Checkins and Checkouts

We had 3 speeches only tonight - Judith was ill and couldn’t give her speech. So we started with a Checkin. Beginning with Tony, everybody had the opportunity to express how they were feeling at the beginning of the meeting. There was a big range of emotions.

David was Toastmaster.

David Raftery

David handled the role with easy competence. He drew our attention to the power of silence when speaking in public, and urged us to try it even more than usual. There were two visitors. Bernadette came along to see where daughter Claire was getting so much encouragement for her speaking career. Simon was very nervous and just wanted to watch for the first meeting.

Peta gave the Inspiration.

Peta read us a thoughtful, powerful poem by Helen Deutsch - The white magnolia tree. The poem was about romantic love, springing up youthfully, waxing, and mellowing into maturity as each year the magnolia tree bloomed.

Cathy Feely

Cathy presented Table Topics

Cathy began with a detailed account of Nigella Lawson’s TV show and then asked a series of questions based around food.

Suvidh spoke about stress in eating. His father is very interested in Suvidh’s University studies and frequent questions during mealtime make it difficult for him. Perhaps eating in front of the TV would be the best strategem.
Alan confessed to over-indulgence - yes, but only in healthy foods like choclates, rich cakes and cream. He is very restrained with bad foods like carrots and cabbage and apples.
Bernadette declined to accept the title of Domestic Goddess. She remembered cooking chicken for the man she eventually married - it was raw and quite inedible. Apparently nothing much has improved since then.
Lee detailed culinary disasters she has perpetrated as she has ignored recipes when confronted with them.
Glenis discussed recipe books. She believes in them, but doesn’t use them since David does all the cooking now. And he never uses recipes, preferring to use his tastebuds instead.

Toastmaster David filled in with a Tonic - well, a story of gin and tonics for his mother.

The other David presented the Table Topics Evaluation.

Frank Lindsay

Frank presented his Icebreaker Helter Skelter - the Day the Music Died Music has also been important in Frank’s life. He grew up listening to Patsy Cline, Slim Dusty, Dean Martin etc. He went to Music School here in Fremantle to learn Classical Guitar for 8 years. But that left him with no confidence, particularly with girls, who were more interested in rock stars than classical guitar. He had a lucky break and became a singer with a small band, culminating in a show in a review in which he sang American Pie for an audience of 2,000. He had a bad throat and part way through lost his voice completely. The day the music died. He was very ill and was in hospital and quarantined for a week. He hasn’t pursued a career as a pop singer.

Glenis evaluated Frank.

Tony Obrzut

Tony’s Speaking to Inform 3 speech was titled Database Design.
Tony dealt with the key issues in an organisation choosing a Database to meet its long term needs cost and features. Typically, Tony made his two main points memorable by well chosen and well delivered jokes. Dealing with cost he made the point that the purchase price is less than half the long term cost. Imagine selling a kidney in order to purchase something, and then needing to sell the other kidney to keep it maintained. Not a good idea. As for features, he dealt with Load Balance and the Fail Over Clusters. This was made very memorable by a story about a brain surgeon using a computer for feedback and interrupted at a critical point in the operation by the blue screen of death, and then attempting to get online help over the phone.

Suvidh evaluated Tony.

Amanda Siebert

Amanda’s CC 6 speech was titled The End is Nigh.
She had an arresting opening, miming her primary school teacher smoking in class. Of course it couldn’t occur now. She gave figures which showed that in the years since her primary school the number of smokers in our population has gone down from 43% to 16%. Already WA is spending $2.4 billion a year on smoking health care and it will increase as the populations ages. Amanda detailed a series of strategies that the Cancer Council has on the drawing boards to reduce smoking even further more in our community. For the Tobacco Companies, The End is Nigh.

Lee evaluated Amanda.

Alan Smith

Alan’s Highlights tested our listening skills, as he took us through the meeting by a series of questions on things that intereste him. We were all interested.
Craig evaluated the evaluators.

Claire gave the Timing Report.

David conducted a group evaluation of the meeting, calling upon selected members to evaluate the roles which hadn’t been evaluated to that point.

He then closed his part of the meeting by supervising the Checkout. Emotional energy must have lifted sharply during the meeting, as all present gave their final feelings.

David Nicholas our VP Education, closed the meeting, with President Gail away. Visitor Bernadette enjoyed the meeting very much. Visitor Simon felt very nervous but knew this was something he had to do to overcome his crippling nerves.

