In the words of our general evaluator Dave Young, tonight was “professional, well presented and well prepared”. Well done all!
It was a special occasion for Tim tonight, as he presented his final CC speech, “Growth”. Speaking on his own personal growth through Toastmasters Tim also achieved a new milestone, delivering the entire talk without notes.
Jennifer had the audience gripped tonight, with her anecdotal accounts of experiences in Africa, “Four stories I’ll never tell my mother”. Laced with humour and so cleverly retold, we heard how not to get away from wild elephants, how to escape death when your vehicle’s brakes fail on a mountain pass, how not to deal with corrupt men with guns and the trials of overcoming dysentery in a mine field. Yes, an actual mine field.
And then Jonathan took the floor, speaking for the first time from the Storytelling manual. Titled Wananga Taiaha, JP re-told the story of the taiaha, in full action, with taiaha in hand! We were all captivated by this lesser-known story of how the God of war Tumatauenga eventually defeated the God of Peace, Rongo for the love of a girl called Pohutukawa. Just awesome.
Some challenging and entertaining table topics this evening, which forced the participants into inventing some great ‘tall tales’. You really are the master tabletopics master Ade! Gary twisted a tricky story of matches, smoke and hidings together to explain how a wooden spoon managed to end up in his letter box, then Dave Y has us in fits of laughter as he revealed how the elderly gentleman at A&E came to have an empty syringe stuck in his nose. Tim went jogging with bananas on April-fools and Chrissy explained how her night out ended up in a deep-and-meaningful with Santa on her doorstep.
Gary wrapped up the evening with a presentation of two Competent Communicator pins for JP & Tim, acknowledging their recent completion of the CC manual. What an evening! Congratulations also to Linda, JP’s nana for coming along and introducing herself during table topics.
See you all next time!
