interpretative Reading session (November 29), so we can all go home and comb our books for the most suitable chapter. Each presentation is to be between 3 to 5 minutes.

The comprehensive general evaluation was given by Dan who thanked Gokul for his commitment to set-up, before going through the segments which hadn't been evaluated beforehand.

The raffle was drawn by our guest Belinda and the prize went to Jonathon (and wasn't shared).

Before handing out the awards, Paul asked our guests for feedback - which involved very entertaining responses. 

 

The awards for the evening went to

Best Speech - Trish

Best Evaluation - Jonathon

Best Table Topic - Christiane

Most Improved - Arun

 

The next meeting will be on 22 November.

The Area 8 conference is on 12 November - we wish our contestants Narelle & Christiane all the best.

Meeting 1115 - "Summer Holidays"

What can be expected when a Toastmasters evening meeting is themed around "Summer Holidays"? 

Well, certainly unexpected was that Dan, our Toastmaster for the evening, introduced this theme while showing us his "winning" lottery ticket he brought along. He then followed by giving us ridiculously priced holiday ideas where one could spend their summer vacation. Luckily for Dan, he doesn't need to choose because of his "winning" ticket, i.e. a trip to America with the whole family as well as the long yearned fishing boat.

Our meeting was again opened by the Sergeant of Arms, Gokul, who concisely described to us the layout of our meeting venue as well as eloquently reciting the mission statement.

Gokul handed the gavel to president Paul who then reminded us of the upcoming Area Conference on November 12 in North Lakes (to support our contestants Narelle & Christiane).

It was then time for Dan to lead us through the evening program. After giving us the unrealistic holiday options (mentioned earlier), Dan also had some budget friendly ideas for Queensland vacations to take.

Gail gave her program changes efficiently. 

Paul followed with the captivating toast to "Summer Holidays". It almost felt that we were on holidays with him.

 

Word master was Peter B who gave us the exciting word of the evening which was "entertainment" (variants were accepted as well). Spoiler alert: Trish was able to say this word in nearly every sentence.

The Round Robin was led by Marlene with the encouragement of going home and writing a speech about the three sentences we would share. There will be many captivating stories in the following weeks because we were asked to share a highlight or incident on one of our holidays. Stories ranged from highlights about surfing, whale watching and beaches to incidents involving sunburn, chairlifts and inhospitable accommodations.

 

 

 

Afterwards it was time for the prepared speeches:

1) Arun introduced and evaluated Peter D's speech titled "Hot Air Ballooning - Is It Worth The Cost?” (Innovative Planning path; Level 1, project 3: Research and Presenting)

2) Paul introduced and evaluated Chris' speech titled "My Mentors Three" (Innovative Planning path; Level 2, project 3: Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring)

3) Christiane introduced and led the group evaluation of Narelle's speech.

From those evaluations, we learned that the personal account has an impact and can give you the connection with the audience. Using humour, wealth of knowledge and/or extensive research adds to an impressive speech.

Before the supper break, Chris enticed us to buy raffles for the chance to win 25 Slurpies as well as Jonathon keeping us all on time (or letting us know that we were running late since you don't give a Toastmaster the information that they are running ahead of schedule - we know how to fill this spare time with more stimulating speech feedback).

 

The supper break allowed us to not only buy raffle tickets, but also to enjoy the goodies provided by Paul and Gail, mingle with each other, find out about the truth in the speeches and be cheerful together.

 

 

 

Gokul called us back for the second half in which we started with a proficient, yet enchanting business meeting chaired by Gail. We passed 4 motions satisfactorily.

 

Then we came to the thrilling part of the evening: The Table Topics segment led by Trish challenging us to improve our impromptu speaking skills.

Trish had prepared charming topics and called on

1) Marlene - What was the worst summer holiday you have had? (fainting experience)

2) Peter B - What do you enjoy the most about summers? (getting cool)

3) Gail - What tastes do you associate with summer? (soft drink)

4) Jonathon - Give us a good case why daylight saving should be introduced into Queensland. (cricket training can be extended by 1 hour)

5) Paul - Pick 3 words to describe what summer means to you. (heat, cricket, solar panels for air conditioning)

6) Arun - What is your favourite summer clothing? (shorts and T-shirts)

The Table Topics were convivially evaluated by Hazel and Christiane.

Gokul gave us a compelling general evaluation with two priceless recommendations: don't bring a pen to the lectern and group evaluations will need 10 minutes on the program (and responses need to be strictly enforced).

Dan was able to draw the raffle and Gokul can enjoy those refreshing Slurpies.

 

In closing, Paul reminded us all of the Area Conference on November 12 before awarding the following:

Best Speech: Peter D

Best Evaluation: Christiane

Best Table Topic: Jonathon

Most Improved: Arun/ Peter D

Our next meeting is on 8 November.

Meeting 1114 - Evaluation & International Speech Contest

 Medals were polished...

 

the judges, the timers (Dan and Gail), tally counters (Liz We, Narelle and Marlene), sergeant at arms (Marlene and Trevor) as well as the contestants briefed...

so we are ready for the contest!

Gokul opened our meeting again reminding us of our mission statement.

Acting president Gail welcomed our guests Rose, Peter and Heidi to our special night, then called on Jonathon to give us the toast.

Fitting to the theme, he toasted to "Continuous Improvement" because the contests certainly bring out nerves we didn't know we had.

