The WOW Toastmasters Club is a club with a difference, having meetings with a difference, at venues with a difference!

WOW Toastmasters Club meets on the 3rd Sunday of each month (but may vary) at a different venue in the Wairarapa, indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer. Every second meeting is held at Cobblestones Museum, Greytown.

WOW Toastmasters Club is a community club with members from all over the Wellington and Wairarapa regions. Some of the meeting venues have included a winery, a brewery, a hotel, restaurants, cafes, gardens and museums, and a dairy farm.

Next meeting

WOW goes to Wellington: Sunday 21 February 2010, at Hikitia Floating Crane, next to Te Papa, Wellington, 11 am, followed by lunch at a local venue. All welcome! Look out for the Toastmasters flag outside the venue.

For more information email wow@toastmasters.org.nz or phone Rita on (06) 379 7571 evenings.

Download and print 2010 Meeting Calendar and Venues List.

2009 Meeting Diary

Here's a diary and photos of our WOW meetings:

Sunday 13 December 2009, at Cobblestones in Greytown

WOW's Xmas meeting chaired by Dale Hartle had the theme of the colour Red, so we displayed red tinsel and had red jaffas to suck on, as well as several members wearing red for the day.

We got off to a great start with Table Topics with the Red theme, with speakers having to talk about a red sky, a red planet, red alert, red at Xmas, paint the town red etc with some hilarious comments.

Speaker 1 was John, who was completing his first Competent Communicator Award, with an inspirational speech entitled "Avoid Retirement and Stay Alive". John opened with a role-played conversation, gave us examples of people he knows who are still working in their 70s, and some shocking statistics about retirement. Evaluator Rita complimented and congratulated John and said his message was very relevant to this particular audience.

Speaker 2 was Caroline, who talked about "Red Wine", its health risks and benefits. Now I know I can have a 12 oz glass of red wine a day because it is good for my heart and lowers my cholesterol. Evaluator Anna thought Caroline's speech was informative, and well structured.

Speaker 3 was Jenny who gave us a hilarious warm-up speech called "Technophobe". She opened with a story about her husband kicking the computer in a rage, saying it must be a female, but Jenny retorted that it must be a male because you have to turn them on first. Evaluator Maureen commented on Jenny's sparkling personality and found the speech most enjoyable.

Speaker 4 was Donna who talked about "Rural Living", the joys and struggles, and tried to convert us to try living in the country. Evaluator Glynis said she already knew the benefits of country living.

General business covered a range of topics then General Evaluator Justin said it had been a well run meeting, all the evaluations had used the CRC method and provided useful tips for speakers.

Timekeeper Gary reported on all speakers' timings, and the only person going over time was Trish in table topics with just over 4 minutes!

Following the meeting, we had lunch at DeVine in Carterton.

Sunday 8 November 2009, Puzzlewood

It was a smaller group than usual that ventured out to Puzzlewood in Greytown for this months away meeting. The theme was "Timber" and our table topics master Gary certainly produced some great questions. Being a builder, Gary certainly knew his timbers and gave us a native wood, a description of its properties and a list of its uses in the building industry. A very good effort for his first time as table topics master and it was interesting to see some of our more senior toastmasters working hard to answer their questions.

Our first speaker was Trish who is working from the competent communicator manual. Her speech "Ideas that work" provoked us to think about the current doctor shortage and crisis in frontline health care and some possible solutions.

Glynis, our second speaker who is organising a 50th school jubilee, took us back to the 1960's and asked us just how different things really are.

Val spoke of the injustice of the justice system with a very emotional speech on animal welfare cases that she is pursuing through the courts.

Finally Anna entertained us with her experience of "vipassana", a retreat where she was not allowed to speak for ten days. A couple of toastmasters appeared aghast at the concept of not speaking for ten days but Anna proved delightfully that lots of communication is still possible!

The meeting concluded with a lovely lunch provided by the owners of Puzzlewood.

Sunday 18 October 2009, Cobblestones

Today's meeting held at Cobblestones had the theme of "Scotland", and Chairperson Justin introduced the theme with some stories and quotes. We also welcomed two guests.