David drew attention to the forward Agendas on the back page, and urged people not only to read the meeting stories he is posting on our webpage, but to post comments as well.

Glenis thanked the many members who have sent in contributions for Quaywords. Now it’s a matter of putting it together.

Cathy prepared the supper.

End of the First Quarter of 2008/09

The September Quarter has special significance for our club. It is the first of the new year. After this we are into a new Renewals period, and usually we see a big changeover in membership. It looks as if this will occur again, and we will have a reduced official member list at World Headquarters. The overall numbers will be less, but the Club is as strong as ever.

The Distinguished Club Program

Victoria Quay is always the leading club in District 73, and therefore in Western Australia. It is true again at the end of the first quarter. We have achieved 7 of the 10 Distinguished Club Program Goals, so we are at the Select Distinguished Club level already. Only 2 other clubs among the 151 Clubs in District 73 are at the Distinguished Club level with at least 5 Goals, and amazingly they are both from Fremantle - Gourmet with 6 Goals and Gateway with 5 Goals.

Gail was Toastmaster.

Gail Jenkins

Gail stepped into the role just before the meeting began when Lynn was ill. We hope she recovers quickly. Gail had no problems in handling the ins and outs of the program. Visitor Phil came again and we expect him to join next week, the first week of the new quarter. Andre was another visitor. He is from Canning Vale Club. We have strong links with Canning Vale through its Founder and Vice President Education Mark.

Andre gave the Inspiration.

Andre was inspired by the help he got from the store where he purchased an mp3 player less than a year ago. When it broke down he took it back and got outstanding service

David Raftery

David presented Table Topics

David invited us to speak about various fanciful situations.

Mark had been honoured for his discovery of penicillin, but he revealed a much more important discovery he was keeping secret. A special version of penicillin was keeping him young. He might look about 40, but really he was over 12.
Lee gave us the true story of what happened in the tunnel when Princess Di died in the accident. It was a terrible put up job, and Lee saw it all.
Gail is a day time estate agent, but at night she has another occupation - Dracula. It is Gail who has been responsible for some of the ghastly nightime accidents - even cot deaths. Gail!!
Phil has been to the Bermuda Triangle and he knows what really goes on there. The answer? - absolutely nothing. It’s just the sea.
Marina revealed a completely unexpected side to her character. She was able to go back in time, to see the assassin about to shoot, and by her daring action save John F Kennedy.

Lee delivered the Tonic. It was about sharks and an extraordinary video she saw on UTube where the fearless diver was able to hypnotise sharks and stroke them. Sharks are worth preserving.

Amanda presented the Table Topics Evaluation.

Hermine Zielinski

Hermine presented From Casket to Eulogy Speech 2 from the Communicating on TV Advanced Manual - the Talk Show. David N was the compere who introduced Hermine as the latest World Champion Speaker from Toastmasters International. He fired a series of questions at Hermine which covered her introduction to Public Speaking, peoples fears about Public Speaking, what they can do to improve their speaking skills, and of course the value from joining Toastmasters International. Now there were the questions that Hermine had prepared for her host, but at the end David fired a completely unexpected question at her - what did it feel like to be up there competing for the World Championship. Hermine was obviously surprised, but coped brilliantly as she described what it is like to step off the edge of a steep cliff in a hang-glider. That’s what Public Speaking is like on the big stage.

Tony evaluated Hermine.

Tammy Lee

Tammy’s Project 7 speech was titled The law of attraction.
Tammy had attended a Workshop where the presenter recommended a book - The Secret. Tammy confessed that she is a rather skeptical person who doesn’t take easily to new age stuff, but she bought the book, read it and is a convert. She explained various ideas from the book and recommended that we all get it and read it. She bought 10 copies and handed them around as Christmas presents last year. She showed us a copy of the book and passed it around the group. She ended with “The secret is for you and for everyone.”

Glenis evaluated Tammy.

Alan Smith

Alan’s speech was titled Balance.
He got us off balance right at the beginning by referring to problems at the Hadron Collider. Alas! That had nothing to do with his big problem right now in the garden - getting out a stump. He is saving money and the anguish of watching professionals wreck his shrubs by doing it himself. But he has found himself running up against various Laws of Physics, particularly the inconvenient one about equal and opposite forces. His 75 kgs are no match for the stump’s 1.5 tonnes. So he is proposing Victoria Quay plan for an outside meeting at his house in Booragoon so our members can work on defeating the equal and opposite forces law and then discuss physics in the contest of Alan’s balanced life.

