Meeting 654 Sept 17 2008
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.