Grammarian Caroline introduced her role and explained her word of the day "a wee minute", and in her report at the end of the meeting she listed all those who had used her word in their speeches.

Table Topics Master Anna challenged us with her theme in that we had to "be" the topic, not just "talk about it". Topics included being a scone, a rose, a lemon, a kilt, bagpipes, a ping pong ball, a bucket and a sporran. Most speakers chose to reveal what they were at the end of their speech, although some in the audience managed to guess it as well.

Speech 1 by Maureen was the story of cleaning up her garage, and an unfortunate accident with the ladder. Speech 2 by Donna explained what belly-dancing was all about, the history and costumes. Speaker 3 was Gary, who explained the issues with the Building Act, regulations and codes, and compared it with cooking up a BBQ steak and having a beer - it was a real bloke's speech.

 

Speaker 4 was John, an avid WWII Hurricane enthusiast (pictured above). He showed us some of the memorabilia he has collected over the years and explained the history of the Hurricane which was recently restored and put up for auction.

General Evaluator Dale reminded all evaluators to use the third person, not "you", and to summarise the recommendations in the final summary.

Following the meeting we had a delicious hot roast pork lunch at the Top Pub.

Sunday 20 September 2009, Gladstone Vineyards.

The September meeting of WOW toastmasters was held at Gladstone Vineyard on a warm first of spring type of day. The theme was "Fruit of the Vine" and with the meeting held in the barrel room of the winery it was certainly appropriate. Joy was the grammarian with "Unique" being the word of the day. Even though we were warned not to put qualifiers such as as pretty or somewhat in front of the word, a couple of us still did!

 

 

And it was a busy programme with four speakers. Caroline inspired us to take a bit of time out every day with her speech "The morning stroll by the lake". Table topics was next where Donna asked the question "Where did you get that hat?" Pip contended with a rather ugly Tui hat, Gary wished he had become a train conductor, Joy became a fire chief and Steve considered clowns. See the resulting images above.

Rita followed with her speech a roast of our President Justin. John's speech followed and he had spent a lot of time researching the Fisher monoplane which first flew in the Wairarapa and there is a memorial one kilometre from the vineyard. The final speech of the day was Justin who looked at the humorous side of airline flying.

The meeting concluded with a meal at the vineyard and a few samples from the barrel room.

Sunday 16 August 2009, Cobblestones

WOW held its August meeting at Cobblestones, chaired by Maureen, with a Green theme.

In Table Topics, all speakers had a colour to talk about - pink, white, green, black, red. Evaluator John mentioned the impact of each speaker when talking about their colour.

Donna was the first speaker, with a story about trust (also our word of the day). She spoke about the impact polio had on her family, and how her mother had coped with a disability from polio. The topic touched everyone's heart because polio has touched most New Zealand families in some way over the years.

Gary, an ex-Speechcrafter, gave a heartfelt speech about the story of his friend Tony and how they used to be friends. When Gary answered Tony's call for help recently, he realised how much they had changed over the years.

Rita's speech was the story of a little sparrow who came into her home injured, and befriended her and Justin for a few weeks before it flew away healed. Rita showed us photos of the sparrow.

Glynis gave us an icebreaker about a safari adventure she had experienced in her much younger days, and scared us all with the story of the giant elephant eating leaves in the tree one night right above her tent. For someone who is always on the go, Glynis told us it was time to "freeze" as she didn't want to be elephant tucker!

Following general business, timekeeper's report, grammarian's report, General Evaluator Jenny complimented all speakers on an enjoyable and interesting meeting.

Sunday 19 July 2009, Gasoline Heaven

A brisk southerly greeted us at Gasoline Heaven, the venue for our July WOW meeting. What a place to have a meeting - in a car museum, surrounded by wonderful old restored vehicles, and memorabilia. The owners had made available their office/meeting room for our use, and 15 of us crammed in around the boardroom table. We welcomed 3 speechcrafters who had recently graduated, and two visitors, as well as one returning member Val.

Table Topics run by Val was on the theme of "When I was a child", and each speaker managed to tell a story about being in trouble with the law (or not), a favourite beach, a new school, a best friend, or a favourite pet.

The first speaker of the day was Dale Hartle, who spoke about the family connections she has made through her website, and finding new branches of the family tree.

