Report on Meeting on 25 July 2007

What a great meeting we had! It got off to a flying start by motivating messages from President, Shirley Thompson. Shirley told us about the initiative that had been launched whereby 6 months of membership could be obtained completely free! All we had to do was to introduce just two guests who signed up as full members before 30 September 2007.

Keith Hart was Toastmaster and genial host of the evening. Keith’s theme of the evening was “Personal growth at your own pace.” Keith gave clear explanations of each Toastmaster role on the agenda, which was particularly helpful for the six guests we had that evening. Naturally the evening was enhanced by Keith’s jokes (Shirley has labelled Keith the “Comedy Master”!).

Fiona got us warmed up by asking us to relate an act of kindness we could recall,

and Sally’s word of the evening was BLUE. Toastmasters used the word a lot in all its many meanings.

We were treated to four speeches by very experienced Toastmasters, two of whom were on the advanced manuals. The evaluators gave comprehensive critiques. David Mattocks commented that he was impressed on how Margaret had increased her confidence over the time she had been at Toastmasters and praised her speech. Julie echoed the views of many of us when she said (following Steve Osborne’s speech) she might not ever eat chickens again!

But what a speech he gave – telling the harrowing tale of a chicken’s progress through life!

Andrew Collinson had a real challenge as he tried to “Influence with integrity” David Mattocks (a willing participant in the speech) to purchase a mini miner’s helmet to light the way in the event of power cuts etc. (“But I’ve only had one in 5 years” said David). Russell commended Andrew on the way he tackled the challenge and gave constructive comments.

Peter McGeehan won the Best Speaker award with his folk tale about the Pied Piper. He gave a performance that had us all spellbound.

After a short break (it was a challenge to fit this packed meeting into the scheduled time) Daniel Newman called us to reconvene. Dawn chose hen/stag nights and related wedding items as her theme for the three Toastmasters called upon to speak. Dave Hassall gave a very competent performance as Table Topics evaluator and Daniel Newman won the award for best Table Topics speaker.

For the first time ever there were three winners for the Best Evaluator Award – Shirley, Julie and Russell.

A recent member, Susan, performed admirably as Timekeeper - and had to call “Time” on a couple of occasions.

Sally asked the audience if we agreed on a vote for the person who had erred most in the Ahs and Ums stake. Well, OK we said. Daniel took his “award” in suitably sporting fashion and was closely followed by Andrew and Shirley.

Hazel gave her overview of what was acknowledged to be a stimulating evening.

One of the best we had, we agreed – even if we did leave just a bit later than usual.