With the theme of the night being Risk Taking, Les J. plunged us into a meeting filled with thrills and surprises.
Our Grammarian for the meeting, Prenha P. selected Audacious as word of the night and encouraged us to take a gamble and try to use it while we’re speaking on the night.
Lisa X. took a dive and bravely captained the Timekeeper role for the first time.
Karen Y. gave a succinct and detailed explanation of the Ah Counter role with clear examples of filler words (e.g. Ah, Um, “and” and “so” if used unnecessarily etc…)
Walaa G. entertained us during the Laughter Lab (a session of the meeting where we warm up the room with some laughs 🙂 ) with her risky and breathtaking journey of moving to a completely unknown country and undertaking a PHD in the UK. She opened up and shared her struggles of leaving her family at home and the challenges of maneuvering her humongous, overweight and over-packed luggage around the Heathrow airport! Unfortunately she left us on a cliffhanger as she ran out of time for her slot – we’ll be waiting to hear the rest of the story next time!
Next up, our Toastmasters of the night Karolina O. exemplarily introduced our Prepared Speech speakers in style with informative introductions and transitions as smooth as a “cruise ship”.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take detailed notes of every speech and evaluation as I attempted to multi-task and take photos for the website while listening to the speeches (but clearly failed at the listening part!) so here’s the speakers and speech titles and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
- Memories of a Scottish New Year – Anji A. – evaluated by Steve P.
- On Food at Heart – Daniel O. – evaluated by Jacquie L.
- Five Weird Things About Bumblebees – Lilla R. – evaluated by Jie D.
- Compromise Conquers Conflict – Saane T. – evaluated by Chris W.
We gave our hearts a rest from all the risk taking by rewarding our tummies with a luxurious 5-star feast prepared by Kevin P. – Thank you Kevin for sacrificing your time and always spoiling us with food every meeting.
My personal favourite dish is usually the sushi (which will always have a special place in my heart) but this time around it was the mushroom and mince pie (a note for Kevin to make this a staple in every meeting).
For any vegetarians reading this, we always have vegetarian food prepared as well (all foods are listed on the back of our meeting agendas).
Next up we had our business session which was an extremely special one because one of our most committed and dedicated members received an outstanding award. Kevin was awarded 25 years of service to Toastmasters which is an incredible feat, especially to me considering I’ve barely been on earth for that long!
Kevin also gave a run down of The Winning Formula: Find the Hero Within Yourself held on the 15th May – which was so successful the executive committee decided we should run it annually.
The stakes for the night suddenly became higher once we reached the Table Topics held by Heather R.
If you’re new around here, Table Topics is a slice of the night where the Table Topic Master comes up with topics/questions related to the theme of the meeting and a speaker is called up to attempt to talk about the topic for 1 – 2 minutes. In simple terms, improvisation speaking.
Once again, I’ll list the speakers and topics and leave the rest to your imagination 🙂 .
- Taking no risk is actually a risk. Do you agree and why/why not? – Kevin P.
- Tell us about a time you took a risk and you’re pleased that you did – Kavideth M.
- Tell us about a time you tried something new. – Kendra (Guest)
- If a doctor gave you five years to live, what would you try to accomplish? – Liam (Guest)
- What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? – Hugo (Guest)
- Which is worse, failing or never trying? – Kris (Guest)
- What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you? – Warren (Guest)
Since so many guests blessed us with their presence, I suppose Heather thought it might be nice to leave them with a present i.e. table topic.
It’s always great to hear guests deliver a table topic though as you’re gifted with a fresh perspective, idea or story which can be inspiring and probably why I turn up to most meetings every fortnight.
Sarah W. and Liz D. were the evaluators for Table Topics and gave very thoughtful and encouraging feedback.
Thank you to all role holders, attendees and guests for the night, it wouldn’t have been possible without you.
If you’re new around here, we warmly welcome you and hope to see you in the club soon 🙂 .