The second speaker Steve told a story about a tramping experience and the leadership of the group, and related the moral of the story to the question "Who will lead you to the top?". In her evaluation Pip said the story was easy to follow, and she loved the twist at the end which kept the audience intrigued.

Speech 3 by Lynn entitled "Spirit of New Zealand" was an oratorical speech from the Interpretive Reading Manual. Lynn was talking about the republic of New Zealand, and she even had me believing she was for real, especially when she got the whole audience up at the end to sing the first verse of "God Defend New Zealand". Evaluator Val thought it was a very powerful thought-provoking speech with dynamic word pictures and examples.

General business covered presentation of certificates (Speechcraft Graduation Certificates to Hayley Quirke and Donna Laing below, and 9th Competent Communicator Award to Dale Hartle), club officer training, and the possibility of establishing a dinner club based in Greytown.

Grammarian Trish reported on the speakers who had used the word of the day or its derivatives - "excite", and Timekeeper John reported on each speaker's times. General Evaluator Maureen thought the meeting had been fun, well run and interesting.

Following the meeting we toured Gasoline Heaven, and I was in Cobra heaven when I saw the Cobra - I sooo wanted a ride in it. Then we moved next door to the Hillbillies Cafe for lunch.

Sunday 21 June 2009

June's WOW Toastmasters Meeting was a small affair, with 10 members attending, but it was an action packed meeting all the same.

Grammarian Lynne opened with her word of the day "bow", explaining all the different meanings of the word, and challenged us to use the word where we could. In her report at the end of the meeting, the word had been used 8 times in 3 different ways, so Lynne was very pleased with her challenge. She also mentioned some other phrases she had heard: "zoop out of control towards a precipice", "dot of a woman", "hand over to myself", "drawn and haggard face", "wall of words", "changed the landscape of our lives", "3 key tags", and "pauses adding power".

Table Topics Master Dale used the meeting's "Snow" theme to give the speakers suitable snow topics. Everyone managed to come up with a story or opinion about snow, and the general consensus was that none of the Toastmasters present liked snow very much.

Glynis presented a roast, but not in the traditional way - she roasted herself! She explained the story behind her name, showed us a photo of who she was named after, and explained the links to a famous "uncle" with the same surname. Evaluator Joy complimented Glynis on the novel approach, her subtle humour and how she had left us wondering how much of it was really true.

Carol presented a speech on the "SWINE" flu, outlining the background to the flu, using the letters S.W.I.N.E. as her structure, finishing with a handout and a mandarin to keep our Vitamin C levels up. Evaluator Dale said she liked the structure, and thanked Carol for explaining such an important topic in simple terms we could all understand.

Jenny spoke entitled "My Father's Journey", giving a very powerful and inspirational story of her father, a hero and prisoner of war. She described the story of her father's wartime suffering as a prisoner of war, and his escape to Russia and eventually England. Evaluator Justin commended Jenny for such a wonderful personal story, and how she had tied in the story into a call to action at the end.

Finally Lynne read out several poems of interest to the audience in her "Interpreting Poetry" assignment. Evaluator Joy said she liked the way Lynne told us to close our eyes to listen and appreciate the words of the poems, and how she had explained the background to the poems and poets. Joy also liked the wonderful use of vocal variety and pace, and different accents used.

General Business covered a range of items, including the presentation of Competent Communicator Award Number 9 to Dale Hartle, and the ribbon for attending the Christchurch Convention was presented to the club by President Carol. Rita reported that the club's bid to hold the November 2010 convention was unsuccessful, but that Area E8 will be a Distinguished Area for the 2008-09 year. She also advised the club that there was the possibility of a fortnightly dinner club being set up in Greytown.

Rita also explained that the recent Speechcraft course had been a great success with 5 participants completing the course which ended on 11 June.

Justin advised that the WOW club is on track to become Select Distinguished club, needing only one more member to hit the 20 mark.

Timekeeper Joy in her report admitted that she had become so engrossed with some of the speeches she forgot to do the timing properly and apologised to the speakers involved.

General Evaluator Rita summed up the meeting by saying even though it was small, it was a quality meeting, and thanked everyone for braving the weather to come to Greytown. She also particularly liked the agenda produced by chairperson Justin with the snowman on it!