Hermine evaluated Alan.

Amanda Siebert

Amanda’s Highlights were a series of extremely probing questions which dealt among other things with Andre’s mp3 player, Hermine’s life on the edge, Tammy’s scepticism, the Hadron Collider and the venue for the next meeting.
Mark evaluated the evaluators.

Craig gave the Timing Report.

David evaluated the meeting.

Gail closed the meeting, and then as President conducted an information session. Peta hadn’t spoken during the meeting so she got a chance right then. Gail congratulated Claire on winning the W21 Humorous Contest the previous Saturday afternoon.  Andre, our visitor from Canning Vale Toastmasters, gave his impressions of the meeting - they were very favourable.  Visitor Phil spoke as if he was going to join the club.  We will know next week.  Marina is back at the club and intends to attend regularly.

Glenis spoke passionately about our Newsletter, Quaywords.  She urged those who hadn’t yet contributed to send her 100 words about their experience of Victoria Quay.

Gail prepared the supper.

Area W21 Contests

The Area W21 Contests for Humorous Speeches and Tables Topics were held at the Fremantle Bowling Club on Saturday afternoon, September 20, 2008.

Claire Lacy

Our Claire Lacy won the Humorous Contest with her speech Move on Claire. Move on.

I’m never going to have children, she proclaimed, twitching violently. Do you want to know why? Because I was a matron at an all boys school - that’s why. But as her psychiatrist upbraids her, it was only for a month when she was 18. Now you’re 27. Move on, Claire. Move on.

The psychiatrist figured several times as Claire lurched her way through the terrible experiences she had at the boys’ school. It culminated in the terrible night when she was supervising showers, and she accidentally (?) turned the tap to very hot, scalding the boys. Well done, Claire, pronounced the psychiatrist. That’s your subconscious speaking. You have avenged yourself. Now you can move on. The audience knew she wouldn’t as the twitch came back with a vengeance. Claire thought she could, now that she had got it out into the open and confronted it publicly. Now she was ready to resume normal life, get a boyfriend, have children, hold down a job. Until she saw a little boy in the audience and ran screaming from the stage.

David Colson from Gateway was placed second.

Table Topics

Chief Judge Charles Fisher & Gillian Street

Gillian Street from Gateway won the Table Topics, answering the question “Does the end always justify the means?” Gillian recaptured a scene in a St Vinnie’s Op Shop where she bought a $750 pair of fashion shoes for just $3. To get them she had to behave in a disgraceful fashion. But she got the shoes - that end certainly justified the means for her that day.

Steve Barry from Gateway was placed second. Our Amanda Siebert gave an excellent speech, but it suffered in the contest from taking the question seriously. Light and bright seems to be the way to go in Table Topics Contests.

The Contest Organisation

Pascale

Sharon Wayland

The contest was organised by Area Governor Pascale Amberville-Colby and hosted by Gateway. Gateway President Sharon Wayland chaired the Humorous Contest. Three clubs from W21 were represented - Fremantle Gateway, Fremantle Gourmet and Victoria Quay. Amity in Albany will be sending its representatives directly to the Western Division Final

WA - New Horizons

David Nicholas

District 73 Parliamentarian David Nicholas DTM gave a presentation on forward plans for Toastmasters in WA. David claimed there was no new horizon. It is the same horizon, but now it looks new because it is much closer.

Toastmaster leaders in WA have a vision of a new District for WA alone. In the last few years we have gone from 30 clubs, through 36, and now to 46. At the same time just the one Western Division has grown into Western, Perth and Innercity.

Public Relations in District 73

Mark Richards

District Public Relations Officer Mark Richards DTM outlined his plans for publicising Toastmasters through the community. Mark is recruiting State based PROs to assist him. There are 2 in Victoria and now he has one in WA - Robyn Richards, cofounder of the new Canning Vale Club.

Western Division

Ross Wilkinson & Claire Lacy

Western Division Governor Ross Wilkinson was on hand to make presentations to the winners. Ross presented statistics which showed that Western Division is leading the District at this point in the Distinguished Club Program. In Western Division and the District as a whole, Area W21 has built up an amazing early performance. Only 3 Clubs in the District are Distinguished - Fremantle Gateway with 5 Goals, Fremantle Gourmet with 6 Goals, while Victoria Quay is Select Distinguished with 7 Goals.

