Need to polish those presentation skills? Or maybe practise a different leadership style? Why not have some fun while you're at it?
A new Toastmasters club is starting up in Greytown, this one with a difference. We meet and eat at the same time, so you can practise those "after dinner speeches" or toasts "to the happy couple".
WHERE? At the Top Pub, Greytown Hotel, (pictured below) in the new dining annexe (boardroom style, pictured below).
WHEN? We meet on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month from 6.30 pm
HOW MUCH? Dinner $20 per night. Toastmaster club fees to be decided at a general meeting on chartering, but about $100 per annum. New and Dual members welcome.
WHO? Contact Rita Stirling on 304 8477 (day) or 379 7571 (evenings) to register.
Meeting Reports
10 March 2010
With a couple of late apologies, our programme could have been in tatters as we were missing one speaker and a table topics master, but after a 5 minute delay, Lynn as chairperson stepped into the breech and asked for feedback on a speech she would be giving at the area contests. She then followed as table topics master, using the theme of the meeting "star signs revealed" she had a page of horoscopes and had one person "interviewing" another about their horoscope for that day. Word of the day was "fate" which everyone except Rita managed to use.
Our first speaker of the night was Ben, who spoke about the life and times of Sammy Davis Jnr sharing information that was new to most of us.
Our second speaker was Rita, working from the Special Occasions Speeches advance manual in which she accepted an award. The award was a pin from Toastmasters for achieving Select Distinguished Area when she had been Area Governor. She spoke about her experiences as an area governor, thanked Toastmasters for the opportunity to learn so much more, and encouraged others to consider taking on this role.
Ben was evaluated by Jill and in her first time as an evaluator, Lee gave her thoughts on Rita's presentation.
Photos above: from left, Lynne, Ben and Lee.
24 February 2010
Thirteen may be unlucky, but that's how many turned out for our regular Wednesday meeting which incorporated a few different elements.
Jim was grammarian and challenged everyone to use inspire, inspiration or inspired during their speeches.
Colin, as Table Topics Master, mentioned a number of significant historical events that had happened in the month of February, such as the battle of Verdun, the excommunication of Elizabeth First, the assassination of Malcolm X, the Valentine's Day massacre, the battle of the Alamo etc. His challenge to speakers were to preface their answers with "I was a fly on the wall when ... happened." This led to a great deal of merriment and a great deal of information on flies, but not a lot on historical events.
After a tasty dinner, Rita led an educational session on judging and how contests are structured which then led into two competitors for WOW club competing for the International Speech Contest.
First up was Jenny Russell with "My Fathers Gifts", followed by Lynn Bushell with "Life is a Jar of Jellybeans". After a close contest, Lynn was announced the winner.
10 February 2010
Due to apologies it was a smaller than usual group that met for the first meeting of the 2010 year. The theme was "2010 a new decade a new opportunity". Colin kicked the meeting off with the word of the day which was "supercalifragilisticxpelealidotious" And everyone at the meeting used the word at least once!
Table topics asked members what they would do this decade as famous people, inventors, Nobel prize winners and celebrity chefs.
The meeting broke for dinner which was a choice of yummy steak or oven baked fish.
Our first speaker, Jill Eriksen, gave everyone an insight into the colour green and why she loves this colour. Our Second speaker Lee Carter covered bananas in her speech "Fruity tooty". Our third presentation was an educational from on adding impact to their speaking style with everyone practising being loud, angry, sad, shy, lustful and other suggestions from the floor. A lot of fun to end the meeting!
Above: Justin presenting John with his Competent Communicator Award.