Sunday 10 May 2009

Sunday 10 May was Mother's Day, and Joy opened the meeting by showing us the mother's day card she received from her daughter. Justin then gave us the word of the day - "nurture " and said that he was doing the roles of listening post and ah counter as well.

The meeting then moved on to the annual business of the club, with presentation of the financial report and election of club officers.

Table topics run by Pip had 4 speakers talking about the "worst mothers day gift ever " including receiving a toilet brush, lose weight in 30 days DVD, botox party, and for Paul, receiving flowers. Table Topics evaluator Justin commented on the use of eye contact, gestures, humour and the descriptive words used by the speakers.

Speaker 1 was Dale with her title "Let's go Sailing", the story of a sailing trip around Mana Island last Sunday on her father's yacht. Evaluator Glynis said in her opinion it was the most "complete" speech Dale had ever given. (Little did Glynis know, Dale had only written an outline of the speech the night before, and practised it three times in the car while driving to the meeting! Way to go, Dale!)

Jenny was Speaker 2 with a story about three drunken teenagers and the after-effects. Evaluator Trish commented that it was a very expressive speech, humorous and an ideal topic for Mother's Day.

Finally Carol persuaded us to "Take Action Now" by adopting the opposite approach to the problem of plastic bags. She gave us lots of potential uses for plastic bags, such as hiding the chocolate at the back of the pantry, and asked what would we use for the doggy-dos when out walking if we didn't have a plastic bag. Evaluator Rita thought Carol's alternative view was very funny and quite a surprise for a persuasive speech.

Grammarian Justin reported on our usage of the word of the day and asked 3 questions about things speakers had mentioned. Timekeeper Paul outlined the speakers times, and General Evaluator Steve commended all evaluators for their useful comments, the running of the meeting by Joy, and the theme of Mother's Day.

Following the meeting, we had a most enjoyable and delicious lunch at the Café Solway.

Sunday 19 April 2009

April's WOW Toastmasters Club meeting was chaired by Dale on a fine, warm, calm April morning at the Cobblestones museum in Greytown.

The theme of the meeting was "Harvest", and Table Topics Master Justin came up with topics that related to the theme.

Speech 1 by Jenny was all about "Bizzare Thefts", where she described how her speech had been stolen from her computer then had to write a new one, and went on to describe other bizzare thefts around the world.

Glynis was working from the Special Occasion advanced manual, and her speech was "Accepting an Award", where she accepted the Volunteer of the Year award for Cats in Heaven.

Speech 3 had us all in fits of laughter as Carol described her recent birthday present - a week with a personal trainer. Carol told us how it all started well, but went downhill from there with stiffness and lack of motivation.

John's speech described his recent visit to a museum in Melbourne where there was a Bugatti exhibition. He said he visited it three times.

General Business run by Carol focussed on the Area's bid for the 2010 November District Conference, and the two WOW members who were in the Division Contests gave a run down of their experiences.

Grammarian Victoria reported that the word of the day "fruitful" had been used 7 times, including "fruitless". Timer Carol reported the timings for all speakers, and it is was useful to know the individual timings for all speakers.

Joy's General Evaluation gave useful recommendations to all the evaluators, including two tips: give strong recommendations, and provide a summary of the evaluation.

Following the meeting, lunch was at the White Swan in Greytown.

Sunday 15 March 2009

The WOW Toastmasters Meeting on Sunday 15 March was held at Coneys Winery, south of Martinborough.

The meeting had three guests from other Wellington clubs which helped make up the numbers.

Grammarian Maureen opened the meeting with her word of the day "quandary". She gave an explanation of the word and its usage, and kept tabs on who used it during the meeting, reporting at the end that 12 speakers had managed the challenge.

Steve Bullock in table topics.

Paul Littlejohns in table topics.

Table Topics by Rita invited speakers to talk to a topic with a "wine" theme, and all had a personal story to tell. The Table Topics evaluator Glynis had a number of useful recommendations for the speakers.