Ross paid special tribute to our 5 new Distinguished Toastmasters in WA. There are Bill Hewitt and Judith Allen from Perth Division. In Western Division there are Alan Smith (Victoria Quay), Ross himself (Fremantle Gourmet) and Jeanette Farrar (Fremantle Gateway).

The Western Division Contest Finals

The Division Finals will be held Saturday afternoon, November 1st, 2008 in the same venue, the Fremantle Bowling Club. Claire and Gillian will represent W21 there.

Two Icebreakers

An Icebreaker is the first speech a member gives at the Club. The objective is introduce yourself to fellow members and to overcome whatever fears and anxieties you may have about speaking in public. The other members look forward to them keenly, to learn something about their new associate. We had two tonight, and they were both fascinating. There is more below.

As well, Claire practised the speech she will be using at the W21 Humorous Speech Contest at the Area Final here at the Bowling Club on Saturday afternoon. Humorous! - it was fantastic. And more of that below.

Mark was Toastmaster.

Mark is very experienced and it showed. The meeting ran smoothly, to time. We had 3 visitors and Mark made them very welcome. Meechan has been before, and she brought along two friends from Fremantle Hospital - Debbie and Phil. We always welcome visitors, because we are always looking for exciting new members. We hope Debbie and Phil join - they were invited to take part in Table Topics and both handled their topics very well.

Tammy gave the Inspiration.

Tammy Lee

Tammy confessed to stealing an idea from the comedian George Carlin. How do we deal with our age at various stages of our lives. She went through each decade from young children who want to be known to be older - not four but four and a half or almost five, through the fifties when we want to be thought much younger, ending up - if we make it - to over a hundred when each extra day means something and we are back with the young children - almost 102!!

David Nicholas

David presented Table Topics

David invited us to speak about various ceremonies.

Cathy described a wedding she will be attending in a months time where the bride is running a blog which details all the latest - the clothes, the venues, the food, the drink etc.
Suvidh talked about Birthday Parties, not his own. They can be positive or negative experiences - and sometimes both at the same time.
Debbie, our visitor, handled school graduations. She has two sets of twins and one pair has already had such a graduation, so she is well prepared for the second pair’s event.
Phil, our other visitor, dealt with funerals. David suggested they could be sad or uplifting experiences. Phil described an inspirational funeral of the father of some friends. He was amazed to hear of all the ways this man had influenced his local community, as well as Phil.
Hermine dealt with her most recent job induction. In fact it was the lack of proper induction that impressed Hermine the most.

Meechan delivered the Tonic. She produced a $20 note and asked us what it was worth to us. Then she crumpled it and dropped it on the floor. Is it worth less to us now? Then she applied that to how we feel about ourselves when things go wrong.

Pascale presented the Table Topics Evaluation. A theme emerged - how we use our hands.

Peta Anderson

Peta’s Icebreaker was titled I’m just going to start.
The speech had a lot of humour. Her birthday is the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. That got a good laugh. She spoke about her childhood love of horses and her schooling and an unsuccessful marriage. But then at the age of the 30 she received her Trainer’s License and for 16 years she trained horses. Yes, we have another fascinating profession in the club - our first horse trainer. She had a scarifying experience when her horse won an important race and she was presented with the trophy. Her acceptance speech was an incoherent disaster. Recently she took a holiday to Ireland and kissed the blarney stone! So, now she is going to really work on her public speaking. And by the way she no longer has horses - but she has a cat!

Glenis evaluated Peta.

Lee Syminton

Lee’s Icebreaker was titled Design changes cost money.
Lee invited us to look at p.6 of the Toastmasters Communication & Leadership Manual - yes, that’s here in the graphic! It must be because it’s definitely an architect. She was born in Zimbabwe, a third generation African, and came to Western Australia when she was six. She landed at Victoria Quay in 1976, expecting to find Australia rather like the Jetsons. But it isn’t. And then at the North Cottesloe Primary School her mother decided Australians must be rather poor because the children didn’t wear shoes! Well, those early impressions have been supplanted by her experience since then. She wanted to be an artist but her father suggested architecture as a back up to earn some money and she is very happy to be an architect. Recently she left a firm in the city to join an exciting group in Fremantle where she finds the principle is in his 20s and she is the oldest person there. So, she will probably be the firm’s spokesperson and needs to develop her public speaking skills.

Amanda evaluated Lee.

Claire Lacy

Claire’s speech was titled Move on Claire. Move on!.
Claire’s practice for the Humorous Contest this Saturday was a complete makeover of that she gave a fortnight ago. Since then she has developed a fearful, nervous twitch which had the audience in stitches. Gone was the rather long introduction. The first big laugh came in less than 30 seconds, and it went on from there until she ran screaming from the stage at the end.