Jonathon then continued as Contest Chair to run the Evaluation Contest. Firstly the five contestants listen to our guest speaker Sue and her speech titled "Giving back". Her heartfelt speech had many examples of how we can give back to the community.

After 5 minutes of further evaluation preparation (i.e. writing up notes taken during Sue's speech), it was time for Christiane, Gokul, Hazel, David and Leanne to give constructive feedback to Sue's speech.

Sue commented in the supper break again how valuable the experience is as test speaker for the evaluator contest because of the various perspectives given by the contestants.

The evaluator contest winners were:

1) Leanne

2) Christiane

3) Hazel

Then it was time for Dan to entice us with his raffle - and wow, we had a record sale. The lucky winner was Heidi.

 

 

 

Supper was provided by Leanne and Dan and it was a spread! It gave everybody the chance to gather around and network.

Leanne took the reigns in the second half as our contest chair for the International Speech contest.

David, Arun and Christiane participated in it and ranked as follows:

1) Christiane

2) Arun

3) David

Before drawing the meeting to an end, Gail awarded achievement ribbons to new Pathways level completions: Narelle finished Level 1 in Presentation Mastery, Arun finished Level 3 in Dynamic Leadership and Trish finished Level 3 in Visionary Communication.

Sandgate Toastmasters would like to thank the judges Graeme, Di, Anne, Suresh, Mark and Kirsty for giving us their time to judge our contests. Thank you Trish for organising both contest nights.

We are looking forward to the next meeting on 25 October.

Meeting 1113 - "Springtime"

With the weather getting warmer, it was no surprise to think of all the blooming around town. Our Toastmaster Gail gave us interesting snippets of where the word "spring" originated from and what traditions have survived until today, but mostly she was reminiscent that Brisbane doesn't get the noticeable seasons that the UK or Canada get.

Nevertheless, she was leading us through a great program which she in the role as VPE (Vice President Education) had tabled.

But not let jump ahead of ourselves: Gokul opened the meeting and gave us the mission statement.

President Paul had a busy opening: welcoming returning guest Sam, handing out name badges to Arun and David as well as certificates to Gain (this is not a spelling error, I'm just reciting the certificate) and Christiane since both missed the Changeover dinner in July.

 

Then, it was Gail's turn to get us into the theme as well as give us the program changes.

Afterwards, Peter B gave a very succinct toast to "King Charles III".

 

This was followed by the Round Robin and our self-announced warm-up master "dropped in" which lead to several responses being "Turned out better than expected".

 

The two speeches of the evening were introduced:

First, Gokul gave a researched approach to why breathing is tiring in his speech titled "Exploring inner peace". It was evaluated by Jonathon.

 

 

 

Our second speaker was Arun who spoke of his journey of leadership in his speech titled "You don't belong here". It was an elective project from Level 3 from the Dynamic Leadership path. The speech was evaluated by Christiane.

 

 

Jonathon's surprise raffle included something red, with icons of the Australian history on it and the hint that it can be exchanged for something you actually really wanted. It was won by Christiane who was able to take it home in a brown paper bag.

 

 

Then it was time for a scrumptious supper provided by Trevor and Christiane. Let the photos speak for themselves... 

Christiane also gave her educational on being the Table Topics Master. Trevor was able to keep to most of the pointers she passed along.

Trevor called on:

Marlene's answer of the milk down the sink was "something you didn't tell your mother"

Jonathon learnt that a horse at night is "something that you are afraid of"

Paul convinced us that he can't "can you climb trees?"

Gokul surprised us that people are "What is sweet in your life?"

Sam's conclusion of 80 to 100 years came after contemplating all options to "How old you want to live to and why?"

Peter B reminisced about his grandmother when citing "Long live the king"

 

Timer Paul was kept busy, especially with the Table Topics timing.

The Table Topics were evaluated by Narelle and David. Very helpful advice was to start with an open posture as well as with a personal story to draw the audience in.

 

 

 

We also had a business session which was chaired by Gail. With no quorum present though, we deferred any motions to the business meeting in October.

Marlene gave us a general evaluation on a successful meeting, before Paul announced the awards for the night:

 

 

 

 

Most Improved Peter B

Best Speech Arun

Best Evaluation Jonathon

Best Table Topic Jonathon

 

 

 

 

Our next meeting will be on 11 October and will be a Contest night: Evaluation and International Speech are on the agenda.

Meeting 1112 - TT & Humorous Speech Contest

 

Contest Chair Hazel & Table Topics Contestants

TT Contest Chair

Although we didn't have the record number of last year's contestants, 6 contestants entered the Table Topic contest: Chris, Paul, Narelle, John, Christiane and Arun.

Contest Chair Hazel led us through the contest. 

How would you have answered the topic: "Which is worse: Failing or never starting?"

And the winners were:

1) Christiane

2) John

3) Arun

Table Topics Winners

Jonathon

In the second half, we had our Humorous Speech contest. It was led by Jonathon. 

John, Narelle and Christiane participated in it and ranked as follows:

1) Narelle

2) John

3) Christiane

Humorous Speech winners

Narelle presenting the raffle

Raffle prize

Before president Paul closed a successful meeting, Narelle drew the raffle. Lucky winner to enjoy everything British was in a roundabout way the birthday boy.

Thanks to the judges Anne, Di, Mark H, Mark B and Suzanne who gave up their time to judge Sandgate contests.

We also welcomed guests Jeremy, George and Sam as well as visitors (from other clubs) Jim, Dianne and Peter.

Thanks to Peter B and Arun for providing the supper.

Supper time