Happy Easter everybody! We had a good turnout for last night’s meeting despite having a few members keen to get a head start on the holiday traffic. Several people did a double-take on arrival as Kevin’s twin brother Keith visited the club for the evening! Another surprise visit was from former member Anand who hopes to rejoin the club again soon.
Cliff got the evening off to a good start by outlining his new exercise regime, followed by Supriya who wove a colourful story of her experience growing up in a mixed-faith community. Clare shared her experiences in working with lymphoedema patients and then we got to know new member Audrey a bit better in her icebreaker speech. Chris completed an advanced project “accepting an award” and Jillian did a similar project “presenting an award”. We proved that Kevin did have hair (at least a little!) once upon a time and reflected on his last 10 years in the club leading up to our recent achievement of 10 consecutive President’s Distinguished titles. Tammy wrapped up the prepared speeches with her entertaining tale of online dating which was later (following a beer or two) unofficially voted the best speech of the evening.
Peter and Janice did a wonderful job co-hosting the meeting, with General Evaluator Kevin pronouncing Janice’s first-time Toastmaster performance as an exemplar for the rest of us. We were delighted to host two guest speech evaluators from other clubs – Bruce from Northwest Toastmasters and Helen from AM Toastmasters who both decided to visit us for the evening. Phil brought us a new game-show style twist on Table Topics with a selection of different categories for speakers to choose from. Notable performances also from first-time evaluator Liam and Table Topics Evaluators Liz and new member Richard.
Farewell Cisco and Cliff
On a sad note, we said goodbye to two of our favourite long-term club members who will be sorely missed. Cisco raised the bar in our club with his famous paperless evaluations, which several of us subsequently attempted and discovered it to be much harder than it looked! Cliff has been a valuable contributor, past club President and all-round nice guy whose genuine enthusiasm and honest feedback has encouraged and strengthened us all over his time in the club. It’s always hard to see people leave, but especially so when they’ve been such an integral part of the club over many years. We wish both of you all the best and hope you’ll keep in touch.
Division A Contests
Next weekend the Division A conference takes place out at Highbrook, and Steve will be competing in the Evaluation contest (representing Auckland West club). Check the calendar for full details – I’m sure he would appreciate your support if you can make it.