David evaluated Claire.
This was a group evaluation lasting just on 12 minutes. David explained the concept of group evaluations where all our members are invited to give feedback to Claire to encourage her with all the good things about the speech and to suggest ways it can be even stronger.

Tony’s Highlights tested our listening skills with a range of questions on what had occurred. Being Tony, the questions were often quirky, but probing.
Alan evaluated the evaluators.

Judith gave the Timing Report.

Gail Jenkins

Gail evaluated the meeting and then, as President, closed the meeting. She reminded us that the W21 Area Final will be here in the Bowling Club on Saturday afternoon, September 20. Area Governor Pascale is organising the contests. Glenis, our Vice President Public Relations, presented Amanda with not 1 but 2 chocolates for being the first to make a contribution for the next issue of our Club Newsletter, Quaywords.
Visitors Debbie and Phil spoke - they both enjoyed the meeting very much and intend to come again next week.

Gail prepared the supper.

Welcome to David and Frank

David Raftery

Frank Lindsay

David rejoined the club tonight. He belonged to Victoria Quay in Calendar Year 2005. For a few months towards the end of that year, his friend Ann-Sophie joined the club. She and David married and they went to Canberra, Anne-Sophie to work as a lawyer, David to study. Now they are back, with 9 month old George. David is working to complete his Ph D.

Frank joined as well. He visited for the first time the previous week and joined tonight. At first he said he wasn’t ready for Alan’s Table Topic, but he changed his mind and spoke not just well, but very well.

Welcome David and Frank.

Gail was Toastmaster.

President Gail was in the chair for the meeting. Originally it had been planned as our Club Humorous Contest with Claire and Hermine the two contestentants. However, Claire competed at Successful Club on Monday night and won both the Table Topics and Humorous. Members can compete at multiple club contests, but may only advance to one Area Contest. Hermine decided to choose to compete in the Area W28 Contest for Successful for both contests. As a result, our Club Contest was cancelled and Claire and Hermine practised their speeches.

Lee gave the Inspiration.

This was Lee’s first presentation - she joined only a fortnight before. She was inspired by her morning walk on Cottesloe Beach. Usually a plane comes in from the north at this time, probably from Bali, so she said a mental hello to the pilot before climbing a sandhill and seeing the sun coming up over the Darling Ranges. She took a deep breath - what a wonderful world we live in.

Claire Lacy

Claire’s speech was about the Boy’s School.
She told us of a time when she homeless in London, with no money. She was reading a Georgette Heyer novel about Arabella, sitting on a seat when a nice old lady came along, sat with her, and offered her a job at a boy’s school. She took the job to her great regret as it turned out. Her conclusion - little boys are evil. Never, ever have anything to do with them.

Craig evaluated Claire.

Hermine Zielinski

Hermine’s speech was titled Dressing Up.
It was a story from her childhood, involving a wonderful black dress, 4 sizes too big for her, and blackcurrant juice, drunk under the table with her brother. Naturally it was all a disaster.

Glenis evaluated Hermine.

Mark’s speech was titled Moments in the Sun.
Mark told us of two times in his life when everything went right. The first was here at Victoria Quay, when to his amazement he won the Club International Speech Contest, up against a powerful field which included Cliff Boer. That was a night of glory for mark. The second was the final of the WA Club Cricket competition. Willetton hadn’t won a final for 22 years. Mark was captain and opening batsman. Glory!! He led the team to victory.

Lynn evaluated Mark.

Alan and Table Topics
Alan has been reading books. He took our Table Topics speakers on a journey through various hypothetical situations based on some of those books. He didn’t give us the titles or the authors - it was all up to us.

Peta Anderson

Peta delivered the Tonic. This was her first presentation, since she joined last week.

Tony presented the Table Topics Evaluation.

David’s Highlights tested our listening skills with a range of questions on what had occurred. People had listened very well.

Amanda Siebert

Amanda evaluated the evaluators.

Margaret gave the Timing Report. Her time as timer was notable for her fearless, but accurate, use of the buzzer.

Alan evaluated the meeting.

President Gail closed the meeting. She reminded us that the W21 Area Final will be here in the Bowling Club on Saturday afternoon, September 20. Area Governor Pascale is organising the contests. Glenis, our Vice President Public Relations, has called for contributions for the next issue of our Club Newsletter, Quaywords. A Committee Meeting is scheduled after the meeting and supper tonight.
Gail congratulated David Raftery and Frank on joining the club. Visitor Jeanette spoke - she enjoyed the meeting very much and intends to come again next week.

