Afghanistan and Japan: OE out of the Ordinary

Dan gave a very sobering and moving speech on his experiences of being an army commander in Afghanistan and losing several soldiers on the battlefield a year ago, this month. Unfortunately, he was unable to bring in his army gear, but promised that he would do so on some other occasion.

By delivering this speech, Dan has now completed the first five speeches of the Competent Communication manual and was given an award by Timm to recognize this achievement. Well done, Dan!

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.

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

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