Meeting 1129 "The Joy of Youth"

 Sometimes when there are five Tuesdays in a month, we have an extra meeting on the fifth week.

As well as being an extra meeting, our last meeting was a "Lucky Dip" meeting. Apart from the prepared speeches - no one knew beforehand what meeting role they would be performing. VPE Gail had prepared slips with the roles printed on them and members drew one each from a container.

Liz was obviously well prepared for any role and had no trouble acting as Toastmaster for the evening. 

Gail also rose to the occasion as Word Master with the word "Nostalgia."

Liz

Gail

Chris conducted the Round Robin Warm Up session by asking "What is your earliest memory?"

Chris

Chris was also one of the prepared speakers. His speech was a beautifully expressed eulogy titled "Ode to Joy."

Other speakers were Gokul and John. Gokul's speech "The Big Day" was an account of his wedding day in India and an engrossing explanation of how a Tamil wedding is celebrated.

John completed Level 5 in the Dynamic Leadership Path with his speech "Leading a Teaching Life." This was one of many paths that John has completed. A true Dynamic Leader!

Gokul

John

Evaluators were Paul, Peter and Arun. 

Paul

Peter

Arun

The raffle (a drinks flask, kneeling pad and book) presented by Helen was very popular and was won by Dan.

Helen

Timer Narelle reported that we were running ahead of time, so we had an extra five minutes to chat during the supper, which was provided by Narelle and Arun.

Supper Time

Table Topics Master John called on Helen, Peter, Gail, Paul, Liz and Marlene to answer his questions.

1. "What is the best thing about being young?" Helen

2. "Is it harder to be a youth  today than in your time as one?" Peter.

3. "What is the best age of life and why?" Gail.

4. "Who was someone who impressed you when you were young?" Paul.

5. "What message would you give to your younger self?" Liz.

6. "What do you understand by the expression 'young at heart' ?" Marlene

They were evaluated by Dan.

Dan

A General Evaluation of the meeting was conducted by Marlene.

Votes for the evening's winners were tallied with the result that the three prepared speakers had the same number of votes and tied for the "Best Speech" award.

Gokul, Chris and John

Other place getters were Dan (Best Evaluation,) Liz (Best Table Topic) and Helen who tied with Gokul. (Most Improved.)

Award winners 30th May 2023

The next meeting will be on Tuesday, 13th June.

Meeting 1128 "The King's Coronation"

Congratulations to Arun on completing Level 5 (The highest level) in his "Dynamic Leadership" path with his inspiring speech, "Challenge your Limit." 

Arun

Other speakers were Helen, who earned her standing ovation with her Icebreaker speech "The Way Forward" and Trevor with his speech "Are You Cut Out to be an Entrepreneur?" 

Helen

Trevor

Evaluators were Gokul, Trish and Paul.

Gokul

Trish

Paul

Q. "Who is strong enough to move the King's castle?" A. "A chess player."

Q. "When is a King like a piece of wood?" A. "When he's a ruler."

Toastmaster Narelle kept the jokes coming during the meeting, providing plenty of laughs.

She also conducted the Round Robin, asking "Where were you when King Charles was crowned?

Although most of had watched at least some of the ceremony, Trish was the only one who had watched all of it. Trish also managed to use John's word of the evening "Majesty" or "Majestic" more times than anyone else.

Paul conducted the raffle with the prize of a bottle of special Bundaberg Rum. (Supplied by Dan.)

Supper time was an opportunity to catch up  with one another. Sorry, I didn't get a photo of the lovely spread provided by Gail and Helen. It was good to see Tom back for a second visit.

Liz and Trish at supper time

The Table Topics prepared by Paul, had a royal theme. 

"Is all the pomp and pageantry necessary?" answered by Marlene.

"All those jewels - can they be real?" Trevor.

"What kind of a king do you think Charles will be?" Narelle.

"Would you have liked to grow up as a prince or princess?" Arun.

"If you could be any royal, who would it be?" Trish.

