A very full meeting! Three great speeches, a bard and a fantastic round of table topics hardly left time for a cup of tea in the middle. This was full-pace toastmasters.
Tim kicked the evening off with a couple of stories from a conference he’d been to in the weekend, examples he’d seen of things to avoid when delivering a speech highlighting how Toastmasters can fix all of this.
Our first speaker was Sam B with his 3rd CC speech titled “Who will care in twenty years?”. With great use of overhead visuals, this speech to inform made left no argument that there is a problem with declining electoral voting in this country, particularly in the 18-24 age group. Sam offered several explanations for the decline, and made it crystal clear how this behaviour is actually incredibly dangerous for our country. Evaluator Gary praised Sam for the structure in his presentation, confidence and use of AV. Congratulations Sam!
The evening’s second speaker was the lovely Ade who began her speech, bursting into song! In her timer’s report, Jane calculated that 50s of this speech was actually sung – incredible! “Leaving on a jet plane” was an after-dinner speech from the entertaining speaker advanced manual, the last project in this book. This entertaining speech told how Ade’s youngest son will soon go on a student exchange to the USA and how Ade was preparing herself to deal with this time. Evaluator David K commended Ade for the effectiveness of this speech, saying “I think many of us are starting to miss Adam already”.
Giving his first bard tonight was Sam H with a reading “The richest man in Babylon”. This ancient writing had some great morals, based around the practise of saving and investment. Sam did a great job with this reading, maintaining eye contact and speaking with clarity.
Our final prepared speech for the evening was from David B, his second CC project titled “Educating our young adults – are we doing it right”? Based around a recent news story involving a controversial speech from a Napier student, David dismantled the myth that we learn in similar ways. David introduced the VARK model, pioneered by local teacher Neil Fleming. “Could we actually learn a better way?” challenged David. Evaluator JP enjoyed this speech, particularly the structure David had applied – the main objective of this speech. Fantastic.
Jennifer’s table topics were so clever. ‘CSI Cathedral City’ challenged speakers to become investigators for a murder, having to interpret a computer’s result of a murder investigation. Matt had to explain death by Helium and David K how a deck of cards had killed. Vida identified a zombie massacre and Zak unveiled the mystery of death by molten gold. Last of all we welcomed back Rodney with challenge of explaining death by coincidence! Brilliant!
Another great evening of fun and learning. Thank you all for your contribution!