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

Sunday 19 July 2009, at Gasoline Heaven, Carterton ($5 venue charge), Lunch at Divine. All welcome! Look out for the Toastmasters flag outside the venue.

For more information email wow@toastmasters.org.nz or phone Dale on (04) 235-6659 evenings.

Download and print 2009 Meeting Calendar and Venues List.

2009 Meeting Diary

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

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.