Three Kings CLub

We all had such an enjoyable time yesterday at our fortnightly Toastmasters meeting. The theme for the meeting was ‘Dream Big! Think Big!’ and there was ‘big’ enthusiasm throughout the evening. Being in lockdown meant the meeting was held on Zoom, but that did not lessen the enthusiasm of the evening. I was Chairman for the meeting and Yetabel did an amazing job as Toastmaster. Steve challenged us with the word of the night being “whakamoemiti” meaning to praise or express thanks. Jie also showed some ‘big’ initiative with her innovative time keeping!

The ‘Smile Story’ last night was presented by Lakshman who entertained us before we heard from four prepared speeches. Ade gave her icebreaker speech which was very well delivered and she informed us about her work experience and family. Secondly, we heard from Saane about mentoring with passion and overcoming your fear with courage. Richard then led a panel discussion on ‘Savings’ with Daniel, Heather, and Waala in which we found out about KiwiSaver and ethical investing. Finally, Kevin gave an educational speech which inspired us to encourage the next generation to look forward with positivity and not to be fearful. These speeches were effectively evaluated by Jacquie, Liz, Les, and Prenha.

It was wonderful to share the evening with some guests who also joined in our Table Topic speeches. As Table Topics Master, Saane gave us some thought-provoking questions which fitted the theme of the evening. One thought I took from the Table Topic speeches was how a ‘small’ idea can become a ‘big’ success if we continue with persistence. Lakshman and Chris provided some excellent evaluations of the Table Topics speeches.

The meeting ended with a thorough meeting evaluation from Anji followed by some comments our guests shared about how much they enjoyed the evening. Can’t wait to meet again in a fortnight on 7th October!

 

Malo e lelei, Kia Ora, and greetings dear Members,

it is with the greatest pleasure to report back to you all the wonderful meeting that we held asa  club last night. As the theme was “sitcom” a few members braved the challenge to come dressed up and if there were a prize given for best dressed it would have been given to Jacquie. Actually, I think we should give a best dressed award to those who come in theme during club meetings.

It was awesome to have our Club President, Anji Adams back and well, within our midst again last night to greet and start the meeting off. The boisterous and rowdy Steve Peeters was there too, to make us wonder about his funny behaviour.

It was also great to see more than 30 people in attendance within our Zoom meeting, which included several guests whom participated in the fun open table topics during the contest. I believe that if every member attended we would have had well over 50, but it is good that we didn’t, otherwise poor Zoom Master would have had a tough night organising everyone 🙂

The meeting started with Karolina stepping into the role of Club Sargent At Arms (SAA) with both contests being  well organised and facilitated by our two accomplished contest Chairs, Heather and Kevin.

The background work by our SAA; the official; the contest Chairs; Chief Judge, Christine Alcott and judges; guest Zoom Master, Nathan Piahana; and all our contestants have been nothing less of outstanding. You all deserve more than our club gratitude for making our club contests a success. Now, we will have to rise above the bar we set ourselves for the next Tall Tales contest in October and, the Evaluations and International speaking contest held either later in the year or early next year (Feb 2022).

The contestants braved our screens and did their own personal best to strive for the winning spot. Every single one of them deserve to be celebrated as a winner for giving it their all. However, at the end of the night we could only send one winner from each contest on our behalf, and I believe the judges chose fairly so, we congratulate our well deserved three top winners from each of the following contests:

Table Topics

1. Chris Wearing
2. Lakshman Sockalingham
3. Sarah Wilson

Humorous

1. Sarah Wilson
2. Richard Watling
3. Lakshman Sockalingham

If the two main winners do not go forward to the Area Contest, then the next two runner up contestants, from each contest will be in line to stand in their place. However, we wish both Chris and Sarah all the best, and hope that they do our club proud.

We were sorry that those of you who gave apologies could not be there and we understand that there are difficulties of participating on an on-line platform. We all hope that this lockdown level will go down extra fast so that we can all go back to our normal face to face meetings at the Three Kings Fickling Centre.

A special thank you go out to our Area Director Graham Gunn for quietly assisting as a judge in the background, and of course to all of you, our amazing members for being with us 🙂 We are only as strong when we have the next person stand beside us.

The only thing I regret is not taking a screen shot for this report – please someone remember for our next meeting.

May we continue to enjoy our meetings as club, whether it will be in person or on Zoom.

Ka kite ano and Malo

Saane Tuakalau

VPE