"What food would you choose for the coronation?" Helen

"What do think Princess Di would have thought of the coronation?" Liz.

"Was the coronation worth the millions spent on it?" Gokul.

Evaluators were Gail and John.

Gail

John

For Show and Tell, Marlene showed a miniature teapot commemorating the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary.

Grammarian Trish commented on the words during the meeting and Liz gave a General evaluation of the entire meeting.

Trish

Liz

The evenings awards went to Helen (Best Speech) Liz and Trish -  tie (Best Table Topic)

Trish (Best Evaluation) and Arun (Most Improved.) 

As there is a fifth Tuesday this month, we will have an extra meeting next Tuesday 30th May with the theme "The Joy of Youth." It will be a Lucky Dip meeting - roles (other than the speeches) will be drawn on the night. Don't miss it!

Meeting 1127 "Friendship"

"Friendship" was an appropriate theme for a Toastmasters meeting, because Toastmasters is a great place to find friends. 

Gail, as stand-in president, welcomed our guests, Area Director Suresh and first time visitors Fiona, Catherine and Tom.

Gail

Arun

Toastmaster of the day Arun, explained the benefits of clapping and was rewarded with an enthusiastic applause. Arun also shared some wonderful quotes about friendship throughout the meeting.

Marlene proposed a toast to "Friends."

Gokul presented the word of the evening "Amity" which means friendship - usually between nations.

Suresh conducted the Round Robin Warm Up asking "Who is your best friend and why?"

Gokul

Suresh

There were three prepared speeches, all from advanced speakers.  Liz's speech "Do you know Me?" was from the "Know you Communication Style project"

John speech was "Lessons learned through Toastmasters", and was from the "Leading in your Volunteer Organisation" project.

Tony's presented a speech from the Effective communication path. "Contestant Junkie."

Liz

John

Tony

These three are all advanced, confident speakers.

New members and visitors need to remember that most of us are not like that when we first join Toastmasters!

Evaluators were Jonathon, Hazel and Helen.

Jonathon

Hazel

Helen

Trevor provided the popular raffle prize which was won by lucky Arun. (I really wanted those pigs!)

Trevor

Supper was provided by Gokul and Marlene. 

Trevor conducted the Table Topics Session, calling on Gokul "Something you didn't tell your mother", Gail "Something you were recently afraid of", Trish "Can you climb trees?" Suresh "What is sweet in your life?" Marlene "How long do you want to live?" and Jonathon "Long Live the King."

Evaluators were Chris and Helen.

Dan was Time Keeper.

Dan

Chris

Trish

Trish chaired a business session and Election of Club Officers which resulted in the following positions to take effect from the 1st July.

President: Gail H

Vice President Education: Liz We

Vice President Membership: Arun T

Treasurer: Peter D

Secretary: Chris H

Sergeant at Arms: Helen P.

Grammarian Gail commented on the use of words during the evening and Narelle gave a General Evaluation of the entire meeting.

Gail presented John with a certificate from Toastmasters International for completing Level 5 in the Presentation Mastery path.

John and Gail - Level 5 Certificate.

The evenings Awards went to Tony (Best Speech) Marlene (Best Table Topic) Helen (Most Improved) and Jonathon (Best Evaluation.)

Award winners 9th May 2023

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 23rd May. There will also be an extra meeting on the 30th May - a Lucky Dip meeting.

Meeting 1126 - "Trophies, Ribbons and Awards"

 

If a theme is introduced by music, entertainment will be in overabundance.

Leanne made sure we felt awarded the entire meeting with snippets of her achievements interlaced with human success.

Gokul called the meeting to order by welcoming our special visitor (his previous mentor) and disappointingly without a dad joke.

Paul opened the meeting with an excess of information of upcoming activities within Toastmasters. He then had the privilege to award achievement ribbons: Arun finished Level 4 in Dynamic Leadership, while John was presented with two ribbons: completing Level 3 in Visionary Communication and accomplishing Level 5 (the highest level and first for our club) in Presentation Mastery. 

