Food Forests, Making Money and Movies

We had a number of highlights this evening.

Timm gave the 3rd Speech from the Competent Communication Manual, entitled – Three Steps to turn boring backyard beds into flourishing food forests! What a mouthful! For our stomachs, easy on the wallets and a great way of getting fit and giving back to the community. Timm, gave us three tips on how to utilise our backyard to make the best use of the traditional kiwi vege patch. In addition Timm mentioned clubs and initiatives for community based gardens.

U-CAN-SPEAK Table Topics and Humourous Speech Contests

We had a fantastic contest night with awesome Table Topics and a truly humourous humourous speech by Rory! These are the contest winners:

Table Topics Contest

1. Rory
2. Greg
3. Advait

Humourous Speech Contest:

1. Rory

Congratulations! Both first place winners, i.e. Rory, will represent our club in the area contest to be held in late September.

Another great thank you to the committee behind the scenes: Jono, who guided us through the evening in his role of Contest Chair, Chief Judge Fran, who briefed the Judges, organised a Tie Braking Judge and made sure all of them were doing their job well, and last but not least our Timers/Counters Stacey and Dwayne. The identity of
the Tie Braking Judge is top secret, but we highly appreciate the contribution of this anonymous club member as well.

Timm

Thesis in Three, Beards and Childhood Memories

After a chaotic start to tonight’s meeting, re-organising the schedule, we were treated to 3 wonderful speeches.

The first of which was delivered by one of our newest members Amir. Who, on his first official meeting as a Toastmaster, broke the ice with his Thesis in Three.

Kris then convinced us on the importance of beards with philosophical arguments and indisputable facts on the matter.

We then reminisced about our childhoods as Shay shared his experiences on holiday and demonstrated how our perspectives change as we grow.

Then we moved on to Table Topics which were hosted by Julius. And turned the Toastmasters stage into a speed dating arena with his topics. Great Table Topics were presented by members, new and old.

Finally we moved onto evaluations which were headed up by Dan. As usual these were thorough and constructive; giving speakers and listeners something to ponder.

Advait signing off as Toastmaster

An Outstanding Winter Open Night

A great open night, a big thank you to Akshay for organizing clubs day and our venue for the night.

Our Toastmaster for the evening, Graeme had three speakers giving prepared speeches. First was Cherry who is our newest member and gave her Ice Breaker speech. She talked about growing up and venturing beyond her comfort zone.

The second speaker was Rory. He was at the other end of the spectrum, in so far that he gave his tenth and final speech from the competent communicator manual, the initial manual at toastmasters. He talked about overcoming ones fears, and the help and determination required to succeed in doing just that.

The third and final formal speaker and special guest, the Assistant District Governor of Education and Training, spoke about the levels or barriers we need to overcome in our lives. These barriers are our own perception of where we are relative to others. In other words, we perceive that we do not measure up to others, where in reality we are all equal, the inequality is in our own minds.

Timm introduced the evenings Table Topics. Timm involved 5 of the evenings guests, Matt, Kamoe, Bruce, Paul and Amir.

In addition to the guests who spoke, we were also joined by Richard, Colette, Celeste and Tom. A big thank to those Toastmasters who invited guests along, and those who helped answer their questions.

We all look forward to seeing everyone for the next meeting, Monday 29th July. Remember we are back at KE4 in Kirkwood Village next week, and to check easy-Speak for an updated agenda! A copy of the highlights will be on our Facebook Page (U-CAN-SPEAKToastmasters) and Blog on Easy Speak.

First U-CAN-SPEAK Meeting 2013/2014

The meeting went extremely well on Monday. We had a decent turn out despite it still being the holidays. Two guests were present, Sophie and Cherry who introduced themselves to everyone after Table Topics.

Speeches were done by Jono and Graeme. Jono gave an educational style talk about the weather, with an overview of how weather works on a global scale and how to understand how it’s represented on in TV. Graeme talked about his best friend, which turned out to be a bird and a humorous and heart
warming speech.

Table topics was conducted by Lynsey and evaluated by in a double method by Maddy and Timm who also both won the rubber chicken. The new two person evaluation method worked really well and I’m sure we’ll see it again.

I also performed a bard, reading from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk To Freedom.

Overall another fun and brilliantly run evening at Toastmasters.

Rory