We had a break over Christmas and the new year.  Now our meetings start again on Wednesday, January 18.  Our new Vice President Education, Greg Lynn, will be sending out the program very soon.

Coming up in 2012

It will be a mix of the new and the old.  There will be new members – in fact during the break Hugh joined and will be at the meeting on January 18.  There will be visitors.  Several have contacted us during the break and will be coming along to see how we function and how they will benefit from joining us.  It’s alway a pleasure to experience the Icebreakers from our new members as we learn fascinating things about their background and their hopes and aspirations.

Our current members will be continuing their progress through their Speech Manuals and lifting their skills as they do so.  Awards will be completed.  Honours will be received.  Perhaps some of the Bowling Club’s overhead fans will be replaced or serviced.  Perhaps.

The website will be redesigned

Yes, it’s a great website already, but it can be better, particularly to bring it more into line with the Toastmasters International rebranding exercise carried out in 2011.  It will take about a month, but don’t be surprised if the appearance changes.  It’s a new year – we need new approaches.

We have some new Club Officers

Have a look at  the webpage showing our Current Club Officers. Three of the Officers are new this term – Greg, Heljo and Tim.

Our Officers will be attending Toastmaster Leadership Institute training in February. Apart from the benefit in their knowledge and experience, this will give us our tenth goal in the Distinguished Club Program. Our Club is the only one to have a completely unbroken record of all 10 Goals in the Program. We will be maintaining that this year as well.  You can see us leading the way in our District at Successful Clubs 2001/12.

What are your goals for this year?

We all have our own reasons for joining Victoria Quay Toastmasters.  Make certain you get what you need from our club this year.

Posted by David Nicholas DTM
Victoria Quay Webmaster
Vice President Membership
0401 011 212

These are for the term from January to June 2012

President Neville Simmons ACB	Vice President Education Greg Lynn CC	Vice President Membership David Nicholas	Vice President Public Relations Christine Bonser CC
Secretary Heljo Cameron ACS	Treasurer Denis Sullivan	Sergeant at Arms Tim Keats	Immediate Past President Peter Law ACB

Peter Law

Yesterday Southern Division held its finals for the Table Topics and the Humorous Contest.

Peter won the Humorous Contest with his speech “How I saved the spirit of Christmas”.

Our members might remember that Peter didn’t win the Victoria Quay club contest – he went over time!! Fortunately he won the Armadale club contest and then the S31 Area Final. So technically he didn’t win the Division final as a Victoria Quay member. We don’t care! He is our member too, so …

Congratulations, Peter

Rod took photos of most or the 35 people present.  There is no photos of Rod – he is Christine’s partner.  Thank you, Rod

You can expand the photos in the Gallery below by single clicking them and return to the Gallery with another click. We had quite a few visitors.

Image Gallery for this page

Webmaster David

Not only will Speaking in Public offer you this thrill it will enhance your ability to speak with confidence and poise.  This can be achieved in a very short time as a member of Victoria Quay Toastmasters Club.  However, what you should do first is come along for a visit, no pressure to speak, no pressure to join.  You will hear interesting, inspirational, funny and touching speeches from our members, and all on one night if you are lucky.

Toastmasters has a structured program that would fit anyone’s needs, from the Supervisor/Manager wanting to enhance their skills to an absolutely terrified individual who would rather die than get up and speak in front of people.  If you learn and practice in the positive environment we have created at Victoria Quay you can develop at your own pace.  We have competent speakers who took four visits before they could even bring themselves to say a word in front of other people.

Come on down and check us out on a Wednesday night at 6pm at the Fremantle Bowling Club.  We don’t bite, we’re just thrill seekers hungry for that next speech, and you can be too.

See you there  fellow Thrill-seekers.

Cheers!

Peter

What fantastic people we have attending.  I and the other members of the Victoria Quay team have learnt so much from the speeches and stories of these outstanding people already.  To hear stories of their lives, history and aboriginal culture first hand is amazing.  Their stories are told simply but with this simplicity comes power, a real lesson for all.  It is a fun relaxed group and we are always able to have a laugh through the sessions.

As a matter of fact the group has liked the training so much we have other people wanting to join this session however we have had to hold it at 11 participants. Our latest  participant, Vincent, is a year nine sight impaired student who stood up during impromptu speeches, spoke about his dogs and then backed it up with an impromptu ice breaker on his life story. An inspirational and impressive young man.  Some of the attending ladies spoke of  their lives growing up in large families and the difficulties they faced during these times while others told us of exciting things they have done.  The participants have provided  some of the best Icebreaker Speeches we have heard and everyone is looking forward to their next speeches.