Toastmaster Leanne didn't get us just clapping along to the selected music, but made sure we were aware of the deluge of encouragement in the song.

She called on Gail for the program changes which was only one change in presenters.

Jonathon reminded us in his toast to take the time to reflect and we toasted "To our success".

Gail gave us a plethora of synonyms for the word of the evening: plethora. She also gave us example sentences and the original meaning. It was used extremely well - with Trish emerging as the clear winner.

The Round Robin led by John gave us not only a chance to speak of our superabundance of our triumphs, but also to show off one trophy, ribbon or award. It was so encouraging to see the surplusage of talent in our club.

Next, it was time for our prepared speeches:

1. Christiane spoke about her plentiful encounters with mentors in her speech titled "Expect the Unexpected" (Engaging Humour path, Level 2, project 3: Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring) Liz gave her stratospheric feedback in the evaluation.
   
2. Tony utilised technology with "Are We Ready?" (Effective Coaching, Level 2, project 1: Understanding your Communication Style) to demonstrate the AI revolution we are in the middle of. It was evaluated by Marlene with chockablock admiration of technology.
   
3. Trish provided us with a handout to demonstrate her surplus on activity on websites in her speech "Your brand in social media" (Visionary Communication, Level 4, elective project: Building a Social Media Presence). Helen evaluated the glut on social media presence of Trish.

It was time to call on our heart strings to get ample tickets sold (and Jonathon did this very well). He gave us two categories we would fall into: rewarding ourselves for achievements or commemorating our "significant other" for still being with us.

Arun was called on to give us the timers report for the first half where he told us about our exorbitant use of time.

During the supper break, we were able to buy raffle tickets, indulge the goodies provided by Helen and Chris as well as catch up on the immeasurable news of the fortnight.

The second half of our meeting started with Table Topics (those impromptu speeches). Rosie had selected boundless topics related to the theme (acceptance speeches) and called on:

1. Narelle - Give a mini-educational on how NOT to win the Table Topics ribbon: ask for the question halfway through your mini speech; make a conclusion, but then keep going; admit to cheating by utilising ChatCPG incorporated within glasses
   
2. Chris - Mr Sandgate of the year: high rises for Sandgate
   
3. John - Safe driver award: always looking out for the police and break hard
   
4. Paul - Life as the Table Topics trophy: biggest wish is to go home with the winner for 2 weeks
   
5. Darryl - Symbols of achievement: a statue for his trophy wife

The Table Topics were evaluated by Trevor and Gokul who both weren't lacking praise as well as points of improvement suggestions.

While our Sergeant at Arms Gokul collected the votes, Leanne shared extravagent triumphs of humanity.

Afterwards, we had the treat of listening to Darryl who asked our club to be a sounding board of his humorous speech he will enter into at the District Level. Paul led the group evaluation.

Then Dan presented his take on his role as Vice President Membership, followed by Chris presenting on the benefits of being Secretary. You will hold the key to ... (the name tags).

It was Dan's turn again: This time to give us feedback as the general evaluator.

Raffle master Jonathon asked visitor Darryl to draw the lucky winner (Gokul). The question if Gokul chose category one (himself) or two (his wife) will need to be established at the next meeting.

 

In closing, Paul reminded us of the District Conference starting 28 April as well as the club officer election at our next meeting (and nominations needing to be made prior).

He then presented the awards to:

Best Speech - Trish

Best Evaluation - Helen

Best Table Topic - John & Narelle

Most Improved - Helen

 

Sandgate Toastmasters will meet again on 9 May. (There will be no meeting on 25 April.)

Meeting 1125 - "Greece"

You don't have to be picky when  touring six weeks through Greece, since you will find the best lamb dishes everywhere.

Trish gave us many more interesting facts about Greece (even composed in a one-page summary) and encouraged us all to take the long flight to visit.