Margaret Crofts

Margaret prepared the supper. This was Margaret’s last meeting till the beginning of 2009. She is going on an extended trip to the Eastern States with her husband. She will join us again next January.

Welcome to Lee

Lee joined the club tonight. She attended the first time a fortnight ago and decided Victoria Quay was just what she needed to improve her speaking skills. Welcome Lee.

Michael was Toastmaster.

Michael was quite nervous as he took on the Toastmaster role for the first time. As the meeting proceeded he grew in confidence and overcame some early glitches. I will know what I’m doing next time, he said afterwards.

Claire inspired us with the story of her Uncle Bob whom she stayed with in New York recently. Bob is a Jewish lawyer who has resisted available corruption options and instead is happy to stay poor, working for a while in Mongolia and now teaching Russian in New York.

David’s speech followed at this time in a slight readjustment of the published Agenda. He spoke on Trust. So much of our lives are based on trust in others to follow rules and laws, such as driving behaviour. Recently David has had his trust in medical advice about diet on fats - saturated and unsaturated - severely challenged. The issue of cholesterol and its role in healthy living is another important issue. Some of our medical student members and visitors were challenged by the speech material. Cathy evaluated David.

Ben and Table Topics Ben went on a nostalgic trip back to Queensland and asked members to help him recreate earlier times - Tony reminisced about his Polish mother’s food, Alan spoke on his pet goldfish Fred - alas for ex-Fred, visitor Ryan narrated a lucky tennis error, Claire boasted of her integrity as she tipped an elderly friend out of her wheelchair, and Pascale confessed to a shocking ritual with his two teenage daughters.

Suvidh delivered the Tonic about an accountancy meeting.

Mark presented the Table Topics Evaluation.

More Project Speeches

Alan delivered an Icebreaker for his latest Competent Communicator award - My Life, My Dentist - early experiences with the school dentist in Pemberton and having his teeth straightened in Perth were painfully vivid. But years later in Lesmurdie he discovered the joys of effective anaesthetics and solicitous Dental Aides, culminating in a recent experience when he was told there was nothing to be done! This was a very funny speech. Pascale evaluated Alan.

Judith found The soup was good in her first speech from the Advanced Speaking to Inform Manual. She told of us the situation for the homeless in Fremantle, as seen through the experiences of Bill (not his real name). Bill was thrown on the streets after a marriage breakup and loss of his job. Judith was particularly angry about the people who say about the homeless that “They like to sleep rough.” She shared soup with Bill at the Soup Kitchen, and though it was good, it wasn’t good enough to make up for the total homeless experience. Alan evaluated Judith.

Pascale’s CC4 speech was titled Tales of the unexpected. It was an account of a traffic accident in Albany recently. He found that when the unexpected happens, good can sometimes come out of it. Margaret evaluated Pascale.

The final section

Glenis’s Highlights traced through the meeting with various highlights. She awarded Pascale the gong with his “crushing, catalytic coffin” description of the fate of his Mazda if he had been driving that instead of the hired 4WD.

Tony evaluated the evaluators, noting that the evaluator of the evaluators didn’t get evaluated.

Gail gave the Timing Report.

Craig evaluated the meeting. He congratulated Michael on his first time effort as Toastmaster. He commended Ben as Table Topics Master for giving visitor Ryan an opportunity to speak. He noted the way the whole meeting was energetic, and often very funny. He closed by giving Tony an evaluation.

President Gail closed the meeting. She presented badges to Cathy and Ben. She asked for feedback from our two visitors, Simon and Ryan. Both enjoyed the meeting very much, though they were intimidated by the high professional standard of all the members. Gail assured them that if they joined they would soon be exhibiting the same skill and competence. Club contests for Table Topics and Humorous speeches will be held on the last meeting in August and the first in September. Gail urged members to have a go and get the experience of contests.

Margaret prepared the supper.

Badges for new members

Treasurer Alan maintains the register of new member badges. He had 5 for President Gail to present, but 2 people had sent their apologies. So Gail presented their badges to
Margaret, John and Suvidh.

Shaun was a visitor

Shaun already belongs to another Toastmaster Club which meets fortnightly, but he has to travel quite a lot forcing him to miss some meetings. He is looking for a weekly club so that the gaps between meetings he can attend are not as large. And he lives in Fremantle. We pressed him into service straight away, with a Table Topics response and as a speech evaluator.