The first speech by Joy entitled "When the Kids Leave Home" gave a story about storing her son's stuff while he went overseas. In the second speech, Justin held us spellbound with his story entitled "Always read the fine print". He related a story of being winched out of an Iroquois helicopter somewhere in the bush, and being winched back in again. Evaluator Carol wanted to know what he was doing in the bush!

The third speech, an icebreaker, by Dale entitled "New Year's Resolution" told the audience about her goal to trim up and slim down for her son's forthcoming wedding by training and entering a triathlon.

Carol gave the club a number of general business points and the timer's report by John gave a run down on the speakers' times.

Following the meeting we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Coneys Winery before heading off back out into the Wairarapa sunshine.

Glynis and Rita enjoying lunch

Jenny and Justin at lunch.

Sunday 15 February 2009

A very warm welcome to guests/new members John Skene and Steve Bullock. Meeting chaired by Rita Stirling.

John Skene was asked to be the Gramarian at the last minute, which he very quickly came up with the word of the day - 'antique'. Antique was used many times by several speakers, Some members of the club even being referred to as 'antique' on one occasion!

Glynis was table topics master for the meeting with the theme of 'colours'. Each speaker was presented with a colour or something colourful to which they presented an inpromptu 2 minute speech. Some examples were: white elephants, pink elephants, black as the ace of spades, green cabbage (sorry i cant remember all the others?). All table topic speeches were very well done and were quite entertaining!

Speaker 1 was Carol who opened her speech with a bellowing... "Is it good to be green"?!! Carol's excellent speech was from the CC manual to use 'vocal variety' which she did very well as she convinced us that perhaps it wasn't so good to be green! Referring to the devistating Australian fires and the conflict between the Aus govenment and the 'greens'.

Speaker 2 was Maureen who presented a very 'entertaining' speech. Maureen told many different stories of Little Red Riding Hood entertaining us with all the varying versions.

Speaker 3 was our new member John Skeen. John is working from the CC Manual and completed Project 5 - Your Body Speaks. John presented a very interesting and well prepared speech on civil aviation using body language to help portray his story and actions.

Speaker 4 was Pip. Pip is also working from the CC manual and completed Project 4 - How to Say it. "Wildside Walks" was the title of Pip's speech as she shared with the audience a recent hunting/fishing wilderness experience into the Tararua Ranges. Pip presented her speech with minimal use of notes, well described colourful sentences and correctly stuctured paragraphs.

Sunday 11 January 2009

The first WOW meeting for 2009 was held at the home of Jenny, near Carterton. It was a dull overcast day and threatening rain, in stark contrast to four days previously when the temperature in the Wairarapa was the highest on record at 34.6 degrees. Finally the light rain came, but the WOW meeting was held under shelter, ably chaired by Justin, with 10 club members present.

The previous week's hot days prompted Grammarian Rita to use the word "sweltering" as the word of the day. Most speakers managed to use it once, twice or three times in their speeches and in table topics, where the theme was "summertime".

The first formal speech by Justin was a Speech by Management for an adversorial audience. Justin outlined a situation to the "investors" of an investment company and gave them three options. The speech was followed by a question and answer session which evaluator Trish noted was dealt with honestly, with concise answers. At the end, we were all glad we hadn't each lost the one million dollars Justin had suggested in his speech!

In the second speech, Glynis gave a Special Occasion speech, awarding Jenny the "Hostess of the Year for 2009 Award". In the photo below, Glynis is presenting Jenny with her award.

Pip's speech "Step to it" was ideal for the first meeting of the year. She outlined the excuses we use to stay on the couch instead of getting fit. She told us what was required to get fit, and the potential results. Rita's evaluation complimented Pip on her enthusiasm and energy, perfect for a fitness speech.

Finally in speech four, Anne talked about the concept of "it's not what you wear but the expression on your face that counts" and she outlined who clothes were made by her mother in her day, to what the youth of today wear.

General Evaluator Maureen complimented everyone on their participation in the meeting, saying she had enjoyed it and learnt some new things. Maureen ended by promising to circulate her apricot chutney recipe which she had talked about in table topics.

Following the meeting, we had a BBQ lunch before heading off home.

Meeting Diary 2008

You can view our 2008 Meeting Diary to find out what the club achieved, where we visited, and the range of speeches delivered by our members.