The meeting was called to order by our Sergeant At Arms Gokul (with no Dad joke) before Paul opened the meeting and welcomed Area Director Suresh as visitor.

Trish explained why she selected Greece at the theme (and was dressed appropriately: Greek purple T-shirt) when she recalled the six weeks adventure with her high school friend and partners 40 years after graduation.

Gail H gave us the program changes not requiring painstaking care as there was only had 1 slight change.

Afterwards, Trish called on Gail W to give us the toast. Gail W used very vivid word pictures to describe Greece with calling the toast to "Contributions from Greece".

Unfussy Chris presented the word of the evening (prepared by Rosie): persnickety. It allowed us to use it in our Round Robin and Table Topics which brought on lots of laughter.

The Round Robin was presented by Helen who allowed us one week of travelling through Greece with her as the finicky tour guide and recounting our many highlights. There were some choosy travellers complaining about the stairs, a few pleasant personification of Greek philosophers and gods as well as celebrating Greek traditions like plate throwing and lamb grazing.

We then moved into the prepared speeches:

1. Peter took us on a journey with "The 330 bus" (Innovative Planning path, Level 2, project 2: Connect with Your Audience) where he educated us about the many benefits of bus travel. It was evaluated by laid-back Christiane.
2. Marlene spoke about her encounters with April Fools Day in her speech titled "A Timely Warning" (Engaging Humour path, Level 1, project 2a: Evaluation and Feedback). Tony was her cultivated evaluator.
3. John brought along a prop in his speech "My Communication Onion" (Visionary Communication path, Level 3, "Develop a communication plan project") when he peeled away the layers explaining the various interactions with people in his life. It was knowingly evaluated by Gokul.

Thereupon, Gokul was called back to the lectern enticing us to buy raffle tickets giving us the chance to find a flavour as diversified as people on the planet.

It was Gail H's turn to give us the timings of the first half before we went into our supper break.

 

During supper we not only were able to buy raffles from Gokul and devour quiche and sweets provided by Hazel and Leanne, but it was a time to catch up on the news.

The second half of the meeting started with Table Topics. Narelle as Table Topic Master gave topics to:

1. Hazel - What would be the best way to travel to/from and around Greece? After considering scooters, she decided to walk everywhere.
   
2. Helen - Greeks are known for smashing plates, have you ever had a time when you wanted to smash plates. Yes!! Everytime hubby and her visit Bunnings as well as sometimes in her interaction with her kids.
   
3. Suresh - Goddess Athena is a patron of Greece, who is your goddess? Lakshmi (giving money) celebrated during Diwali.
   
4. Christiane - Would you rather go to a Greek or Italian restaurant? Greek!! You can't top lamb with tzatziki sauce.
   
5. Chris - Greece grows one third of the world's olives. Do you like olives? As a fastidious eater, he does now with green olives stuffed with feta being his favourite.
   
6. Gail W - What is you favourite Greek monument, person or place? Blue seaside as well as columns.
   

Those impromptu mini speeches were evaluated by Paul and Leanne.

After Gokul collected the final votes (with Trish expanding on the facts about Greece), Suresh addressed our club and congratulated us to a strong membership and having achieved distinguished club level, but most of all called on us how we can give back to Toastmasters.

Three reviews of the executive roles followed:

1. Christiane - Vice President Public Relations ("Postings on Facebook allow you to be organised and creative.")
   
2. Peter - Treasurer ("Don't use the wrong credit card")
   
3. Gokul - Sergeant At Arms ("If you want to speak at every meeting, this is your role")

Chris's feedback on using "persnickety" called on Trish as the winner (16 times). If we wanted to be picky and divide this number by her overall speaking time, we need to congratulate Helen for using it three times. 

Arun gave us the general evaluation prior to Gokul asking Suresh to pick the winner. The raffle went to Arun.

In closing, Paul awarded the trophies to:

Best Speech - Peter

Best Evaluation - Leanne

Best Table Topic - Christiane

Most Improved - Gail W

Our next meeting is on 11 April.