Margaret was Toastmaster.

This was her first time in this important role. She had prepared carefully and it showed in the competent way she ran the meeting. There were a few glitches with speakers’ names, but she showed increasing confidence as the meeting proceeded. The Toastmaster role is excellent training not just for running meetings, but for a range of public speaking skills.

David inspired us with reflections on the human capacity to enjoy our experience of natural events. He described an early evening walk around the banks of the Canning River, watching the sunset glow across the water through the tree trunks on the edge. How many pelicans have you seen enjoying the sunset glow he asked.

Amanda and Table Topics! Amanda challenged speakers to reveal something of their character and personality through particular facets - food for Craig, gardens for Claire, art for Glenis, music for Hermine, books for Shaun, and transport for Tony.

David presented Table Topics Evaluation. He gave a universal commendation to all the speakers for the basic skills they displayed in their answers, and then gave detailed suggestions for improvement to each, along with a final commendation for specific elements in their presentations.

Another 3 excellent Project Speeches

Michael delivered his third speech - Melville Gardens - the units where he and Carla have moved to in the past week. The audience were often in stiches as he sketched their experiences with some of the colourful characters already resident there. Shaun evaluated Michael.

Gail’s Dying Wish was a reading from a story about a suicide organisation, as amateur detective Vincent was interviewed by the steely Toby. It didn’t end well for Vincent. Alan evaluated Gail.

John’s second speech was titled Gogo. He sketched a history of GoGo cattle station near Fitzroy Crossing where he is currently working. It’s big - a million acres. That’s where the extraordinary fossilised GoGo fish was discovered and brought scientists from all around the world to this remote location. All these leases expire in 2015. What will happen to GoGo? Glenis evaluated John.

The final section

Craig’s Highlights surveyed the meeting with a series of probing questions on who said what or who did that.

Hermine evaluated the evaluators.

Suvidh gave the Timing Report and he handled this tricky task very well, despite it being his first effort.

Tony evaluated the meeting. Being Tony it was a combination of quirky hilarity and pertinent feedback.

President Gail closed the meeting.

Gail prepared the supper.

Suvidh presented his Icebreaker

Suvidh joined us in July and he presented his first speech tonight.  He gave a brief outline of his life to date.  He was born in India, and therefore should be good at cricket and Maths. He wasn’t so certain about the Maths.  For a while he coasted along at school, until his mates started to work hard and got much better marks than him.  This spurred him to work hard too, and get high marks.  Both his parents are accountants, so he is studying accountancy.  He likes to play tennis and go skating.  He has learned to concentrate on the process, rather than the result, and consequently he has stopped worrying about what other people are achieving.

We had two visitors

Amanda came along with Ben to see what happened in the meeting.  Lee dropped in without contacting anybody and found a warm welcome, so she will probably join next week.

Glenis was Toastmaster.

She kept the meeting moving and gave very helpful explanations to our visitors about the various meeting roles.

John inspired us with the arrival last week of two packages - the body and lens of his brilliant new SLR digital camera.  Individually they don’t do anything worthwhile, but together they are wonderful.

Lynn and Table Topics! Lynn’s theme was If, But and What.  Alan, Gail, Ben, Tony, John and Cathy confronted various hypothetical situations. 

Ben’s Tonic dealt with irony.  He defined it for us with great precision and gave us two accurate examples - Socrates and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Craig presented Table Topics Evaluation with his customary simple expertise.

Gail presented a workshop on the Competent Communicator Manual, the basic manual when we start our Public Speaking practice.

3 excellent Project Speeches

Suvidh delivered his Icebreaker, as detailed above.  Craig evaluated Suvidh.

Amanda’s  Mosaic Maze took us on her holiday to Barcelona where she was inspired by the wonderful buildings designed by Gaudi, and particularly by the use of mosaic tiles.  So she has joined a Mosaic class and after initial traumas intimidated by other peoples apparent skill, she has freed herself from matching perfection and is getting on with the art of living with her own abilities. Judith evaluated Amanda.

Cathy delivered A childhood memory. She took us back to her childhood in Hong Kong and an exciting visiting to a floating restaurant, leading up to the flash of coins in the red neon lights across the water. Ben evaluated Cathy.

The final section

Alan’s Highlights was a rare excursion into um’s and errs.   He found very few, but did identify other fillers.  His conclusion was that we don’t notice them when the speaker is fluent and engaging.