Stephanie Riley, a truly amazing  young lady herself,  has put together the ‘No Parents Left Behind’ program which Speechcraft is a small part of.    Thank you to Heljo, David, Glenis, Christine, Marianne, Judith, Andrew and Greg who have been able to assist.  I am sure they will all tell you they are richer for the experience.

More to follow later.

Cheers!

Peter

Heljo’s partner Alan can’t join Victoria Quay because he is a very active member of the choir “Showtime Chorus”.  Sometimes he is able to come to our meetings, but we don’t see enough of him.

Now we can see him and hear him with the choir on Saturday afternoon, June 18 in Shelley.

Download the Flyer to get all the details.

Family&FriendsConcertFlyer2011

Many members believe that every Victoria Quay meeting is special. They are right and Wednesday night was definitely one of those special meetings. There were 27 people present, with 10 visitors.  Visitor Karin joined, even though she can’t attend until June 15. We are confident that several others will join. Amongst the visitors were Toastmasters who have come to Perth for the  District Convention this weekend. We have never had an International Director visit Western Australia before, and Mike Storkey DTM came to Victoria Quay, along with his eminent Toastmaster wife Lesley.

Richard Strickland

I was Toastmaster for the night. After visitor and Western Division Governor Robin Richards had inspired us, we had a check-in with a difference. All 27 people present told us their names and how they came to join Toastmasters. It was fascinating.

Richard Strickland was Table Topics Master.  His  topics were based around Toastmasters. Two of the visitors took part as well.

Richard Anthony gave us an inspiring tonic, before Mark Richards evaluated the Table Topics.

The prepared speeches were wonderful

Gwen Williams

Barry’s “What I learned” was a powerful, emotional account of his early struggles with self esteem and his determination to use Toastmasters to be able to effectively communicate what he has learned through his life and through meditation. Alan evaluated Barry’s speech.

In her “Presents” Gwen told us of her wonderful first present from her sister and the best present she believes she has ever given. She ended with the second best present of her life, recently received from her daughter. Heljo evaluated Gwen’s speech.

Peter Law

Peter Law practiced  his humorous speech “Midlife crisis? – leave it to the professionals”. Most of us had heard it before, but it was just as funny this time. We hope Peter is rewarded by winning the  District 73 Humorous Contest on Friday night. Visitor Lesley Storkey evaluated Peters speech.

Andrew Bond gave us the Highlights with a touch of grammarian.

Glenis evaluated the evaluators.

Denis gave the  Timing Report.

Mike Storkey

The  Meeting Evaluation was delivered by Mike Storkey, our visiting International Director. Mike had some helpful suggestions for improvement and a lot of positive feedback. He was particularly impressed by the prepared speeches and the energy displayed through the whole meeting.

President Peter took over the meeting. The first item of business was to present our recently joined member Barry with his member badge.

Then he went around and asked each of our visitors how they had found the meeting. Perhaps they were being polite, but they were all very enthusiastic.

Mark reminded us about the district convention and the fact that we have three contestants in the four finals. Peter is in the humorous contest on Friday night and the table topics on Sunday morning. Neville is in the International Speech Contest on Saturday morning.

David drew attention to the programs for the next two weeks on the back of the agenda.

A group still talking at the end of supper

Story by
David Nicholas

Peter closed the meeting and we all enjoyed supper prepared by our wonderful Heljo.

Barry Windsor one of our new members gave us an inspiration on honesty and community involvement.  I am looking forward your Icebreaker speech next week.  Gwenda Williams delivered a Tonic on her first  G & T at the age of 12 with her Gran on a very special occasion I believe.

Heljo Cameron was the Table Topics Master with her topic based around exercise.  There were so many speakers tonight that poor Janet McNie had a very hard time as a first time table topics evaluator.  Well done Janet you got on with the business and trooped through it, well done.

Then we had the business end of the meeting, the prepared speeches.  Andrew Bond spoke on Social anxiety and how he got over being extremely shy as a young person and how he used  our Toastmasters Club to help him overcome some of his fear of standing up and speaking in front of people.  Positive proof that Toastmasters is good for your health.

Richard Anthony gave us a very funny speech titled Ironman, no not the super hero, not the contest and not the comic book but a story about the man who invented the Iron.  He explained that the iron was invented (tongue in cheek) to keep women occupied.  He then mentioned his inability as a bachelor to handle an Iron and gave us the lowdown on the sport of Extreme Ironing.  Excellent speech and very funny.

I then gave a speech from the Special Occasions Speech Manual – The Roast , where you poke fun at someone you know.    I roasted Neville Simmons with a speech titled Touched by a Neville.  It was good fun, well received by all  particularly Neville who was a very good sport about it.  I am looking forward to when he reciprocates.

Our meetings are good, and if you are reading this and thinking of coming to the club and checking it out, do it now, you won’t be disappointed.

Good Speeches, good people, great club.

Cheers!

Pete Law