In front of a packed room of 40 people Club President Magda introduced the Chairwoman for the evening, Hazel, who began proceedings with her usual flair. She asked us to close our eyes and imagine the sights, smells and sounds of summer for a moment before we took the plunge into the evening’s programme. Summer was the theme for the evening, with its warm atmosphere epitomised by the friendly reception awaiting newcomers.
Kevin introduced 13 guests for the evening namely Algre, Allister, Anni, Barry, Carlos, Christian, Grisham, Flint, Ruby, Shekinah, Tina, Umair and Zina. This number included several members visiting from the Onehunga Toastmasters club.
Getting the meeting underway Celia explained the role of Ah-Counter, while Michael addressed the role of Time Keeper, which he suggested would be enforced by the Sergeant at Arms, if necessary. Magda volunteered to fill the role of Grammarian. She plucked ‘Abundance’ out of the air as the word of the night.
For the smile story Bles enthusiastically related a humorous anecdote concerning a misdirected email which had unforeseen, other -worldly consequences. This was such a good story that it will be well worthwhile retelling at a future date.
Jim was introduced as a first time Toastmaster, which role he took to like a duck to water. Of the six speakers he introduced three were giving their Icebreaker speech in Pathways, not that the water was cold.
Victor ‘s speech entitled ‘Never Too Late to Learn’ referred to his love of travel and visiting new places and how “All those images are carved into my memory”.
Saran got us to picture his life in India and his love of cricket before coming to NZ.
Two of the remaining speeches were given by the club’s Distinguished Toastmasters, namely Lakshman and Kevin.
Lakshman provided a detailed and memorable guide to preparing for speech contests.
Kevin persuaded members of the audience to attend next year’s Waipuna conference with increasingly tempting rebates
Last but not least of the prepared speeches was Gretel‘s, marking the completion her tenth CC speech. Gretel treated us to a powerful and at times deeply personal speech about her ability to inspire a love of mathematics in her pupils. She concluded with an example of a five year old helping her highly distressed mother to problem solve using what he had learnt in class, ” You cannot say ‘I cannot do that’.” Gretel’s standing ovation was doubly deserved.
At the break, delicious snacks added to the sense that Christmas holidays are fast approaching.
Resuming the programme we listened to skilled evaluations of the prepared speeches, given by Magda, Liz, Steve, Clement and Martin. Magda explained that valuations of speeches under the Pathways programme have a different format. Steve included in his evaluation of Gretel’s speech the illuminating statement, “A good speech has these three elements: logos, ethos and pathos”.
Stephanie introduced table topics with the statement that summer is wonderful for our physiology. She held up a summer-themed bag of surprises from which participants took their chances. The contents of the bag included such objects as a jandal, a hat, a tennis ball, a fan, and a calorie counter – with carefully thought out questions attached. Table topics speakers, Linda, Lisa, Pravanash, Heather, Christian, Flint, Chris, Zina and Umair opted to go with the flow enjoying the opportunity to interest and entertain the audience with impressive off-the-cuff speeches.
Anji and Rik generously evaluated the table topic speeches despite their uncertainty about who were odd and who were even speakers.
The business session is now mercifully shortened by the inclusion of most notices on the back of the agenda. The session saw the club induct Heather and Pravanash as new members before the presentation to Lisa of her well-deserved DTM award to a standing ovation. In addition Three Kings Toastmasters club received award ribbons for Club Leadership and Excellence, and attendance at the Gisborne convention.
To round the evening off the grammarian, ah-counter, timekeeper and the general evaluator, Phil, presented their reports succinctly. Then guests were invited to reflect on their experience of the evening with accolades being given to Gretel, Lachsman and Kevin as well as to the the club for the warmth and friendliness experienced. All in all it was a great introduction to summer.