Gail evaluated the evaluators.

Tony gave the Timing Report.

David evaluated the meeting.

President Gail closed the meeting. She reported receiving three Sponsor ribbons for new clubs started by David.  They are UWA, Marketers and Netmasters.  She gave the ribbons to David to add to the many already on our banner display .

Lynn prepared a delightful supper for us.

Distinguished Toastmaster Alan Smith

Alan has had his second DTM awarded by Toastmasters International. Not just his first, but his second.

He has joined a select group of Toastmasters in District 73 - those with more than one DTM. There are 5 altogether

David Nicholas (5 times) Victoria Quay
Anna Riggs (3 times) - Anna is from Central Division in South Australia
Glenis Nicholas (2 times) Victoria Quay
Vivienne Triplett (2 times) - Vivienne is in Victoria
Alan Smith (2 times) Victoria Quay

Congratulations to Alan.

If you look at our Awards page, you will see that Alan has an extraordinary points total for just 3 meetings completed. That is because to have his DTM registered, he also registered his AC Gold and his AL Silver. That is 3 Awards registered for this club which translates into 30 points extra. He is well on the way to his Outstanding Member Award for this year. Alan has been an Outstanding Member for the first 3 years of the Award, and he looks certain to add to that.

Timing was precise tonight

President Gail used the buzzer to good effect, so that the formal part of the meeting finished sharp on 7.25 and the notices took exactly 5 minutes. The meeting finished on time at 7.30 but there were still a dozen people on site at 8pm, finishing off the excellent supper, discussing outstanding presentations in the meeting and generally socialising.

The new supper committee did a great job

President Gail has organised a supper committee with Margaret and Karyn. We had a range of different foods as well as tea and coffee. It’s a great idea.

Amanda was Toastmaster.

She kept the meeting moving and gave polished introductions.

Margaret inspired us with her journey in public speaking, demonstrating her new capacity to move purposively.

Tony and Table Topics! Macabre as always, he launched accusations of socially unacceptable and murderous behaviour. Highlights in the answers came from Alan dealing with his cross dressing proclivities, visitor Meechan’s new take on Cupid’s arrows, new member Suvidh’s first answer and Pascale’s launch of a new Toastmaster Club based on Cluedo murders.

Alan’s Tonic dealt with sunshine flooding in after his neighbours removed trees.

Hermine handled 9 answers!! in her 5 minute Table Topics Evaluation and only came in just over a minute over time. Every speaker received a brief but valuable CRC - the Commend, Recommend, Commend.

David presented a workshop on our Outstanding Member Awards. Where other clubs usually have one Toastmaster of the Year, we had 6 Outstanding Members and 3 High Performing Members in the year just completed. He gave a handout on the criteria and referred to the website at Current Awards for progress in our new year. There was some discussion about possibly adding service as a District Officer to the range of activities delivering points.

3 excellent Project Speeches

Ben presented his CC2, his second Competent Communicator speech, on “Insulin”. He was enthusiastic and energetic and the speech was full of fascinating information. A highlight was the demonstration of an on the spot diagnosis of Diabetes by dipping a finger in a patient’s urine and sucking it!! Gail evaluated Ben.

Craig gave a polished CC8 on “Death by Powerpoint”. It was a polished Powerpoint presentation about how to use Powerpoint effectively, as opposed to the usual boring versions most people experience. Karyn evaluated Craig.

Cathy delivered her 5th and final Speechcraft presentation. Her “Dealing with Difficult People” speech was all about her experiences as a soccer referee handing male matches. It was an extraordinarily talented presentation dealing with Vocal Variety. Her concept was to demonstrate her problems as umpire and her failed solutions, contrasted with how she could have done it better. The concept gave excellent opportunities for demonstrating vocal variety and her execution was outstanding. Glenis evaluated Cathy.

The final section

Diane presented Highlights and gave an interesting review of the meeting.

Mark evaluated the evaluators.

Gail gave the Timing Report.

Judith evaluated the meeting.

President Gail closed the meeting. Visitor Padmini enjoyed the meeting very much and particularly appreciated the way Toastmaster Amanda gave brief explanations for each meeting role. Visitor Meechan enjoyed the meeting and queried why Table Topics Master Tony moved to the side after asking each question. Mark gave a clear explanation of our practice in this regard and Pascale promised an article for the website.

Overall the meeting was energetic, with skilful presentations that were often highly humorous. One of our best.